Anders strolled slowly past his opponent's table, checking his watch and adjusting his tie, and taking note of the several different hushed conversations taking place in the room at once. "He was your choice," he muttered, a shrug in his voice.
       Looking around the courtroom and twisting his Cross pen, Belton muttered back, "And thank you for pointing that out. Next time, maybe you--"
       A deafening roar erupted out of nowhere, jerking everyone present out of whatever conversation, silent thought, or position they'd been in. Anders nearly fell over as he spun, and grabbed Belton’s table for quick support. A woman half-screamed. The sound carried on for seconds that seemed eternal, and it sounded like a hurricane had just appeared somewhere inside the building. Somewhere in the general direction of the judge's chambers.
       Then, as abruptly as it began, the roar stopped, and all was quiet, but for the gasps that could still be heard in the room.
       "What in the world...?" an old man who spent his afternoons sitting in on local cases verbalized from the back of the room. Some people were up from their seats, pensively waiting for anyone to offer an explanation in those quiet seconds that followed. No one did. Had a bomb gone off? No, a bomb blast would have been instant and over, would not have dragged on like that.
       Finally, Maria was the one to move. She walked hesitantly but quickly to the court's back exit, increasing her speed with each step. She grasped the handle and threw the door open.
Judge Daniels stepped into the room. His judicial robes were tangled about him, and bunched up above his knee in one place. His striking, thinning white hair stood almost straight up. A couple of sheets of paper fluttered in through the air past him, and many more could be seen on the floor in the hall. Yet probably the oddest thing about the scene was the complete sense of calm surrounding him.
       He stepped past Maria and walked quietly up to his seat at the bench. He sat in his worn leather chair and cleared his throat. The whole room watched him, motionless.
       "Bailiff?" he said.
       Maria stepped back to her station, wide-eyed. "Yes, your honor?"
       "Please call an alternate juror. Mr. Doleman has been excused from service."
       She picked up her clipboard, eyes still on the judge. She called the alternate, and a middle-aged native-American woman hesitantly took the kid's seat. Throughout the whole process, Daniels acted no differently than he did on any other day.
       When all was said and done, he said, "Good," and donned a very peaceful smile, taking the time to run his fingers back through his hair and straighten it as best he could. "I think that will be all for today. Court is in recess until nine a.m. tomorrow." He stood and turned to leave.
       Out of reflex, Maria said, "All rise," and everyone did. The judge strolled out the back door, closing it behind him. As he did, a loose court document from the hall whisked up in the air and feathered down to the carpet. Anders' mouth was frozen in the shape of the first word he'd intended to say, but that he'd been unable to get out.
       In the jury box, a Japanese grad student in her mid-twenties wondered, like everyone else, where the heck the blond guy—Shane, she had learned in her lunchtime chats with him--had gone and what his story was. She guessed that now they would probably never know.
       That was too bad. He'd been really, really cute, too.

       Jackie had just finished collating the weekly report, and papers were stacked all over her desk in (hopefully) identical piles. Even that light work was a burden, what with the air-conditioning in the office on the blink. Living in Phoenix, she often wondered if she'd gone into the wrong line of work. She could put both her kids through college with the money she could have been making in a/c repair.
       Suddenly, the papers started to fly, like her desk was some mythic giant's birthday cake and he'd just made a wish. At Michelle's desk next to her, file folders were emptied of their contents. Michelle's long, luxurious hair (that Jackie hated to admit she was often envious of) came to life, flapping in the sudden gust like a brunette party favor. She could hear sounds of confusion, surprise, and dismay all around her. And Kathy's voice.
       "It's him!" she screamed from over at the open window, where she'd been vainly attempting to cool off while Building Services was at work on the a/c. "It's him, it's him!"
       Everyone seemed to understand at once, and every woman in the office stampeded the window. Excited shouts of "Where?", "There!", and "You see?" joined in with pointing fingers and straining necks. Jackie followed Angela's finger and spotted him. She could make him out for a good two seconds before he disappeared behind the America West Building.
       "No, no, come back!" Chelsea shouted, and Michelle, jammed in next to her, laughed excitedly.
       "Unbelievable," Linda breathed in awe, old enough to more appreciative of the miracle of nature she was witnessing, as opposed to the more superficial interests of her younger co-workers.
