It was a typical night in the city of New York. Clouds had gathered during the day, making many of the pedestrians worried of the possibility of rain. Though the streets were as crowded as they usually were. On the sidewalks, citizens went from one place to another. Many were people who had spent a long day at work and were enjoying their free time until they had to return to their jobs the next morning.

Two men walked through the city with looks that bordered somewhere between unease and outright paranoia. Checking out the city’s nightlife and spending their time on recreation were not items on their to-do list.

"Look at ‘em all." Rob said grimly. "They don’t have a clue of what the Committee’s doin’. For all we know, we’re all gonna die, and they’ll never even see it comin’."

"Nice to see you in such good humor." Dave replied with a touch of sarcasm. "But still, last week, we didn’t know anymore than the rest of the world."

Getting to New York had been their main focus these past few days. But now that Rob and Dave were in the world’s capital, the gravity of what was probably at stake was finally starting to set in on them. All they really had to go on was the wallet they had liberated the other day, and even that was a long shot at best.

After they had gotten some sleep following the long trip from Chicago, the two friends went grocery shopping. After that business was taken care of, they began looking for any info they could find the wallet’s owner.

The driver’s license gave the name of James Phillips. After comparing the address below the name with some tour maps Dave had taken the time to buy while they were shopping, he and Rob had a rough idea of where they needed to go.

"So how was your first day at work?" Dave asked in an attempt to bring Rob on a more upbeat notion.

"Not bad." Rob recalled. "Not bad at all."

* * *

It was seven-thirty in the morning when Rob’s alarm clock went off.

He sat in his new bed and stretched his muscular frame. He felt invigorated after all the sleep that he had been able to catch up on.

Hopping off the bed, he went to his dresser to clothe himself.

Buttoning up his white shirt, he started to realize how hungry he was. It made him appreciate that he had gone grocery shopping the other day. He then pulled a pair of dress slacks on and tucked in his shirt as he whistled a pleasant tune.

Back to the work force today. He thought to himself.

Rob stepped out of his bedroom while putting on his blue tie. He hated the silk nooses he always had to wear to work. The constricting feel of the tie around his neck made him feel like it was originally meant to have one of the ends attached to a rafter just before the wearer was ready to jump off of a stool. He decided to keep the tie on loose until he got to work. No sense in strangling himself more than he needed to.

Rob made himself an impressive breakfast of eggs, toast, cereal, and waffles. It didn’t take long for him to eat as he rushed through the big meal. Once the last forkful of eggs was shoveled away, Rob let out a small belch.

He rinsed off the dishes and left them in the dishwasher before heading for the bathroom to make himself presentable for his first day on the job here in New York.

Inside, he took the time to brush his teeth and relieve himself. He then grabbed a comb and tried to do something with his hair. With his hair less tangled and unkempt, Rob gave himself a look in the mirror and smiled.

He thought he looked like some executive for the WMC in the dress shirt and tie.

Rob rubbed his cheek. His face was still rather smooth from shaving last night before bed, so he wasn’t too worried about that.

He looked down at his watch and checked the time. He had to get going soon if he wanted to catch the subway to work.

The large man stepped out of the bathroom and grabbed his gray sports-jacket.

Then, Rob went out of the apartment and walked across the hall to Dave’s place. He gave the door a few, quick knocks.

Dave could be heard coming to the door before opening it casually.

There was a definite difference between how the two were dressed. While the larger man was in a respectable suit, Dave was wearing a pair of slightly ragged jeans, a red T-shirt, and his scuffed sneakers. Over the shirt, he wore his jacket, which was zipped up halfway.

"Want to make a good impression, I see." Dave stated as he looked Rob over.

"You’re the lucky one." Rob said. "You don’t have to wear one of these damn ties to your job."

"No, Bobby." Dave put every ounce of cynicism he could cram into his words. "I get to wear a pair of rubber gloves while I scrub toilets."

"I looked, man." Rob pleaded. "Trust me. I really looked for somethin’ better."

"You couldn’t have looked harder?"

"Not without Enforcers asking why I was fuckin’ with their systems."

"Never mind." Dave sighed. "Let’s just get to work."

They left the apartment building together and boarded the subway at the nearby station.

The trip underground was a short and quiet one. The car they rode in was packed with passengers on their way to their own jobs. Just about everyone was showing sign of trying to fully wake up.

At their new surroundings, Rob and Dave came up out of the subway station to walk the rest of the way to Darison Technologies.

Traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian, was heavy on the streets, much more so than what the two of them had gotten used to in Chicago.

Dave was constantly checking his map and the street signs so he could commit their path to memory.

