The man walked to his desk chair, only to find someone else sitting in it.

"Hi there," the woman said.

"Yes?" the man said, showing no sign of being taken aback by the sight of someone appearing out of nowhere.

"I got word that you were looking to hire some super-powered help," she said. "I'm Enchantra."

"Yes, I've heard of you. I would've preferred that you'd contacted me through those same channels. But yes, I can certainly use you."

"What do you need?"

"I'm conducting certain... studies... involving members of the so-called superhero community. The latest one calls for one who uses technology. I had hoped for Defender, but he seems to be unavailable."

"I've got just the hero for you. He's brave, chivalrous, and true. A real knight in shining armor."

"That sounds adequate." He handed her a piece of paper. "Deliver him to this location. And I certainly don't want to know what means you employ to get him there. But feel free to call on my tech robots if they can be of any assistance."

"I'll do that. Bye!" Her hand waved, then traced an intricate pattern in the air, and a few seconds later she was gone.

The man glanced down behind the desk. His companion, his silent partner, hummed contentedly. It had begun to analyze the woman's powers, category: mystical, and soon it would have someone in a technological category to work with as well. It was happy, and therefore he was likewise happy.


ADVENTURES OF THE TROUBLESHOOTER: THE THING IN THE BOX
By Gary Kleppe

Champions and associated characters and backstory are the property of Hero Games. Troubleshooter, Enchantra, and other original characters are mine. This story is based in part on role-playing game plots created by Steven Otte.



***

McGurk's Restaurant And Lounge buzzed with the excitement of Friday afternoon workers being relieved from the nine-to-five routine. Jorge Ramirez accepted another margarita and touched his smartphone to the server's receptor; the blip sounded telling him that his payment had gone through. Music played over the sound system: We all live in a yellow submarine. Aaron, the company's communications officer, liked this place since it catered to his baby boomer generation, from the movie posters on the walls to the "classic rock" music. Had it been Jorge's turn to choose, he would've gone somewhere with a younger appeal.

It had been a couple of weeks since he and his teammates had brought the Champions back from exile in the Qliphothic World and put a stop to the ambitions of Takofanes, the Undying Lord. Both of those successes had generated favorable publicity for the heroes involved, which in turn meant more exposure for JRTech. The staff had done outstanding work in coping with the increased demand for JRTech's products, and certainly deserved a celebratory binge.

Jorge sipped from his drink, and turned toward the table. "I have to tell you all a couple of things." The JRTech senior staff members who were sitting around the table paused and turned to listen. "First, I appreciate everybody's patience with me and the whole 'Troubleshooter' thing. The Champions are finally back and once they're recovered they should be able to resume doing what they'd been doing. So with luck, I should be able to wind down my own involvement in this stuff."

"I don't think any of us had that big a problem with it," Raj, the sales director, said. "It's actually given us some pretty decent publicity."

Jorge nodded. "Second: I got a call today," he said, "from a representative of Kalon Industries. He expressed interest in possibly buying us out."

"A person?" Naomi, the head of development, said with a smile. "I thought Kalon had replaced all of his human staff with AIs by now."

"I made it pretty clear that I wasn't interested in selling," Jorge continued. "But this worries me. When Charles Kalon moves in on somebody, he doesn't take no for an answer."

"I'm glad you did tell him no," Li, the head tester, said. "I know some people who work for Kalon Industries. They are humans, but they get treated like machines. The company works them until they break and then replaces them."

"Yeah. I've met the head of that company before, a long time ago when we were both in college. I still remember it pretty well."

***

Having an unusually effective memory, as Jorge did, was a great advantage most of the time. But the downside was having to remember things that you really didn't want to. Everything Jorge did that was stupid, shameful, or embarrassing stayed in his head and popped up at the worst times.

It was back in Jorge's freshman year at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Jorge found the course work to be pretty easy. He did the work and mastered the material and still had plenty of time left to get involved in other activities, one of which was working with an activist group. This group was protesting the UCF corporation as they came to campus to recruit seniors for job interviews. UCF had a record of horrible business practices, especially in Mexico to which a lot of their factories had moved during the 1990s.