       "Oh, my goodness, he's adorable," Jackie breathed as they all started backing off, realizing the all-too-brief show was over.
       "Jackie," Kathy said with a coy grin. "He's probably young enough to be your son."
       Jackie grinned back. "So? I'd make sure he brushed his teeth before I tucked him in."
       This brought on laughter from the whole assembly as men and women from the office down the hall rushed in to see what all the commotion had been about. Despite the fact that it was a hundred and fourteen degrees outside, no one said a word about the broken air conditioning system for the rest of the day.

       "Go back to Nebraska, grandma!" Chuck shouted, beating on the news van's horn twice. Ahead of them, a white Lincoln Continental was doing fifteen miles under the speed limit and taking up both lanes. He could barely make out the gray head of the driver. If she were six inches shorter, the huge car would have looked like it was driving itself.
       "Easy, Chuckie," Melanie Dodd, in a green skirt and white blouse, riding shotgun, said. "Don't give the old lady a heart attack. She's liable to sue the station." She rolled her eyes, though, beneath her $200 sunglasses, and grinned. She was an Arizona native, born and raised in the suburb of Mesa, and had been dealing with the out-of-state senior set's driving habits all her life. It was her "local girl" angle that had first landed her a job at Channel 15, the local Fox affiliate, where she became one of the valley's most popular news reporters. But then Channel 15 went ABC after Channel 3 went independent, Fox jumped to Channel 10, CBS jumped from Channel 10 to Channel 5, and somehow that's where she ended up, with a pretty generous raise. And enough clout to bring Chuck Atkins, her trusty cameraman, with her.
       "So...that's what you'd call a 'snowbird', right?" Rich Lawson asked from his seat in the back of the van as he loosened his tie and opened his collar.
       Melanie looked back and smiled at her new producer, nodding to show she was impressed. "Very good, Mr. Lawson."
       "Rich," he reminded, fanning himself with sheets of copy.
       "You're getting the swing of this town. You'll be taken for a native before you know it. Of course, they're called snowbirds because most of them come in winter. From Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota...anywhere it's cold. Some of them, like Maria Andretti up there, are crazy enough to stick around through the summer months, too."
       "There outta be a law or something," Chuck mumbled, taking a half-full can of lukewarm Kick Cola from the door holder.
       "Crazy's right," Rich said, rolling up his sleeves. "I'm really going to get used to this weather?"
       "After a couple of years, probably," she said. "You've just got to get the Seattle out of your system. Helps if you get your first heatstroke out of the way early."
       Chuck spit his Kick out, spraying the windshield in front of him, and dropped the can. "Holy crap!!" he shouted, and yanked hard on the wheel. The van whipped away from "grandma" and skidded loudly through a crowded intersection--nearly causing three distinct accidents--and onto Priest Avenue. Melanie hung on to the dashboard for dear life. Rich fell out of his seat and hit the floor, copy fluttering in the air and raining down on him.
       "Chuck, are you nuts?" Melanie yelled. "Are you having some kind of flashback or something?!"
       "Look!" he said, pointing ahead and up with the hand he had just used to wipe Kick off his face.
       Melanie pulled off her shades, looked, and saw. "Oh, my. Good eyes, Tonto. Yes!"
       "What?" Rich asked, crawling up toward the front. Melanie was already getting the police scanner turned on while keeping her eyes on the clear late-morning sky.
       "You picked the right day to be your first day, Mr. Lawson," she answered, though distracted.
       "Rich," he said, started to get up, and then fell over as Chuck took a violent right.
       "Don't lose him," she said to Chuck, tuning the scanner. "I'll see if we can get a clue where he's headed."
       "He who?" Rich, who was pulling himself up by the back of the driver's seat, asked.
       Melanie turned to him, and he could see the journalist's hunger and keen instincts in her green eyes, that look that told anyone who knew her that she was much more than stunning red hair and a pretty face. "If we get lucky, you're going to get your first look at the kid we call the 'Jammer."
       "The 'Jamm--?" He shook his head, not understanding, and then his eyes lit up with revelation. "No. Really?"
       "Oh, yeah, Channel 12," Chuck said through gritted teeth, pressing the accelerator to the floorboard. "I got your 'Arizona's News Station'. Right here!"