Finally, they came to a skyscraper of modern design. The building’s glass roof slanted at a forty-five degree angle that had been the trend for much of this decade’s architecture. In front of the main doors was a large fountain with the Darison logo in the center of the streaming water.

Rob gave an impressed whistle.

"Not a bad lookin’ place to work." He said.

"Depends on the job." Dave countered. The smaller man was obviously still pissed about having to be a janitor.

They came to the doors which swung open when they approached. Inside, there were a dozen people milling about the lobby, each on their own destination throughout the building. Everyone was wearing a formal suit or dress that made Dave feel significantly out of place.

In the center of the lobby, was a slender, brunette woman sitting at a circular desk. Obviously one of the building’s many receptionists.

"May I help you?" She asked in a measured voice.

"Robert Thompson and David Whitman." Rob said. "We were transferred here from Chicago."

The receptionist typed in a long chatter of keys as she looked down to the monitor built into her desk.

"All right. I have you both registered." She then pointed to Rob. "I assume you’re Thompson.."

"That’s right." Rob smiled politely.

"Okay, just go to the fifteenth floor to room 1539. You’ll meet someone there who will help you get settled in."

"Thanks a lot." Rob said before making his way to the elevator.

"And you," The receptionist turned to Dave. There was just a tinge of contempt in her voice. Apparently, the janitorial staff wasn’t exactly respected here. "Go through that brown door over there. Take a right then two lefts. When you get to the elevator, take it to the second basement. From there, you’ll see a door marked ‘Personnel’. Ask for Steve Brown."

"Thank you." Dave managed to keep his tone pleasant for the sake of being civil.

He left the desk and followed the instructions to the elevator.

Once on the second level basement, Dave saw the door he was looking for immediately to his left.

He turned the knob on the blue, steel door and entered.

Inside, was one of the busiest scenes that Dave had ever come upon in his life. There were easily fifty people in the vast room. And every one of them was hurrying in one direction or the other. A number of them were pushing carts full of letters and packages. Some were perched behind outdated computer terminals typing furiously at their keyboards.

For a second, Dave thought that he had wandered into the wrong room. Though he did feel a bit more comfortable upon seeing that none of the people working here were in the suits he had come across back up on the ground floor. So he simply decided to casually ask around.

The first person he asked was a worker pushing a mail cart.

"Excuse me," Dave said. "But I’m looking for Steve Brown."

"Oh, old Steve’s in that office there." The man nodded to a door off to the side.

"Thanks." Dave replied and then headed to the office, side-stepping his way around rushing workers as he went.

Actually, "office" wasn’t likely to be the best term for what was behind the door. It was more of a giant cubicle with a door built onto it. The door had a glass window in it that allowed Dave to see inside before entering. In the office, there was a high-backed chair that swiveled slowly in one direction then back in the other. Whoever Steve Brown was, he was completely hidden by the chair.

Dave knocked on the door and could see a hand come into sight and wave for him to come in. Dave entered silently and closed the door behind him.

The cubicle walls helped to blot out some of the sounds from outside, but not all that well.

The office interior looked like a whirlwind had hit it. A wooden desk stood in front of the chair. The computer that sat on it was as buried in files and forms as was the rest of the desk. Some of the files were closed, but most of the others were opened and the papers they had once contained were strewn in a blanket three inches thick. Along the walls were some tan file-cabinets with half of the drawers opened. For a moment, Dave was curious how this man could have gotten anything accomplished with all the disorganization.

A soft, throaty voice was heard talking on the phone.

"I know Paul, but right now we’re a little short-handed. The people here are pissed. They’re getting sick of having to pull all the overtime… Look, if you want half the staff down here either passed out or on strike, then you just keep lecturing me about budgets… Fine, whatever. I’ve got to go. There’s a new guy here I need to get started… Yeah, same to you."

The sound of the phone being softly hung up came at the end of the conversation. The chair rotated with a squeak.

Steve Brown faced Dave with a slight smile that was somewhat forced. Brown looked somewhere in his late thirties, though to the untrained eye, he may have appeared near fifty. His face had the lines not of age, but of worry and tension. His hair was mostly gray and thinning at the top. He almost reminded Dave of Turoth.

Here was a man that had been taking bullshit for years, but still managed to roll with the punches, even if they were thrown a little hard at times.

"You must be Whitman, am I right?" The man asked in a rush as he shook Dave’s hand.

"It’s the name they gave me."

"I’m glad you’re here. Let me find you a seat." Brown got up and went to what looked like a three-foot high stack of papers, but was really just a chair that had been covered in the mess. Bringing the chair around, he made a gesture for Dave to sit down.