Jorge agreed to stand outside of the student center and hand out flyers detailing some of UCF's abuses, from the factory workers who had burned to death because they had locked their doors to the children who developed birth defects because of toxic sludge that UCF dumped into local rivers and lakes. He had relatives still living back in Mexico who knew people who'd seen some of these things firsthand.

Another student came up to him. He was a slightly older man, long and thin with thick glasses. Jorge offered him a flyer. "Read about the things that UCF does in other countries."

The man didn't take the flyer. "I hear that you have an accent. Are you in this country legally?"

"Yeah, I moved here more than a decade ago and have my Green Card." Jorge wanted to answer none of your business, but wanted to avoid making a scene if he could.

"I bet you want to become a citizen, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Good idea to keep out of trouble then, mi amigo."

The meaning was clear: This guy was threatening to make trouble for Jorge unless he sat down and shut up. It was probably an idle threat. Most likely this person didn't know his name or anything else about him, and was just brown-nosing UCF in hopes of getting hired there. But did he really want to take that chance? This was the Information Age, where anything someone said about you might end up being spread out across the Internet where any potential employer might see it.

That day, Jorge went back to his dorm, and the flyers ended up in the recycle bin. What difference his participation would've ultimately made had he stayed, there was no way to know. Certainly UCF kept on doing what they had been doing, the Mexican government kept looking the other way, and the people there kept on getting poisoned. Some of his compadres from the activist group ended up expelled from the University; supposedly that had nothing to do with their activities, but of course the administration would have said that whether or not it was actually true. Did Jorge's giving up make him to some degree complicit in UCF's crimes? That seemed like a stretch, there was little chance his actions would've made any real difference, but he still felt guilty, as though he'd let down people who'd needed him.

He never met the man with the thick glasses again, but saw his picture in the news plenty of times. That man was Charles Kalon. Kalon did end up getting that job with UCF. Years later he would go on to start his own company, taking a fair chunk of UCF's institutional clients with him. Evidently being a loyal company man only went so far.

***

"Kalon's a nasty piece of work. What he can't buy out, he usually destroys," Jorge said to his JRTech colleagues. "Expect him to lean on his friends in government to get our VA contracts cancelled."

The song ended, and a new one started, asking Do you believe in magic? In a young girl's heart?

"I say we go on the offensive against Kalon," Raj said. "You know those voice-controlled personal assistants that Kalon makes?"

"Kalindra. I have one," Naomi said, sounding just a trace guilty.

"Right. We can make something similar. But ours will have genuine people personalities. Lots of people will jump at the chance to have their trivia questions and song requests answered by Angelina Jolie, or Barack Obama."

"I don't know that there'd be enough market for that to justify what it would cost to develop," Naomi said. "And most of the revenues would probably have to go to licensing the identities of the people in question."

"What about using people who're essentially in the public domain?" suggested Li. "I bet people would pay big bucks for a Groucho assistant. I know I would, even though it probably wouldn't provide much actual assistance."

"It's something to think about," Jorge said. "And designing a voice-controlled AI is something I'd love the chance to work on. I'm sure we could build one a lot smarter than what's available now. But I don't know if that would translate into enough sales, especially considering how saturated the market is already, with Amazon and Google and others making similar products, and with Kalon working to keep us out. I know this is funny coming from me, but we need to be careful about what we sink our money and time into. There are a lot of dead ends out there."

"I think we could make it work," Raj said. "Every problem has a solution." Everybody chuckled. That phrase was Kalon Industries' slogan that got repeated in most of their TV commercials.

"Well, well!" a voice came from behind.

Jorge turned to see who it is, and had to suppress his immediate gut reaction to run for the hills. "Enchantra?"

"Jorge Ramirez, the Troubleshooter himself! What a surprise meeting you here!"

Sweet Jesus, take me now, Jorge thought. He did have to admire the style with which Enchantra sported her lines of bullshit. That this meeting was really by chance was about as likely as him being in line to be the next Pope, and she knew that he knew it.