       He soared over the sprawling upper-middle-class neighborhoods that colored the landscape below him, riding the crest of gale-force winds that answered to his every unspoken command. His feet stood comfortably and expertly on the board that he rode, a snowboard-sized creation of experimental lightweight metal alloys, built by the eccentric and well-paid engineers of Phoenix's own Rising Technologies. On it, he surfed the skies that were more his home than the Earth below with the flair and mastery of an artist.
       His name was Shane Doleman. But only a small handful of people (a handful which now included one Superior Court judge) knew his amazing secret--that he was also the dashing young super-hero that the Valley of the Sun called its own.
       The hero called Windjammer.
       And right now, Windjammer was a little bit whizzed.
       It had been his first crack at jury duty. He'd wanted to try that out his whole life. He'd gotten past the selection process without all the hitches everyone always warned him about. Heck, he hadn't even had to wait all day. He'd been in the first group chosen that first morning. He was taking it seriously. He'd been good and not discussed the case with anyone, just like they'd told him. And, more importantly, he'd been getting along real nicely with the grad school babe, even if she was a few years older than him.
       And then came the pager. In the short time he'd had it, it had only gone off twice. Captain Bonilla, his official police liaison (and Shane had never stopped digging the idea of having his own "liaison"--even if he'd had to look the word up at first), only called him in if something really big was going down. And that wasn't too often, so he figured he could make it through a few days of a trial. No such luck. King crap.
       And to make matters worse, he had to blow the secret identity thing with the judge to keep his butt out of jail. He figured he could trust a judge if he could trust anyone, but still. How many times had Porter told him how important it was to keep his big secret a secret? He understood it perfectly well, too. The minute word got out, he could kiss his whole “normal” life good-bye. No more Shane Doleman, easy-going college guy. After that, it would be all about the Good Morning America and the Newsweek and the photographers hounding him wherever he went. Screwed for him, screwed for everyone else in his life. This was a whole lot of screw to think about.
       He crouched low to pick up speed, and rocketed over the Phoenix Zoo and the surrounding desert preserve. He had no idea what to expect. He'd made a quick call from his cell phone and had only gotten an address from Bonilla's people. Bonilla himself was on the scene, which meant it was something pretty big. And once Shane found out the familiar locale that he had to get to--oh, man.
       Despite the blazing heat, he remained relatively cool. The ultra-light body armor that he wore beneath his blue-and-white costume was another nifty invention of the Rising boys, and it somehow converted his own body heat into a natural cooling system. How? Beat the crap out of him. Science had never much been his bag. He was just grateful for the guys, and for Porter's connections with them. Heck, he was just grateful for Porter. For so many, many reasons.
       He did a quick drop, suddenly seeing how close he was, and swooped down low over the Cine Capri theater, which proudly boasted Arizona's largest movie screen (except for the IMAX, of course, but then you also couldn’t go to the IMAX to see Lethal Weapon movies. That would be wicked cool, though…). Just a block ahead and across Camelback Road, he could see the herd of marked and unmarked police vehicles in the plaza parking lot. More were just arriving. The situation, it seemed, was still fresh. He called to the winds, and they took him there. Right to the asphalt lot in front of Planet Hollywood.
       He cut the winds off and let himself drop, catching himself with a carefully-reigned updraft at the last moment. He did a mid-air dismount off the board, grabbed it with his left hand, and dropped delicately to the ground in the center of a crowd of Phoenix SWAT troopers that were receiving instructions from Captain Edward Bonilla.
       "Howdy, boys," he smiled at the surprised officers. "You rang, boss?" he asked of Bonilla.
       "Oh, for cryin'--" Bonilla said, exasperated. He grabbed Windjammer by the costume and pulled him around the back of the SWAT van, looking back at the entrance to the restaurant as he did.
       "What?" Windjammer asked, confused. "What'd I do?"