"We’ve been short-handed for the past few months now and could really use the help."

"I’ll see what I can do." Dave assured his new boss. "But I thought this was the janitorial department. If you don’t mind my saying, I didn’t see anything resembling a custodial staff yet."

"We had some stuff go on upstairs with budget cuts. So a lot of the menial departments just got lumped together. We clean, keep the mail going where it should, order the office supplies, that kind of thing."

"Sounds rough."

"It hasn’t been easy, I can tell you that right now. After the layoffs we had at the beginning of the last quarter, we’ve been swamped. You still up for this?"

"I’ve had worse jobs for a lot less pay. I’m willing to stick with it."

"That’s good to hear." Brown gave a smile that was more genuine than the last. "I know this is your first day, but can I ask you to do some overtime?"

That would certainly conflict with Dave’s plans for tonight. He and Rob were going out to get information from yesterday’s mugger. The request left him indecisive for a moment. But then he looked back out the door’s window and saw the bustling workers outside. They looked like they could use the help.

"Sure, I guess." Dave replied. "How long do you need me to stay?"

Brown’s face lit up just enough to let Dave know he was pleased.

"We’d need you to stay till eleven."

Dave went wide-eyed when he heard that. He had worked rotten hours before, but he had never really "experienced" a shift lasting nearly fourteen straight hours. It made him pray that this would not be an everyday occurrence.

"Fine. It’s longer than what I was hoping to work, but I guess I could use the hours."

"You sure you can deal with it?"

"You’ve go yourself a worker, Mr. Brown."

"Everyone just calls me Steve here. Listening to workers call me Mr. Brown makes me antsy, and it probably makes them nervous as hell when I come to check up on them."

"All right, Steve." Dave said. "Where do I start?"

"We shift the work duties every week." Steve explained. "New people always start on bathrooms with the rest of the scheduled crew."

"Oh joy." Dave responded with a lack of anything even resembling rapture.

"Don’t worry. Just tell yourself it’s only till Monday."

"Yeah, Monday."

* * *

While Dave was starting out with his new occupation, Rob was getting settled into his own.

The cushioned chair was comfortable to sit in. The computer sitting on the desk of his cubicle was not nearly as advanced as the one which he had back at home, but this older model suited his needs for work none the less.

For the time being, he was busy debugging a new program that had just come in with a hardcopy of the code.

It was just his luck that his first program to work on had to have so many mistakes that it would take hours to correct just half of them.

After another fifteen minutes, he found himself stumped with one of the early sections of the program. He tried inputting just the one troublesome section into the computer and corrected all the errors he could think of. But every time he ran the damn thing, it read: SYSTEM ERROR. NO VARIABLES AVAILABLE.

"This sucks." He said to the screen. "What the hell is making this thing so touchy about the variables?"

"Maybe you need to assign a second set of variable." Came a female voice in the cubicle behind him.

"What do you mean?" Rob continued to look at the screen in front of him.

"That’s the way a lot of the programs work here. It’s a little extra measure the company take for security reasons." The voice explained.

Rob turned in his seat to see whom he was talking to. The first thing the large man noticed was the long, blond hair that was pulled back and hanging loosely behind her in a ponytail. The woman turned in her own seat and Rob was able to get a look at her face. She had light, brown eyes that set off her clear, light skin. Her blue and black dress enhanced her beauty in the fluorescent light.

She was attractive. Rob couldn’t deny that. But he refused to make her uncomfortable by letting it show. He cleared his throat and began to speak up in a steady voice.

"I never had to deal with any of that kind of stuff for regular business programs." Rob said.

"It’s a common mistake for newbies here." Her voice took hold of Rob like the tune from an elegant musical instrument. "Around here, the committee is really picky about security. They like to have everything done right and then done right a few more times over to be sure everything’s checked out."

"I didn’t know that." Rob held his hand out greet her. "Thanks for the tip, Ms…?"

"Newton, Barbara Newton." She answered as she shook his hand. "You’re welcome. It can be pretty tough to catch onto things here at first. Just think to yourself that everything should be checked and rechecked as much as possible."

"I’ll remember that, thanks again. So how long have you been workin’ here?"

"Almost three years now. Where are you from?"

"We just got transferred from Chicago."

"What do you mean by ‘we’?"

"A friend of mine got sent here too. There was a bit of a mix-up, and now he’s trapped on the cleanin’ crew."

"I feel sorry for your friend already, and I never even met him." Barbara said with sympathy.

"Pretty bad down there, huh?"

"You don’t know the half of it. I had a girlfriend who got bumped down there when they shifted the budget. She quit after the fourth week of it. I hear they still pull overtime almost daily."