"You two have a history together?" Naomi asked.

"We sure do, sweetie. But I don't know that we should get into that." Enchantra smiled at me. "Let's not drag our dirty laundry out in front of these people, hm?"

The meaning was clear: They're better off not knowing. And that much Jorge definitely couldn't argue with.

***

It had been another Friday night, months ago, but Jorge sat alone in his lab, watching the readout on the computer screen. Something should start happening soon. So far the equipment he'd cobbled together had managed to produce a localized distortion of time and space. But there was nothing more than that. Despite the considerable energy being channeled in, no gates to other-dimensional realities were opening, at least not yet. He would rather have been out with friends, but the Champions were stuck in who-knows-where, and there was no telling how much longer they could last if someone didn't help them get back. Besides, while this business of alternate planes of reality was daunting, it was also incredibly intriguing. If he could break the reality barrier, who knows what wonders and horrors he could find?

A blip sounded on the computer screen. The scanner readouts showed some sort of anomaly had come into range. A space-time distortion pulse from somewhere else was about to pass through, and was now near enough to our reality to be detected. For a moment, Jorge hesitated. By using his own equipment, he might be able to divert this whatever-it-is, but would that really be a good idea? Whatever this was, introducing it into our own universe could have serious consequences.

The pulse drew nearer. Jorge began adjusting his equipment. There was no real choice. Whether this was the dreaded C'lthulu or the second coming of the Almighty, it was an opportunity that would almost surely never come again, and he'd never know what it was if he didn't act now. He frantically clicked on controls, steering the distortion in this direction. The room around him seemed to tilt and buckle, and he felt as though he might disgorge his dinner at any moment, but he hung on.

Energy sizzled above the floor, coalescing into the shape of a young woman. Clad in plain gray robes, her brownish hair lie in a disheveled tangle, framing a dirty face. Her eyes blinked as she slowly began to look up.

Jorge had no idea what he'd expected, but this definitely wasn't it. "Uh... hello?"

The woman's hands traced an intricate pattern in the air as she mumbled something incomprehensible. Then electrical energy formed around her fingertips. "Let... me... go!" she cried, and pointed, and a jolt of electricity shot through the air in Jorge's direction. The bolt tore through his armor and across his body, a sensation like being ripped to shreds. The force of the bolt knocked him off his feet and onto his rear end.

Jorge struggled to stay conscious as he got up. "...no problem, leave anytime you want..." he mumbled feebly. The woman swooned and fell to the floor.

***

And it only got worse from there.

"I read about your battle with the Undying Lord," Enchantra said with a disarming smile. "Congratulations on your amazing victory!"

"The others beat him," Jorge said. "I ended up trapped inside my own mind and had to be rescued later. Really, we were completely outclassed by this guy. We'd never have won if he hadn't gotten careless and made a really dumb mistake."

"Just because they're super-intelligent doesn't mean they've got brains," she said with a smirk. The others laughed. Jorge marveled at how charming when she wanted to, even without using her magic.

Enough was enough. Jorge had no idea what she was up to, but didn't see much point in sticking around for it. He pushed his chair back. "Well, I think I should go--" He tried to stand but suddenly felt groggy. The room seemed to sway and swoon around him, and he had to grab the table to steady himself.

"Had a little too much to drink?" Enchantra said.

Raj looked down at Jorge's half-full margarita glass. "How many have you had? Didn't seem like that many."

"It's probably exhaustion more than anything else," Naomi said. "With all the work he's been doing, plus the whole superhero thing, I'm not surprised."

"Should I go out and hail you a taxi, hon?" Enchantra asked.

Jorge wanted nothing more than to just lie down and go to sleep. But for obvious reasons that could be hazardous to his well-being. "Gotta go bathroom!" Summoning all the will power he could muster, he grabbed his case, pushed away from the table, and plodded toward the back of the restaurant.

***

Jorge went into the nearest stall, and turned the knob to bolt the door shut. His brain was already clearing from whatever she'd done to him. Sitting on the toilet with his pants still on, he set the case across his legs. Whatever she was up to, he'd be better equipped to deal with it with his armor on.

