Part Six

Bless modern technology, thought Vic, as her brilliant phone found a useable cell tower and connected, in spite of being on an island in a lake in a large park. The only place she had found to get a signal was standing on the front porch of the old house. Something the FBI agents had told her about. As she waited for someone to answer, she watched the sun moving slowly towards the mountain to the west. She hadn't thought to call her office until late in the working day for the office in Detroit. Partly because there was still plenty of daylight here.

"Special Agent in Charge Drake," said Vic's boss, once the federal building's receptionist had directed the call.

"This is agent Peltior," said Vic, remembering that their office didn't have caller ID for some technical reason, even though the receptionist did. She wished their office could get a direct line, but supposedly there were also technical reasons why that hadn't happened. Something about how few employees were in their office. At least after hours or for emergencies she could justify calling her boss' personal cell. "Got a quick update."

She gave him the digest version of what she had learned that first day on the island.

"Anything else?" said Drake.

"Not from here," she said. "Well, except for having to avoid some of the wildlife on the island, which seems to have little wariness of humans. A couple of people have even been chased by moose, and they sometimes come into our camp. Anyway, I'll let you know more when I do. However, if your FBI contacts can let you know anything, please pass it along. I have a good cell connection, surprisingly."

"Will do."

* * *

"We have an update on the identities of two of the people found frozen in that lab," said Folgert, the next day, in a briefing at the tables in the general-purpose area under the canopy. "The man with the glasses was definitely the first Mordecai Kravaal, who was only in his mid-thirties when he disappeared, after a strong start in the mastermind business. The girl was Catherine Brandt."

"Wait..." said Vic, startled. "Is she one of the German Brandts? The mentalist family?"

"She's from a less-famous American branch," said Folgert, nodding. "Many of the members of that group also have mental powers. Which may explain all those cerebral hemorrhages."

"So how did she end up with Mordecai?" said Barrow, throwing his hands wide in frustration. "I mean, we studied her case at Quantico! It was a classic mystery, never solved. There was no hint that Mordecai was involved!"

"She was, indeed, the subject of a famous missing person case," said Folgert, nodding. "It was thought that her family's fame was the reason she was targeted, much as with the earlier Lindberg baby case and the later Bono daughter case. Catherine and her parents had an act in which they demonstrated various powers. She was known for her ability with distance viewing."

"She was kidnapped and the crime was never solved," said Barrow, frowning as he thought about the situation. "A few weeks later saw the first appearance of Radio Star. Now we have Catherine Brandt's body, as well as what was apparently the original Radio Star - who turns out to be an android - and the body of android-maker Mordecai, all found together."

"Y'know, some amateur radio people claimed they detected faint interference of an unknown type whenever Radio Star was near," said Folgert, remembering a bit of super trivia. "That was chalked up to being just part of her powers."

"One of the things we've uncovered about Mordecai's work here from the lab journals was that he had problems with effective range of control for his androids," said Barrow, still thinking things through. "If they went out of range, his androids weren't sophisticated enough to do more than head back to where they last had contact. Standard radio was only good for a few kilometers, and was very noticeable. Spread spectrum could work for a bit further and was much less noticeable. In spite of all that, beyond a fairly short distance control could be intermittent, especially inside structures."

"Radio Star operated over most of the US, often covering huge distances in a short time," said Tombe, thoughtfully. "There had to be more than ordinary radio at work."

"Telepresence!" said Folgert, in sudden revelation. "Psionic distance viewing, at least!"

"That's..." said Vic. She gave her head a vigorous shake. "Sorry. As someone who was a target of a mastermind who wanted to make use of my abilities - more than once, actually - the implications..."

"Yeah," said Tombe, quietly.

"He kidnapped a young girl just to use her to pilot a drone," said Barrow, obviously stunned. Now he shook his head. "He didn't just pick a random young girl from a rich family for the ransom money, either, but targeted someone specifically because he thought she would be useful to his project. Catherine was a real prodigy, too. Besides having mental powers fairly early she was a master musician and composer, and had already published a full symphony. She was working on another one when she disappeared."

"Not all masterminds are... so focused on their own interests and consider the desires or even rights of others to be irrelevant," said Vic, quietly. "Even those that are can usually be taught better, sometimes with the help of medication. That's the usual state of affairs today. Because they're so smart, though, they can often avoid attempts to help them. Which they see as interference. They really need to be caught early for a good hope of successful treatment. At the time whatever happened in that lab happened, this was just beginning to be learned."

"So what actually happened in that lab, all those years ago?" said Tombe, even more quietly than before.