I’ll bet Dave’s gonna be in a rotten mood when he gets off work. Rob remarked inwardly. If he ever gets off work that is.

"Are things as bad here with the programmin’ division?" Inquired Rob.

"Not really. Everyone gets off at five as usual here."

The whole matter with Dave’s overtime was bound to be a problem with tonight’s plans. They wanted to pay that Phillips character a visit, but it wouldn’t do to have Dave running around town in a funny costume with a sword on his back and dead on his feet.

"Looks like I’ll have to wait for Dave. But till then, it looks like I’ve got some time on my hands with nothin’ to do."

"Have you ever been to New York before?"

"No, but I should be able to manage." Rob smiled as a thought crossed his mind. If Dave was going to be busy, Rob saw no sense in spending his evening waiting for his associate to get home.

"Though now that you mention it," Rob went on. "It would be helpful if someone could show me around town."

"Are you asking me out?" Barbara asked with mock innocence. "A little direct aren’t we?"

"You could call it that, or you call it a friendly tour. Nothin’ too direct about that, if you ask me."

"Let me get back to you on that, okay?"

"Sure, no problem." Rob broadened his smile just slightly. Bingo.

Barbara smiled back and returned to the computer at her desk. Rob followed suit and resumed correcting the program.

* * *

Fifteen minutes before one o’clock was lunchtime for the building’s custodial faculty.

Dave finished off a sandwich he had bought at a vending machine and went to a black service phone on the counter in the cafeteria.

He asked a group eating nearby what the number was for the programming division. They supplied him with the extension, and Dave dialed it up and waited. After the second ring, a male voice answered.

"Programming. What can I do for you?"

"Could you get Robert Thompson on the phone, please?" Dave asked.

"Hold on, and I’ll patch you through."

Dave was forced to listen to some cornball country music score as he was on hold. The music came to a blessed stop as the line clicked and Rob answered.

"Hello, Thompson."

"Rob, it’s Dave. They stuck me with some overtime."

"Yeah, I heard you guys downstairs were getting screwed in the ass. What time do you think you’ll be out? We were gonna check out the clubs, ya’ know."

Neither of the two were foolish enough to talk of what they truly planned over the phone. Odds were that with all the standard security, every telephone in the complex was most likely monitored in some way. So the line about clubs was what they had come up with when referring to their scheduled outing.

"We’ll get done at eleven."

"Damn, that does fuck things up."

"I know. Hopefully, I can stay awake until then. I’ll meet you back at the apartments."

"Okay, I’ll see ya’ then."

There was a click heard as Rob hung up and Dave did the same a second later.

Dave checked his watch and nearly blanched at the sight of the time. He barely had five minutes before his break ended and he had to return to work.

Yet for some reason, his muscles almost felt eager to be put back into action. He had done easier jobs than this that had left him at least somewhat tired after the first few hours. It had to be the spell, he figured. Already, it was changing his body. Maybe improving the oxygenation of his blood or something like that.

Dave made a mental note to ask Rob if he was feeling any different.

Maybe these powers won’t be so bad. He thought.

He went back to the vending machines for something to drink before sitting down to enjoy the rest of his limited free time.

* * *

The hours passed as they always did. At five o’clock, the working shift for many in the Darison Technologies Complex ended.

Rob was making the final touches on the program he had been working on as the final minutes drew to a close. He made a brief check of the program and saved his information to the computer’s hard-drive.

He stood up from his seat and stretched. For someone who had hunched over a keyboard all day, he felt surprisingly relaxed.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He figured.

Turning the computer off with a quick flip of the switch, he felt ready to get out of the tiny cubicle. He snatched up his sports-jacket and then headed for the elevator.

Barbara was standing in front of the stainless steel doors waiting for him. He walked up to her with one of his friendliest faces.

"Well, did you think about it?" Rob asked when he came near her.

"I think it would be fun to go out after a day’s work." She answered honestly.

"Great! When do you wanna go?"

"I want to get home and change my clothes first. How about if you call me around six thirty?"

Barbara pulled a small pad of paper from one of the pocket on her business dress. She scribbled a number and tore off the piece of paper from the pad and handed it to Rob.

Rob gave the paper a quick glance and stuck it into the inner pocket of his sports-jacket.

A bell toned as the doors came open. They stepped inside the elevator and descended to the ground level from there.

* * *

Later that night, while Rob was keeping company with his lovely, new co-worker, Dave was still in the building with a cart in front of him.

The first day of work certainly hadn’t been fun. All he really had to show for his efforts were questions like, "Who had to urinate all over the men’s rooms?" and "Is it really necessary to rip toilet paper into confetti in the women’s and throw it all over the place?"