       Bonilla planted him against the back of the van and then looked back around it at the restaurant again. Bonilla was a mustached Latino man about ten years shy of retirement and twenty pounds past what he might weigh if he could manage to stay away from the local Subway (his wife, Patricia, reminded him off this often). He was a simple man and a good cop who knew how to get the job done. Somehow, what seemed like a lifetime ago, fate had thrown him into a drug bust gone bad where a remarkable man in an outlandish costume had saved his life--and the day. This mystery man had shown an ability--a "power"--that science said should be impossible. This man was the scoffed-at Phoenix local legend they called Anthem. The legend turned out to be true. The legend also turned out to be someone he still called a good friend to this day. Sadly, some time later, the moment of his friend's public validation turned out to be end of his brief career. And the revelation of Bonilla's connection with him had gotten the simple, good cop a whole lot of press. When his friend's prodigy, the equally remarkable young man he now had pinned against a van came on the scene, it also got him the job of being the official contact of Phoenix's new living legend. Usually, this was not a problem. But sometimes, he swore, the kid didn't have a clue.
       "What you did," he said, impatiently, "was fly in here like Roger freakin’ Ramjet with your theme music playing in the background when I wanted a little element of surprise."
       "Wull--" 'Jammer shrugged, adding an indignant but somehow penitent grunt, "like I'm supposed to know this. Downtown just tells me to meet you at Planet Hollywood. You could have wanted to buy me lunch for all I knew."
       Bonilla kept looking around the van. "Okay, I don't think they saw you."
       "They?" Windjammer asked, peeking around the van himself. "Who's they? Which they?"
       "They inside. The they that's holding about twenty hostages."
       "Hostages? Aw, that sucks," he said with honest concern.
       "Yeah, we kind of feel the same way. Especially since one of those hostages is Terrance Cross."
       "Terrance Cross?!!" In his loud surprise and excitement, Windjammer leaned even further out to get a look. Bonilla had to roughly yank him back. "The Terrance Cross? As in 'Mac Knight', as in 'Blood Games', as in 'Saturday Night Dead', as in--"
       “Yes, as in that one," Bonilla said, speaking of the aging mega-action star turned big-budget producer. “Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis will be announcing him as the latest partner in the Planet Hollywood chain next week. He's in town today for a hush-hush photo shoot. No one was supposed to know about it. Obviously, the people in there did."
       "No way," Windjammer marveled. "That's wild. So what, they like want a ransom for him?"
       "No, that's where this gets interesting. These boys aren't the ransom type. Turns out they're soldiers of Greenwar."
       "You're kidding me. Those freaks?"
       "The same," Bonilla answered. He heard his name squawk out of his radio, and he pulled it off his belt and started talking to one of his spotters on a roof across the street.
       'Jammer peaked at the Planet again. Greenwar. Great. They were a well-known radical Earth-first group that had broken off with Greenpeace because they felt the group was too wimpy in their methods--and frankly, Greenpeace wanted nothing to do with them. Greenwar was an out-and-out terrorist group that used any methods necessary--guns, explosives, whatever--to further their environmental cause. Most of their actions took place outside the U.S. This was definitely the first time they'd decided to pay Phoenix a visit.
       After finishing giving orders, Bonilla went on. "They popped in about a half-hour ago. We found out about it when a waiter managed to get near a phone somehow and punch 911. They've got Cross, his people, some restaurant staff. I called some feds I know. Word has it Greenwar has a death threat out on Cross for that big explosion that happened during the filming of his last movie in Equador."
       "'Pain Forest'?"
       Bonilla nodded. "That's the one. Burned a whole lot of acreage down. Guess he made a couple of plant species extinct, too. These guys plan to put him on trial for 'crimes against Mother Earth' and execute him."
       "Must have been some pretty good plants,” Windjammer tried to joke, though all he could hear was the word ‘execute’ echoing in his mind and making his lunch churn and want to return the way it came in. “Think it might have been whatever these guys are smoking?"
       "Okay, listen." Bonilla got very serious. "Here's the situation, kid. I got hostages, and I got terrorists crazy enough to kill all of them. I got crack SWAT people out here, but the minute they try to get in there, there's going to be bloodshed, one way or the other. It's my belief that the longer we wait to move on this, the better the chance of things getting out of control. And the last thing I need is an American icon getting wasted on my watch."
       'Jammer nodded and swallowed, listening carefully, attentively.
       "We got an access panel on the roof that lets electrical people in. I know they'd see my people making for it. I'm betting you can hit it from the air, sneak in, and do your thing. I'm betting on this because I think we've got a chance of coming out of this with no one dead, good guys or bad, if you do your hocus pocus."
       Windjammer looked back at the building, running it through in his head.