The key turned in the lock, and the locking mechanism moved, but the case still didn't open. Some unseen force was clamping it shut.

Mother of God, what now? he thought. She'd put some sort of whammy on his case. He could probably force it open, but there was no time; she could teleport in here any moment.

***

Enchantra got there just in time to see the men's room door swing shut. She walked into the women's, finding it empty except for one person in one of the stalls. She pulled out a hand mirror and began casting a scrying spell. Her quarry would have to be in the adjacent room since there was only one way out. She stared into the mirror. There were a couple of people but neither was Jorge. One of the stall doors was closed and a pair of legs peeked out from below it. That had to be him. She moved her viewpoint into the stall. But it was a different man, and she quickly moved her view back out, not wanting to watch what this person was doing.

She scanned the room. On the far wall there was an open window that might be big enough for a man to crawl through. That was a clever move. That was one thing she liked about Jorge, he did have some smarts and wasn't a pushover. She moved her mirror's viewpoint out through the window, ending up in the parking lot beside the restaurant. To one side was the front door. To the other was the door to the kitchen and a pair of big garbage dumpsters. No sign of Jorge. She tried to think: If she were him, what would she have done? Without his armor, he'd be on foot, or in a car. This time of day was what they called rush hour, which meant a lot of cars on the road, so either way he wouldn't be able to get too far.

It was interesting how different this world was from the one from which she had been exiled. She had a kind of freedom here that she'd never had before, partly because she didn't officially exist here, but more because few here knew anything about magic and most of them had no idea how to defend themselves against it. That much at least was a welcome change, considering what it had been like for her before she got here.

***

"Ashalla of the House of Samarclaw," the stout, long-bearded Dwergr man read from a scroll, "you stand complicit in your regime's crimes against humanity. The list of your family's atrocities is long and horrifying."

The bearded man began to recite a litany of accusations against the royal family. She tuned him out. True or false, what did it matter now? She stood on the raised wooden platform as a breeze blew across her back, caressing her hair, and she tried to savor it while she could, for her life was likely over soon. There would be no escape. She'd very nearly managed it when she'd been locked up in jail, by persuading her guard to let her out of her cell with the promise of a tryst, then posing as a serving wench. If she'd gotten far enough to be outside the jail's damnable magic suppression field, she could've teleported herself away, but no such luck.

Angry shouts erupted from the crowd that surrounded the platform. It was an odd mix of all classes, from former noblemen and noblewomen, down to peasants who probably had no particular love for the royal family but had neither any desire to submit to an invading foreign power. Scanning through the crowd, Ashalla spotted her cousin Ling, her mouth open and fist raised. This was a true irony. Ashalla and Ling had been rivals vying for the same honors in school, until Ashalla had used a self-alteration spell to pose as the headmaster thereby tricking Ling into disgracing herself in front of everyone. That was a crime that Ashalla was actually guilty of, but its victim was risking imprisonment to save Ashalla from being punished for things her family might have done that she'd had nothing to do with.

Ashalla hadn't had any particular dislike for Ling in those days. That was just how the game was played — and as the most talented sorceress of her generation, she played it better than most. She used all kinds of mischief to her advantage, and never with any consequences. Accusing a noble of underhanded political gamesmanship was something that just wasn't done, even though most of them were guilty of it.

Then the Dwergr came. From massive airships descended these stout bearded warrior men -- Ashalla had yet to see any Dwergr women, or perhaps they looked indistinguishable from the men? -- who were somehow resistant to magic. With disconcerting ease they fought their way past the Kingdom's defenses and into the Palace. Had they had help from within the Kingdom? In retrospect, it was difficult to see how they could've succeeded to the degree they did without it. The rest of Ashalla's family, brave, loyal, and stupid to the end, fought to stop the invaders, and died. Ashalla herself ran. For months she hid, surviving by her mystic skills and her wits. It was the same game as before, but the stakes had been raised, with her freedom and possibly her life to be lost if she should be captured. Which eventually she was.