He and crew he was working with were able to finish with the bathrooms early, so Dave was put on mail duty. It was a rather simple job. Just drop the packages in front of the proper doors and the letters in the proper slots.

Dave was on the twelfth floor pushing a cart with a number "5" stamped on the side in black ink. He was in a small office with a rack of mailboxes secured to a wall.

He pulled out a bundle of letters held together with a rubber band. He removed the band and strained his eyes to sort through the printed names.

The lighting was poor in the office. All of its daytime employees had left, and the only illumination available was being produced by an orange security light overhead.

Just then, there was a burst of static from the side of the cart.

"Jack Sprat," Came a voice with a thick southern drawl. "Jack Sprat, this here’s Big Daddy. C’mon home now."

Dave unclipped the walkie-talkie from the side of the cart and hit the send button. Already, the co-workers had given him a nickname for his thin build.

"What?" He laughed into the device.

"Eleven o’clock, Dave." Steve said, switching over to his normal New Yorker accent. "Pack up whatever you’ve got and meet back down here. We’ll pick up from here tomorrow."

Dave checked his watch to see that it was indeed eleven. The workday was finally over.

"On my way." Dave said. He put the walkie-talkie back on the cart and wheeled his way out of the office.

Big Daddy? Dave shook his head. Sounds like Steve’s got some issues.

* * *

Back in the second level basement, Dave was putting on his jacket as he walked to the gathering of employees. At the center of it all was Steve, who looked at the workers like a parent about to give his kid a birthday present. Apparently, there was something he was just dying to tell the crew.

"All right, people." He began once silence had settled in amongst the employees. "I talked to the folks upstairs. Business has been slow this week, and we’ve been able to do some catching up these past few days. So, no overtime is likely until Friday, at the earliest."

A number of the workers nodded in satisfaction, but that was as excited as the crew got. None of them looked like they had the energy for much more. Though Dave had to admit that he was still feeling pretty good.

The crowd started to disband and the workers made their way to leave. Steve went up to Dave and pulled him off to the side.

"Thanks for stickin’ around." Steve said. "The first night’s always a trial by fire for new people."

"I’m standing." Dave said with dry humor. "I just put my hours in like everyone else."

"Still, the extra hand helped get us back on par."

"I’m glad I could help."

"Anyway, you’re probably tired. So I’ll let you go."

"See you tomorrow, Steve." With those words, Dave turned and joined the small crowd that was making its way out. He exchanged a few words with several co-workers as he left.

Outside, the cool evening air was there to greet him with a soft gust of wind.

Dave decided to stay on his guard as he entered the subway. No sense in getting attacked twice in as many days.

While he rode the train home, he began to wonder if Rob’s day had gone any better.

* * *

"So tell me about your day." Rob insisted.

The two of them waited at a corner for the light to change. The green signal came up, and the pedestrians crossed.

"It sucked." Dave complained. "I had to spend the first two hours cleaning bathrooms with a guy called Ryan the Roach."

"Ryan the Roach?" Rob almost started guffawing.

"They said he would eat anything." Dave recalled with a degree of disgust. "There was something in the women’s room that he kept calling the ‘snack sacks’. I didn’t want to stick around to see what he was referring to, so I told Ryan I was going to clean the mirrors in the men’s room."

"Sounds like a gross little prick." Rob commented.

"You’ve got to get me out of there." Dave said. "The job’s not hard, but I’m not sure I’ll be sane by the end of the week."

"I can’t break into Darison’s system again for that." Rob explained. "Your name’s already in there as a janitor. If I booted you up to accounting or somethin’ like that, somebody’s bound to start wonderin’. Then they’ll notice that you started the same day as one of their newest programming boys."

"I get the picture." Dave nodded. "From there, they’d just need to put two and two together to know there was something amiss from the moment we got here. Looks like I’ll have to deal with it."

"Sorry, man."

"Forget about it." Dave waved in dismissal. "So, what did you do all day?"

"I checked out the city." Rob beamed.

"Sounds to me like you had fun."

"We sure did."

"We?" Dave raised an eyebrow.

"I met this woman at work." Rob said. "She was hot, I’ve gotta tell you that. So we started talkin’ and I asked her if she could maybe show me around town."

"At least somebody enjoyed their day. So what’s her name?"

"Barbara." Rob said the name with what sounded like some kind of nostalgia. "We got to know each other a bit too. We like the same music. She’s great with computers. Not as good as yours truly."

"Oh, of course." Dave smirked. Even when he was starting a relationship, Rob’s ego still made its presence known. "Do you plan on going out again?"