       "Make no mistake," Bonilla continued. "These lunatics are armed. Automatic weapons, probably explosives. This is serious, kid. People could die. You could too. Are you up for this?"
       Windjammer turned back to him. "Sponge cake," he said, confidently (he hoped) and seriously. "I'm on it."
       They both spun around at the sound of the screeching tires of the Channel 5 news van as it slid through a Camelback entrance--into the parking lot--just seconds before a patrolman could set up the last of his barricades.
       Bonilla moaned, and said something in Spanish that Windjammer could only guess was vulgar.
       The van braked to a loud halt. Melanie leapt out of the passenger side, spotting Windjammer immediately. Chuck half-fell out of the driver-side door, his camera already on his shoulder (placed there by Rich, who was content to take orders instead of give them on his first day).
       "Go," Bonilla said quickly to Windjammer. "Before they start looking. Go!"
       Windjammer dropped his board, caught it just before impact with a draft, jumped on it, and was off--low to the ground and crouching--like a rocket. He was careful to keep the SWAT van between him and the restaurant. His path took him almost right by Chuck Atkins, who dropped to one knee and focused the lens with the speed and precision of the skilled veteran he was. Chuck's lens, and pivot, followed the flying hero like a radar lock as he shot by.
       "Sofagun," Chuck said to himself quietly, a rare coating of awe in his voice, as his brown hair danced in the wake.
       The blond force of nature streaked headlong at the street and the slow-moving rubbernecking traffic. Just before colliding with the passenger door of a black Mercedes, his feet and board flew up. He arced off of a timely blast of wind, flipping almost completely over, and flew into a nearly perfect ninety-degree turn. He flew, still low, right down the line of the sidewalk, straight down Camelback, and out of sight as one car after another blared their horns excitedly.
       He'd circle around from maybe a couple of miles away. He'd hit the roof like a feather. He'd sneak his way in. And then, he'd do what Porter had taught him to do. What his hometown expected him to do. What he was starting to believe he was born to do.
       Unless, of course, they shot him dead first.

       Jerry Lowell rummaged through his small apartment kitchen for something--anything--to snack on. He purposely avoided looking at the Packard Bell computer that sat on the living room desk, taunting him. He'd skipped out on Psych class today with the express purpose of getting some work done on his latest one-man play. It had been going nowhere for weeks, and he was starting to get desperate; he'd hoped that taking a full day to just write might get the creative ball rolling again. But instead, his head just ached from banging it against the same brick wall all morning. He'd given up several minutes earlier, caving in to hunger, and now had the TV turned to Channel 5 and the latest installment of "As the World Turns". His theory was that maybe hearing bad writing for a while might inspire him into good writing. That was the theory, anyway.
       As he looked down into a box of Crunch 'n Munch to see if there was enough left in it to call lunch, he noticed that the bad dialogue that filled the background had changed to something more serious. He heard words like, "Interrupt", "Exclusive", and "Live". Getting into the fridge for the last of his bottle of Gatorade (he really had to think about grocery shopping soon), he didn't pay the words too much mind.
       Until one of the words he heard was "Windjammer".
       His eyes shot open. He ran back into the living room, leaving the refrigerator door to shut itself, and vaulted over the couch (still holding onto the box of Crunch 'n Munch, however). He dropped to the floor right in front of the set. Melanie Dodd was standing in front of Planet Hollywood, looking tasty as ever. There were cop cars all over the place.
       "...not commenting, but whatever the situation, one thing is clear. Phoenix police have taken it seriously enough to call in Windjammer."
       She kept speaking, and as she did, video played over her voice, showing Windjammer--Shane--flying by on that board of his.
       "No way!" Jerry half-shouted, half-laughed through a mouthful of peanuts, popcorn, and chemicals he didn't care to think about. This was far too cool. To think...he'd almost jumped into his Volkswagen Bug and spent another Summer Session school day on the Arizona State University campus. He would have been sitting in Abnormal Psychology right now, instead of parked in front of the TV watching Phoenix's hero--who also happened to be his roommate, best friend, and star of most of his plays--interrupting a really crappy soap opera.
       Maybe this day wasn't going to turn out so bad after all.