* * *

Vic spent most of her first two days on the island doing grunt work and getting to know her tent mates. These were agents Tombe and Grimsby. Tombe was about Vic's age - though since Vic looked younger than that Tombe appeared older than her. Grimsby was middle-aged and grey. In hair and manner. Neither seemed to know that Vic had once been male, though both knew she was actually in her mid-twenties.

Tiger was already gone as the second day proceeded. When she inquired, Vic learned that the eccentric super had taken the daily supply boat back to the mainland early the morning of the day after her arrival, though he had helped unload it, first. Vic had also helped with that, but had somehow completely missed that Tiger had then loaded his own meager selection of belongings and boarded the boat. Apparently he felt that with Vic present, he could head back to the Bay Area Guardians. Vic wasn't so sure. She wasn't even certain she counted as a resister, despite her experience with the Balance Blades and a few other instances. However, even before coming here she had been informed that Folgert was a resister. What some people called a leadhead. Hopefully, that and Vic's training would be enough if there was a reappearance of the mysterious man.

At the start of her third day, Vic was back at the dock. She was again working at unloading another Park Service boat's load of supplies when she heard raised voices from near the cabin. At first she thought there might be another moose intrusion underway, but soon...

"Be quiet and keep your ears open," she cautioned the ranger who was in charge of the boat, in a low voice. This was actually the same man who had brought her to the island. He nodded, saying nothing.

Vic cat footed her way quickly up the path until she could see Folgert through the cleared trail. He was standing on the large front porch, arguing with someone on the ground, whom she couldn't see. Behind the FBI man were two of the techs, and they definitely looked out of it.

"I told you," said a voice which was new to Vic, from out of sight in the weeds to her left, the man speaking slowly and firmly, "order your people to pack up and get off this island."

"This is an FBI crime scene," said Folgert, staring at the unseen man. "This entire island. Who owns it is currently irrelevant. Now, who are you and on whose authority are you speaking?"

While the FBI man was talking Vic moved quickly but quietly through the undergrowth towards where the strange voice had come from, using her ears rather than her sense of perception. She literally almost ran into a man in a costume, who was standing near the speaking stranger. Another costumed figure - a woman - was on the far side of of the plainly clothed, slim man.

Though Vic wasn't expecting to encounter anyone but the one man speaking, she was still less surprised than the man in the costume. Who, like the techs, seemed less than all there. She hit him in the solar plexus with a ridgehand, and was very happy when that actually worked. He went down, focused on trying to inhale. Vic sensed movement and looked up to see the woman racing towards her at high speed, only slightly hampered by the heavy growth of weeds. Vic barely had time to spin out of the way, though she did also manage as part of that motion to grab the woman's arm and redirect her towards a young tree. The impact with the trunk momentarily stunned her, and definitely shook the tree, causing a distinct, sharp rustling.

The plainly-dressed man stared at Vic for a moment, then turned and bolted. Vic wanted to grab him, but both her opponents were already showing signs of recovery. Fortunately, Folgert vaulted the still-sturdy wrought iron railing around the porch and gave chase after the fleeing man. Vic instead stayed where she was and used super restraints to bind the woman's hands behind her, then also put a pair around her ankles. The costumed man was flipped over and his hands restrained behind his back. Folgert returned just as Vic finished binding the second costumed supers with the fiber-reinforced, polymer zip-tie. The FBI agent's expression was sour.

"Lost him. He obviously knows the area a lot better than I do. He's also very fast."

"I can't leave these two," said Vic, gesturing at the downed masks. "Unless you want to keep watch on a pair of supers while I try to find that guy?"

"Argh. We better call your Bureau and ask them to send someone out to pick them up. Oh, and to set up an island-wide alarm system," said Folgert, reluctantly. "We should have done that already, but there just wasn't justification for the expense before this."

"Are we sure that there's no currently active bugs anywhere here?" said Vic, looking worried as the thought occurred to her that someone associated with the stranger might be keeping tabs on the FBI operation.

"Yeah," said agent Folgert. "That's part of why we didn't have an alarm, already. We actually had a couple of gadgeteers - one on retainer for the FBI and the other a freelancer - come in and look the place over, besides using our own bug detectors. They didn't find anything."

He grinned.

"Now, whether Mordecai had any bugs too primitive for us to detect is another matter."

"Yeah, you folks were here for a while before he showed this time," said Vic, nodding. "It's more likely that guy is just checking the island for intruders every few days. Oh; on the way to make that call you also need to send someone to the dock to tell the ranger what happened, and have them bring the stuff he brought to our camp."