"Hell yeah."

The two of them continued their conversation as they walked the streets to their destination. Rob pointed out a few landmarks here and there that Barbara had shown him on their date earlier that evening.

Dave reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his map of the area. After studying it shortly, he looked up to the street sign on the corner to assess their exact location.

"I think we’re here."

Their travels had led them into one of New York’s lower class neighborhoods. Neither of them wanted to spend too much time in this area. Odds were that a local gang probably haunted the hood for kicks.

The residence of James Phillips was not something to write home about. If it was, then in should not have been mailed. Phillips lived in a run down apartment complex that looked like the world had given up on it years ago. Some of the windows on the first floor were broken and all had bars over them.

The walls were a joke. They appeared to have once sported graffiti, but even the painters must have thought that they could have down their work on a better surface. The crude art work and gang symbols had faded and grown dingy.

"I think you’re right." Said Rob as he pulled out the wallet he had acquired the other day.

The address inside matched up with the rusted metal numbers fixed into the brick wall.

Both Rob and Dave began to have doubts that structure could support life for more than a day.

"So what now?" Asked Rob.

"I’m not sure yet. First we need to see how we can get in."

"The front door’s as good a place to start as any." Rob suggested.

"Somebody in the hallways might see us transform." Dave debated.

"Well, changin’ out here isn’t the brightest idea. Unless we want the whole street to see the Fourth of July."

They took stock of the area in silence.

Rob then pointed off to a place just beside the building. A dark alley ran into the shadows between the apartment building and an adjacent structure.

"What do ya’ think? Should we try?" Rob asked.

They both held some skepticism about the passageway. Dark alleys in the middle of large metropolitan areas were not known to be among the safest places in the world. But no other option seemed available. So they headed towards the narrow passage.

They stepped in with their eyes peeled for any entrance into the apartment building. The alley itself was nearly pitch black, and the scampering of rats or something equally unpleasant could be heard. As for other people, the alley was thankfully deserted.

Their searching rewarded them with a door as they had hoped. Not surprisingly, it was securely closed. A rusty padlock, which looked like it had been protecting the entrance for several decades, was testament that the door would not open through conventional means.

"I’ll check the street real quick and make sure nobody’s coming." Dave said before jogging back the way they came.

Rob stood there alone in front of the door waiting for Dave to return. He saw Dave get to the end of the alley and take a look down both sides of the street. Then, Dave came back at the same jogging pace by which he left.

"Nobody’s in sight either way. At least not yet." Dave informed Rob.

"Then I guess we’d better do this quick."

The same light that engulfed them over a week ago once again appeared. As before, they both felt the uncomfortable sensation of their clothes melting away for only split seconds. When the light faded, they stood in the black garbs with their weapons strapped to their backs.

"I’ll see what I can to with the lock." Dave said.

The sound of metal sliding on metal could be heard as Dave unsheathed his sword. What little light there was in the alley, glinted dully off the blade. The broadsword felt too heavy in Dave’s hands, which were more accustomed to the lighter katanas of from his martial arts training.

He swung the weapon with both hands to strike the latch that the lock was holding in place. A clang went out as the latch broke and the padlock clattered to the ground. With another swing, Dave hit the door’s knob, breaking it off.

Dave started to sheath the sword, but he could not find the scabbard with the tip of the blade. Reaching behind him, he caught hold of the scabbard with one hand and carefully put the sword away with the other.

"Why couldn’t they put this thing on a belt?" He complained bitterly.

The smaller man then slowly pushed the door open. The hinges that had not seen use in years groaned in protest at having to be put back to work.

Dave entered with Rob behind him who pulled the door shut once they were both in.

The inner walls were decorated with brown spots left by thrown beer bottles, dark red stains from blood spattered in the more recent fights the building had seen, and holes that could have been brought on by anything from rats to small explosives. The floor could have stood some touch-ups as well. In a corner was a puddle that reeked of alcohol and vomit.

"Which apartment is this guy supposed to be in?" Dave asked.

Rob was about to reach into his pants pocket for the wallet again. But remembered that his original pants and the wallet in them had both vanished in the transformation. He was almost ready to consider changing back, when the room number just suddenly popped into his head.

"Twenty." Rob said with certainty, though he could only recall briefly glancing at the ID in the wallet.

Could that spell be doin’ somethin’ to my head, too? He began to wonder. He would just have to wait and see.

They found a staircase leading up in the building’s lobby, or what passed for it. Across the room, they could see the front door leading out. Both of them made note of the exit in case they might need to use it.