       Janis Scott, too, was in her kitchen. Her kitchen was huge and spacious, the kind she'd always dreamed of having when she grew up. Well, she was definitely grown up now. She had five daughters...not a bad feat for only being halfway through her thirties. In her huge kitchen in her huge home on the side of Camelback Mountain, she was busy whipping up an equally huge batch of one of her more famous casseroles for a homecoming dinner at the home of a close family friend. Their friend's son, Joseph, had just arrived home from his mission in Uruguay, and most of their church ward was going to be there to welcome him home, and she was going to help make sure that they did so on a full stomach.
       "Mommy?" her youngest--Christina's--voice came from the living room.
       "Yes, sweetie?" she called, pulling a dozen Grade A eggs from the refrigerator.
       "Shane, Mommy," Christina said.
       "What, honey?" Now she was pulling bowls from a cupboard, looking for just the right size she needed.
       "Shane, Mommy."
       "Yes," Janis smiled, deftly cracking an egg on the side of the perfect bowl and emptying its contents without dropping so much as an atom-sized shell fragment. "Shane. What about Shane, sweetheart?"
       "Shane on tee vee."
       Janis kept smiling, reached for another egg, and raised it for detonation. "Yes, hon--"
       Her hand jerked to a stop at the last second, granting the egg a dramatic reprieve. She stood there for a tenth of a second, dropped the egg in the bowl, and ran to where her littlest one sat on the carpet, touching the plentiful TV screen with her little fingers.
       Christina turned to her mother and smiled brightly. "Shane!" she said happily.
       Janis's hand shot her mouth, seeing the image of the costumed Shane flying by and police cars and officers all around. "Oh!" she said aloud, flustered, suddenly unsure what to do with her hands. "Oh, my...Porter!! Port--"
       The shout had been of instinct, and she immediately felt flush and inwardly guilty for making it. She ran across the stylish Southwestern home, searching frantically for her husband.
She found him in his den, sitting in front of his Mac in jean shorts and a BYU tee shirt, working--as almost always these days--on his book. His body was magnificent for a man just under the forty line, and his hairline was barely showing signs of retreat. The man she had met and fallen in love with at a church "Break the Fast" dinner those fifteen years ago was the man who still held her heart--and always would.
       She grabbed him by the shoulders, startling him, and he spun around in his chair to see what was amiss. There was a look of panic on his face, one that asked if the baby had gotten out and fallen into the pool or something. Janis's hands began signing feverishly. Porter watched them, trying to make sense out of what she was trying to tell him. Quickly he was signing back, silently telling her to slow down so he could understand her. She wasn't making sense. Finally she simply signed out "S-H-A-N-E", grabbed his arm, and dragged him out into the hall.
       In the living room, he quickly saw what his wife was so excited about. For the first time in a couple of months, Shane seemed to be in action. They parked themselves on the couch, and their little Christina plodded over and joined them. Porter took his daughter into his arms and held her as he strained to read the lips of Melanie Dodd. It seemed she didn't have a lot to report...only that something big was happening and Shane had been called in. Porter knew it had to be something big if Eddy had used the pager.
       He looked at his wife and could see the worry in her eyes. Shane had become part of the family since his unexpected entrance into their lives, the son they never had. He wondered if this was what she went through each time he, himself, had been the subject of news reports (sensationalist speculation to most at the time, but fact to her). He wondered what it must have been like for her when the announcement came that he was the prisoner of the sadistic madman calling himself Monolith. He wondered if it was seeing the pain and fear in her eyes that had driven Shane, his young "student", to come after him, to take on a whole terrorist army by himself at that allegedly abandoned nuclear testing sight in the deep desert. Shane had freed him--what was left of him after beatings and torture--and it was there, in that installation, that Porter had used all the mysterious ability God had given him to stop Monolith's insanity. Using every last ounce of his being in one final scream with the sonic power that had made him into the self-styled hero called Anthem, he saved the state he called home from nuclear annihilation. But in the process, he had ripped his own inner throat apart and blown out his ears, ending his career as a super-hero and his ability to ever hear or speak again.
       Janis turned to him. She began to sign questions, and worries, and concerns. Unable to sign back with Christina in his arms, he simply let his comforting smile say it all. He leaned in and kissed her. That was all she ever needed to get her through. She had always had problems with wavering faith. It was her husband's inner strength that she always ended up drawing from in times of need. His faith seemed never-ending.
