“Are we sure we want to do this?”

“Hello? Am I talking to myself here?”

“Yes, we want to do this.”

“What a shock. How ‘bout you, Jen? You don’t have to—“

“Y-yes. For him, yes.”

“’Atta girl. Frankie?”

“I don’t know, man. I’m not really—“

“Frankie.”

“I mean, yeah. Yeah, I’m in. Right? I’m in.”

“Doc?”

“What? Oh. Yes. If I can help, I will, of course. I’m just not sure…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I just…”

“Listen, you’ve done plenty. You got us to the game, okay? No need to go any further.”

“Well, if he needs—I mean, I’ve had some medical training, of course, but it’s a little rusty. But I’m there if he needs me.”

“Good for you. Now, how sure are you about what you’ve found?”

“I’m positive. Trace soil deposits and metal filings on the bodies definitely put the activity in the warehouse district. Oil deposits definitely mean heavy machinery. It’s what he was looking for to begin with.”

“And the Verontese family got an old warehouse that used to be a funnel for diesel engines and parts and stuff. I told him that, myself.”

“That’s good, Frankie. You know where this place is?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Good.”

“Jen, are you sure you want to—“

“Anything I can do to help, Pops.”

“Sure. Sure.”

“Hey. Why don’t we just go to The Conquistadors? They’ll go get him, right?”

“We could, I guess…”

“No. We do this ourselves.”

“Well, it just seems like we’re taking unnecessary chances.”

“If he had wanted his super team involved he would have called them. This is something he needs to do alone.”

“That just doesn’t make sense.”

“So naïve. Perhaps you should consider this. The Verontese family wants him to send a message to the city. He has waged his war on them and has been winning, and this is their chance to end the war in victory. If we call his super-powered friends then we help undermine all he’s accomplished. He needs to continue his private war in order to maintain his edge.”

“His edge?”

“Fear. Presence. Reputation. He is just a man, but one who has stood up to the worst this city has to offer and has still come out ahead. He does this because, for him, fear and presence and reputation are as much his weapons as anything in his arsenal.”

“But we’re helping him. What’s the difference if it’s us or Stone or somebody like that?”

“The difference is that we are his friends, his companions, his trusted sources. We are a part of his reputation and mystery. The others are not. Or not yet, perhaps.”

“Whatever. He’ll still be alive.”

“Yes, and weaker for it. We must do this to preserve not only his life, but the image he has built for himself. His mystique, if you will. Otherwise he will not be the man everyone thinks he is, and one day he will fall.”

“You seem to think you know an awful lot about him.”

“About him? Perhaps. But I know him, who he is inside. We…understand each other. Maybe more than anyone else.”

“So you think.”

“Yes, Akht. I do.”

“You bitch.”

“Okay, ladies. Enough. We’re all in, and this is about him. Now we just have to figure out how to do this.”

“I believe I have an idea…”