The staircase was just a few meters away from the door. They went up the stairs to the second floor as quietly as they could manage.

There, the first door they saw had a "1" crudely painted on it.

Rob looked don the hall and counted the other doors that lined both sides of the hall. Eight doors were counted all together. Simple logic dictated that if there was the same number of apartments on each floor, then their man was bound to be two floors up.

The two continued up the stairs and passed the third floor without stopping. The stairs ended with the fourth floor.

They walked down the corridor as silently as possible. Rob’s boots made soft clomps on the decrepit floor, while Dave moved as silently as a phantom.

When the two reached the door, they found it to be like the one in the alley. Locked.

"I’ll take this one." Insisted Rob.

"Not too much noise." Dave reminded his big friend.

"Hey," Rob smirked beneath the mask. "I’m known world wide for my stealth."

Rob looked to the door and squared his shoulders. He charged the entrance, slamming his shoulder into it with a loud grunt. The door crashed open and was left hanging limply on a single hinge. Rob regained his balance and started to check his handiwork.

"Stealth of a jungle cat," Dave said dryly as he came in after Rob. "We’ll have to work on your subtlety, though."

There was a clatter in one of the rooms and a bit of cursing.

"What the hell’s goin’ on out there?!" A muffled voice yelled.

A door on the other side of the tiny apartment opened violently, and James Phillips rushed out. In one hand, he held a shining switchblade. The other had been bandaged in white medical tape. His only clothes were a stained T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. The look on his face when he saw the to standing in his apartment was interesting to say the least.

"Why, slap my ass and call me ‘prison bitch’." Rob said in a cheerful voice. "Jimmy, how are ya’?"

"Who the hell are you two?!" Phillips exclaimed. The dark visitor could pick up the hint of fear in their host's demeanor.

Dave decided to work with that. He wanted avoid whatever rough stuff they could here.

"If you tell us what we want to know, then you won’t have to find out." Dave said firmly. Odds wee that the more dangerous he and Rob sounded, the better their chances of getting some information without trouble.

Phillips panicked. He made a break for the door, but he had to go through the two blocking his way first. He took a stab at Dave, who merely dodged out of the way. The martial artist reached out and grabbed the man’s hand and twisted the knife from his grasp.

Phillips went for the door again, but Rob caught the back of his shirt and threw Phillips against a wall.

"Not so fast, Jimbo." Rob said. "You haven’t answered any of our questions yet."

The gang member struggled to stand on his feet when Rob got his hands back on Phillips. Rob braced the other man against the wall with little trouble.

"Let go, mother fucker!" Phillips screamed.

"You don’t seem to get it, buddy." Rob said. He clamped down on the ganger more tightly. "We’ve got question, and you help us fill in the blanks."

The expression on Phillips face stared to show that he was starting to understand the gravity of his situation. He stopped struggling and started to look feverishly at the two.

"What do ya’ wanna’ know?" He asked. His nerve was going. That much could be told by the cracking of his voice.

"The score." Rob informed Phillips. "We’re new in town and we thought we’d check up on the local action. We want to know who’s who and what doors need knockin’ on."

"What the hell makes ya’ think I know anything?"

"Your sound system for one thing." Dave pointed to an expensive looking stereo set-up sitting next to a worn out couch. "Looks new to me. And by the looks of this place, you don’t strike us as the type of person who holds a job that can pay for it. I know that my job doesn’t pay me that well. So what is a system like that doing in a dump that makes my place look like the Hilton?"

"So what if I stole it? What do you plan to do about it?"

In a blur of movement and the slide of a blade, Dave had his sword out again. He brought the weapon’s razor edge to Phillips’ face.

"Look," Dave said softly. "I had to come straight from my day job just to deal with you. Hence, I’m in a foul mood. Just answer the questions we ask you."

"You’d probably want to do as D--… my pal here says." Rob stumbled around nearly saying Dave’s name by accident. They still hadn’t gotten around to alternate names in this practice in which they were still relatively new at. "The last guy who pissed him off came away lookin’ like the patient of a blind dentist."

"All right!" Phillips screamed as he tried to pull his face away from Dave’s blade. "Ask your damn questions!"

"How do you and your boyfriends get your income?" Rob asked gruffly. "Drugs? Muggings? Protection? Where’s the cash-flow?"

"Depends on the jobs we’re given."

"Jobs?" Rob said in disbelief. "Now, I thought we’d established that employment is not somethin’ you practice."

"I swear, man. They tell us to do somethin’, and we do it. We get paid after the job, and they just let us keep whatever we pick up along the way."

"Who are ‘they’?" Dave asked.

"The Committee."