* * *

As it turned out, the Bay Area Guardians sent a hopper to perform both of the tasks agent Folgert requested assistance for. Tiger, who had just arrived back at the Bay Area Guardians base, was recalled to the scene to help with the work. So he would also be on the hopper.

The hopper was not amphibious, but one of the things Tiger had done during his brief but hyperactive stay on the island was to clear a landing area. It was small, so the hopper had to make a precision vertical descent, but a good pilot could safely land. This one was definitely good.

Vic was nearby with the two still somewhat confused stranger supers. She had made the big guy carry the speedy woman over his shoulders, something neither was happy about. The two of them were starting to slowly come out of whatever control they had been under, and identified themselves as Bull-Rush (the big guy) and Freepa (the speedster). Though a bit dazed, they were able to answer questions. They both said the last thing they remembered was training for an upcoming match for The Super Battle Federation. They didn't understand where they were or how they had come to be there or why they were under arrest. They weren't even certain where they had been while training. Unfortunately, just as they were becoming more talkative, any further replies had to be postponed until after the very noisy landing of the hopper.

"Here, they'll explain it to you," said Vic, straightfaced, as Cumulous and Steel Lace emerged from the vehicle.

"We'll what?" said Steel Lace, startled, as she and Cumulous approached to take charge of the prisoners. Beyond them, Tiger was ushering the techs off the suborbital craft.

This was the first time Vic had met either member of the Bay Area Guardians (Tiger being staff rather than an official team member) but she knew a lot about them and had spoken with them both by phone and in video conferences. She felt familiar enough with the pair to joke with them a bit. Though only a bit.

"They don't know where they are or how they got here," said Vic. "Apparently, they were mind controlled. Like your people were."

"Well, I almost didn't recognize you without the armor," said Steel Lace, smiling. "It's a good thing Tiger warned us."

"Yeah, it's comfortable, but I just can't wear it all the time," said Vic, with a shrug. "Anyway, can you folks take charge of these two? Also, can Tiger go see if he can hunt down the mind controller? He lost the person who went after him and I've been too busy with these two to try and find him."

"We saw a boat moving away from the island as we were landing," said Steel Lace, looking a bit embarrassed. "We didn't take any special notice of it. Anyway, we brought some techs who are going to set up the detectors Folgert requested, and Tiger needs to supervise them."

"That's great. If Cumulous will watch these two, I'll take you, Tiger and the techs over to Agent Folgert."

"I can even help with the setup," said Steel Lace, perhaps a bit smugly. Vic remembered that she had invented the unique powered armor she wore.

They left Cumulous with the captives. While Vic was introducing Steel Lace and the techs to Folgert, Tiger, indeed, tried to find the mind-controller. He returned quickly.

"I can't even follow his scent," muttered Tiger, irritated, to Vic. "I got it, there beside the porch, but after a short distance it vanished. There's no sign of him at all. I don't like that."

After helping Steel Lace and the techs get started on the alarm system, Vic and a couple of the FBI men tried to aid Tiger in again searching for the strange man's trail. However, again they lost his trail, about where Folgert and Tiger alone had. Apparently, the mysterious mind controller was an expert woodsman and good at covering his tracks.

"Did he leave the island?" said Folgert, after their report of failure. "If so, how? Boat? Submarine?"

"Steel Lace said they saw a boat leaving as they were landing," said Vic. "We even went even down to the shore, near where they saw the boat. No sign of any sort of access."

"Well, that's at least one person of interest gone," said Folgert, with a tired sigh.

"I'll go help Cumulous guard the prisoners," said Tiger. "There's a small chance the mind controller might try to get those two back."

"I'll go with you," said Vic

However, by the time they got back to the hopper the techs were finished and ready to leave. With Steel Lace, Cumulous, the prisoners and Tiger the hopper was actually a bit crowded.

"If I don't ride back back with them I'll have to start all over at the airport," Tiger said, with a wry smile. "Have I mentioned that I hate waiting at airports?"

"I know the feeling," said Vic, nodding.

"Well, finding that guy right now is probably not important," said Steel Lace. "The techs and I checked with the sensor net after we got it working, and there's nobody here that's not accounted for. Though we had to eliminate a lot of false signals from animals."

"I guess it's all right then," said Vic, though she still had a nagging thought that they needed to find the guy. She dismissed that as a bit of OCD. She turned to Tiger. "Okay, then, get going. Hopefully, we'll have a better opportunity to talk later."

"I'm actually looking forward to that," said Tiger.

Soon, with Vic back among the trees at a safe distance, the hopper made its noisy departure.