       Together, they watched, and they waited. And they prayed.

       Lana Doleman pulled into her usual parking spot at the offices of Saguaro Properties. She put the Lexus in park and paused before turning off the engine, knowing she would immediately miss the air-conditioning. The smart, contemporary business suit she wore certainly wasn't the best attire for this kind of weather, but it was what her clients expected. And two of those clients--Mr. and Mrs. Paulson of Delaware--had just shaken hands on a deal to buy a two-point-five million dollar home in North Scottsdale. For that kind of commission, she was more than willing to sweat a little.
       She walked into the office on stylish high heels and found the office girls huddled around Susan's portable color TV set. She grinned. Things at the office must have been slow. It was at slow times, she knew, when Susan would pull out her set and catch one or two of the soaps she loved so much. Susan still couldn't get over the fact that she worked in the same company with Lana, whom all true soap fanatics remembered as Rishon Fallow from the 70's daytime drama, "Sparrow Crossing". That was twenty years ago. Lana still couldn't believe it had all gone by so fast. Then, a twenty-year old toast-of-Hollywood starlet in the making. Now, a forty-year old single mother and successful real estate broker whose only press came from the occasional "Where Are They Now?" pieces in People magazine. And, she was quite happy to report, very happy with her life and still able to hold her own against the little plastic Scottsdale heiresses. Still being able to turn heads at forty without cosmetic enhancement was a life accomplishment in itself.
       She stepped into the foyer and took off her jacket. "That stuff will rot your brains ladies," she warned. "Believe me, I speak from experience."
       She jumped as they all verbally leapt at her at once, their voices excited. With all their words coming at the same time, she couldn't clearly make out what they were so wound up about, but it had something to do with the TV.
       "It's him!" Susan finally got in over the chorus. "It's Windjammer! He's on the news, Lana! Come on, quick!"
       Lana felt the lump in her throat materialize out of nowhere. She crossed the room as all of the women tried to sum up and explain what was happening. The more she heard, the less likely it seemed that her prayer--the one where it was just some hoaky public appearance for charity or something--would be answered.
       She stood behind them, watching the images of her only son on the screen. For years she'd tried to keep him from the acting game, hoping to see him do something more meaningful with his life and avoid the whole ravenous lifestyle. She'd never wanted to have to turn on her television and see his beautiful face there. He had gotten the acting bug anyway, but it wasn't soaps and commercials that brought her child to the world on that two-dimensional window she had grown to hate. No, when she saw him on the news behind that mask he wore, she knew there were no screenwriters, makeup, or special effects involved. Whenever she saw him, there was a good chance that he was somewhere risking his life.
       She found that her hand was over her mouth, and she could feel tears wanting to start. She was happy that she stood behind the others, and their attentions seemed to be frozen to the screen. She'd promised herself she wouldn't do this the next time, but she couldn't deny the fact that she was a mother, and that was her baby flying around out there somewhere. It was times like this when she most wished Stephen had lived to see the birth of his son, and had been around to help her handle things when those powers of Shane's had started to grow, and could be there now to share in the worry and the terror with her. But she had raised him alone, and now had to go through this alone. She was proud of her boy. She was proud of what he had chosen to do with his life and his special gifts.
       But she was still a mother. And right now, she just wished he were sitting on jury duty like he said he was going to be.

       "My lord?"
       Somewhere in the world, in an ancient stone castle far from the highways and skyscrapers of men, a man of unspeakable power turned his head ever so slightly at the voice of the old man in the doorway.
       "What is it?" he asked, and his very voice conveyed the greatness of his being.
       "From the satellite, my lord. It is the boy. Shane."
       The man paused in brief contemplation. "That will be all," he said. The old man disappeared once more into the darkness of the hall outside.
       The man's fingers went to a control panel built into the arm of his great chair. Before him, a huge wall of several dozen television screens had already been playing. The channels ranged greatly in subject, country, language, and origin--some were broadcast signals, while others were closed-circuit cameras viewing some of the most secret offices and meeting rooms in the world.
       He pressed several of the buttons on the panel. Every screen was at once replaced with the same signal. It was a signal drawn from the Southwestern United States, from a small local CBS affiliate called Channel 5. Every screen was replaying the image of the one they called "Windjammer" flying past the camera. The boy was magnificent. He had no idea of his own potential, his own destiny. But he would learn. The whole world would learn.