By now the crowd's rumblings had increased in intensity. The Dwergr with the scroll yelled for "Silence!" to no avail. Would there be a riot? Ashalla contemplated whether she would be able to escape in the confusion, but it seemed unlikely with her arms shackled and the guard behind her still watching her intently.

Another Dwergr, this one's beard even bushier and grayer than the other, stepped onto the platform, carrying what looked like the hollowed-out tusk of a gigantic elephant. Lifting this instrument and putting his mouth on the narrow end, this new Dwergr blew, and a deafening noise blatted out. The crowd's shouts died down as most of them put their hands over their ears.

"We hear and understand your reluctance to see the last member of your royal family put to death," the older Dwergr said, as Ashalla listened through ringing ears. "A decision has been made. She will not be executed. Instead, she will be exiled, to an undisclosed location."

A reprieve, but was it really? It would be easy for them to kill her, and tell everyone that she'd been exiled to where they'd never find her. Or they could send her off to the Andor Wastelands, somewhere where she wouldn't be able to survive on her own, just so they could honestly claim they didn't kill her.

But at least this meant there was hope. If they didn't kill her, and if she could survive, then one day she would be back; and on that day, for what these usurpers had done to her and her family, she would repay them a thousandfold.

***

Her memories of the time after that were spotty. She remembered waking up in Troubleshooter's laboratory, and lightning bolting him, being disoriented and having no idea who he was. After that she woke up on his couch. At that point she apologized profusely for blasting him, expecting that this oddly young wizard or whatever he was might throw her into a dungeon or something. But he didn't seem angry at all, and only wanted to know that she was okay, and that he hadn't screwed up by intercepting her on her way to somewhere. A true knight in shining armor, that one. Not many people would've reacted that way to an attack that could've killed him. Enchantra generally didn't believe in deities that took personal interest in the lives of humans; real metaphysics was more complicated than that. But the fact that she had been sent to Jorge certainly made it seem like someone up there was watching out for her.

She decided to give her name as Enchantra, an alias that she'd adopted while on the run from the Dwergr. Real names had power, and there was no reason that anyone here should have hers. Enchantra would be her name in this world.

Okay, she thought as she smiled to herself, bringing her mind back to the present. Clearly her quarry wasn't here. She'd given him more than enough time to hide. It was time to go find him.

***

Jorge burst through the doorway into his laboratory. His legs still ached from being cramped inside the dumpster for twenty minutes, and his clothes smelled like rancid food. But, he hoped, at least he had given Enchantra the slip and could get into his armor before she caught up with him again.

He set his case down on a table. The front of it was being magically held, but he might be able to open it by taking the screws off the bottom. If not, he would have to use a hacksaw to cut off one of the sides. Sometimes the low-tech solutions were the best ones, or at least the fastest.

Passing by the desk, he saw a faint shimmering in the air above the chair. He stared, and saw a vaguely person-shaped outline.

"Oh, no," he said.

"Oh, yes." Enchantra became visible. "You're off your game, sweetie. Not even trying. This is the first place I thought of looking for you." She held out a hand. "Let's take a trip. When we get there I'll give you your armor back."

I'm not far enough off my game to fall for that, he thought, and picked up a crowbar. The tip was narrow enough to wedge between the top and bottom of the case. He moved the case farther into the table so that the bar had some leverage, and pulled the end down. The case started to give.

"There's something I really should tell you," she said.

The case flung open. A greenish gas squirted into Jorge's face. He lost consciousness and slumped down onto the floor.

"That isn't your case. It's a decoy that my patrons came up with. I swapped it out while you were carousing," he was vaguely aware of her saying.

***

Her initial attack aside, Enchantra had seemed reasonable at first when Jorge talked with her. Her mistaking him for one of the people who'd been keeping her prisoner and zapping him was, while not exactly pleasurable, certainly understandable, and once she was fully awake and aware she apologized for it. But it was odd, to say the least, that she'd never heard of Millennium City, or Michigan, or even the United States.

Jorge pulled out a tablet computer and loaded up Google Earth.