"The WMC’s sendin’ you kids on milk-runs?" Rob was surprised with the idea that the Committee would even bother with common street criminals.

"Yeah, they dress up an Enforcer in a suit and send him down every month or so to drop off a list with all these places they want us to hit."

"How can you tell it’s an Enforcer?" Dave asked. The government police force was well known for keeping its member’s identities secret.

"You know how those fed shit-heads talk, like damn robots." Phillips went on. "They can dress up like corp suits at best, but you can tell it’s an Enforcer behind the tie."

"What would the Committee want with pukes like you?" Rob questioned. "What’s their game in all this?"

"How the hell should I know?" Phillips said. "They just drop off the lists and the money. Why should I care?"

"No, doesn’t look like you care at all." Said Rob. It seemed unlikely that the Committee was likely to tell the gangs that they were working for somebody that was striving towards the utter annihilation of all Existence.

"How many gangs are taking orders from the WMC?" Inquired Dave.

"All of ‘em." Phillips answered.

"You mean that the Committee’s runnin’ about fifty different gangs?" Rob asked. The government just seemed to be full of surprises as of late.

"Sixty-seven." Phillips said. "They keep tabs on all of us."

"That’s what I call organized crime." Rob joked. "So you said there was this list. You got a copy?"

There was a brief pause in which Phillips looked to both of his masked captors.

"No." He said finally.

"You’re a rotten liar." Dave said.

"Makes me wonder why your gang puts up with such a dumbass." Rob commented before turning to Dave. "You wanna’ slit his throat or should we just see if his skull’s tougher than that cinderblock I saw in the alley out back?"

"I’m tellin’ ya’." Phillips insisted. "I don’t have the list."

"And I’m telling ya’ that yer’ full of shit." Rob shot back. "Now let’s head downstairs."

"Wait!" Phillips shouted. "It’s on the chair."

Dave spotted the vinyl recliner in the corner. He left Rob who still had a rough hold on Phillips. Dave stepped over to the battered chair and found a sheaf of papers wedged between the cushions.

"I’d say that we’ve got what we need for now." Dave said to Rob.

"Can’t say that I’ve got anymore questions." Rob agreed. He then released his grip on Phillips.

"Then we’ll be moving along."

The two of them started for the door when Dave suddenly stopped to turn back to Phillips.

"Just a reminder." He said with sword still in hand. "We were never here."

"Uh, sure." Phillips nodded fearfully.

"And if we hear otherwise, we’ll know where the rumor got started."

"Who are you guys?"

"You can call us the Stone Hawks." Dave felt awkward saying a name that somehow sounded like it belonged in a comic book.

The Stone Hawks moved down the hall from the apartment casually.

Dave clumsily re-sheathed his sword after several attempts.

As they were walking down the stairs, an old man came out of his room, yelling about all the noise from above. He hastily taken aback by the pair that was coming down the steps.

"Holy shit!" He shrieked.

"Don’t worry, pal." Rob said reassuringly. "We’re just passin’ through. Go back to bed and tell yourself that this is all just a dream."

The elderly fellow did as Rob had suggested and let the two dark figures continue on their way.

Rob and Dave left the same way they had come in and ended up back in the alley again.

With another quick search for anyone around turning up nil, they transformed into their normal forms.

"Now I know we need names." Dave stated.

"Sorry about that." Rob apologized. "Almost forgot about keepin’ who we are hush-hush."

"I saw that look in your eyes when you said, ‘D--.. my pal.’ You did that on purpose. Nearly made me panic as much as they guy upstairs."

"I did not." Rob said indignantly. But his devilish grin told otherwise.

"At any rate," Dave said as they came out of the alley. "I’d feel safer with something to call each other when we’re in those costumes."

"Any thoughts?" Asked Rob.

They began heading home while they talked this over.

"Maybe something that goes with the name of the group." Dave said.

"How does Stoneman and Talon sound?"

"Turn off the cartoons and read a book, Rob."

"Okay," Rob agreed. "We’ll stay away from names that make us sound like we had an accident with somethin’ radioactive."

"Thank you."

"Stone. Somethin’ strong like stone. Bedrock. Sedimentary. Limestone. Granite. Now Granite sounds cool."

"Then go with that." Dave said. "You thought of the name. It’s yours for the taking. We could use something for the ‘hawk’ part, though."

"I’m drawin’ a blank there, right now."

"Well, birds are known for their wings, so I’ll stick with that."

"Hope the names stick."

"Let’s just hope we live long enough for them to stick."

That uncertainty made the rest of the trip home disquieting. Would they live long enough to stop the catastrophe? Only time would reveal the answer they would anticipate as much as fear.

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