       "The time is coming, boy", the man said aloud in his castle, speaking to the image of Shane Doleman. "The time of the gathering is near."
       History was waiting. History would not have to wait much longer.

       Fifty miles southwest of Las Cruces, New Mexico, just north of the Mexican border, a twenty-one year-old man named Nathan Carthage stood on desert sands and watched the smoke rise from the scene of carnage he, himself, had created. A half-dozen autos--sedans to Broncos--and one twin-engine aircraft on a small landing strip burned. Inside and all around them, the bodies of drug dealers, assassins, and murderers smoldered. In the middle of it all Nathan stood, his long hair blowing about him in the hot desert winds, his hands and eyes still crackling with the flame he had unleashed on them all. He had killed them. He had not killed them because they were bad men. He had not killed them because of the things they'd done or the people that they had all directly and indirectly hurt. He had killed them because a rival cartel wanted to send a message, and they had paid him a great deal of money to kill them.
       He turned slowly away, stepping over the hot slag at his feet that once was his victims' bullets. He could feel his inner furnace subsiding. He could feel the adrenaline winding down. He had done what he had come to do. Now, he would go back to town, back the hotel he currently called home (for in truth, he had no home). He would spend his money, spend it on liquor and women and whatever else his heart desired. And that would appease the sense of yearning, of emptiness inside him for a time. Then he would wander some more. Men would find him again, and hire him again. And he would kill again.
       Somewhere amidst the raging flames, he could hear the sound of one car's radio still playing. Somehow, it had survived the fire. He gave it no heed until he heard a single word. Then he stopped in his tracks. He wondered for a moment if he had imagined it, but then had to be sure. He walked toward the truck and the inferno that engulfed it. He pulled the door open and climbed inside, pushing the body of the driver aside. The flames raged all around him, but could not hurt him, or even phase him--him, or his faded jeans or his black tee shirt. Flame was his slave. It did his bidding.
       He willed it, and the flames died. The seats and innards of the vehicle sizzled, but he could hear the radio better. To make doubly sure, he grasped the searing-hot volume knob and twisted it to full.
       "...right, folks. No word as to what's happening yet, but Channel 5 out of Phoenix is there at--get this--Planet Hollywood. Windjammer's been positively spotted on the scene, and it looks like something big's going to happen. As new news develops, keep it tuned right here to--"
       Nathan's eyes burst into flame again, mirroring the growing pyre in his heart. Windjammer. That name again. Each time he heard it, he hated it more. Each time he heard it on the radio or TV, each time he saw the adoring fans worshipping the blond idol they loved. Had Nathan ever known love? He had amazing abilities like this Windjammer, but no one had ever loved him. Not his parents, who had abandoned him. Not the people in the orphanages where he'd grown up who feared and despised him. He hated this Windjammer for having everything he'd always been denied. He hated him with all the fires of Hell that raged within him.
       Perhaps Nathan had thought of a new way to make the pain go away. Perhaps taking what this blond punk had--everything he didn't deserve--and burning it to the ground would make everything better. Perhaps seeing the look in "Windjammer's" eyes as they witnessed his whole world ablaze around him--just before searing the flesh from his pampered bones--would take away the emptiness for a long, long time.
       Nathan rose from the smoking, hissing truck and walked from it, his black leather boots kicking up ash and desert as the chains around them clinked and jangled. His eyes kept burning Behind him, the smoke from the vehicle grew thicker, grew quickened. The hissing grew in suspenseful crescendo with each of his passing steps. Suddenly, the truck exploded, screaming its death-cry to the surrounding wastelands. Flaming pieces of its metal corpse flew in every direction as a mushroom of red, yellow, and orange damnation took to the heavens, scattering the impatient vultures that had already begun to gather. Yet Nathan's stride did not change, even as the force of the blast slung his hair ahead of him and a sizzling carburetor slammed the earth next to his right boot and bounced away. He walked a dozen more steps, and without a pause, he shot one arm straight above him, flew straight up into the sky--leaving a small dust storm as his only trace--and was gone. Not easily dissuaded, the vultures returned.
       To do what vultures do.

TO BE CONTINUED