"What's this?" she asked. "Some sort of all-seeing oracle?"

"Nah, this is an ASUS tablet. I don't think Oracle makes any hardware like this."

"I don't get how technology works," she said. "There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. The picture shows the world and moves when you want it to just because it does. It's like..."

"Like magic?" Jorge grinned. She laughed. He showed the display to her. "Here, this is where we are."

Her eyes widened. "But-- but-- this place was destroyed. This is where Bleurgah The Mad conjured up a huge disintegration sphere that vaporized the whole area. I've seen it. It's nothing but a big lake now."

"That was Doctor Destroyer. And he only destroyed the city, not the land it's on. The city got rebuilt." He showed her how to drag the display with her finger. "Show me where you're from."

"Majeston City. It's here." She looked closely at the display. "But for some reason it's called something different on your map. What does 'Akron' mean?"

They finally figured out that she came from a parallel Earth. She was being sent away to somewhere, but Jorge unwittingly intercepted her. Was the process reversible? Jorge had no idea how to send her back, and wouldn't whoever kicked her out of her own reality just do the same thing again?

Then a call came over the radio, from Nocturne. There would be an illegal arms shipment arriving in the area, he said, and asked Jorge to apprehend the people involved. He invited Enchantra to wait and rest until he got back. He went out and pretty easily found the weapons and the seller and turned both over to the police, but the buyer was nowhere to be found, and Enchantra was likewise gone when Jorge returned to the lab. A few days later, based on information provided by the sellers, the police had nabbed the buyers. Jorge had the chance to talk with one of them, and he still remembered exactly what the man had said.

"My associate, Michael, and I met at the location to pick up the delivery. He had this woman with him. I told him -- since we're in polite company here, I'm gonna use 'stupid person' and 'lady friend,' even though that's not exactly what I said -- I told him 'Mikey, you stupid person, you can't have one of your lady friends with you when we're on a job.' He said that this lady was a super, and could probably blast both of us to kingdom come if she wanted. I asked if he was sure about that. All of the sudden she just disappeared into thin air, and when I turned she was right behind me.

"Now no offense, but me and supers, I mean, I'm not a fan of them. The honest ones will just punch your lights out and give you to the cops. The other kind will punch you out and take your money. I didn't know which kind this one was. And I told her, this other super, Armored Man, that's what I called you 'cause I didn't know your name, was flying around, maybe looking for us. She said she knew, and could help us hide.

"She told us to huddle together, which we did, and I tried not to rub up against her in the wrong places, I think you know what I mean. Anyway, she had a cloak on her back that she took off and spread out over the three of us, and then suddenly nobody could see us. I mean, we couldn't even see each other. So I just stayed still, and you flew right by and didn't see us at all.

"Now here's where it gets weird. When we got back to our, er, dispatch office, whats-her-name super woman was still hanging around. She wanted a favor from one of us. She was new in this world, she said, and there was a lot she needed to know. We said fine, we'll answer her questions, but she said no, that would take too long. She wanted to do something she called a knowledge transfer spell that would take information from our heads and put it in her head. It should be completely safe, she said, not that she ever did anything like this before. But the person she did it to had to consent and not resist at all, or it wouldn't work. So Mikey, ladies man that he is, right away volunteered, and I told him to go ahead, whatever. So she's got her hands on his head for maybe an hour or so, and then they're done, and she says she just remembered something about the transfer spell. Transfer, she says, is about taking from one place and putting it in another place. I said yeah, so? But then she says gotta go, and pops out. But pretty soon I figured it out after I talked with Mikey. Seems that he now doesn't remember what guns are for, or how the teevee works, or a whole bunch of other stuff. Poor sap."

Poor sap indeed. Jorge wondered about this person that he'd inadvertently brought into this world. What kind of person was she?

***

Jorge became fully conscious, and was not at all surprised to find himself somewhere else. He was in a small square room, about the size of a larger-end bedroom, with stone walls. One wall had a heavy metallic door which was closed. Agaisnt the opposite wall stood a desk with what looked like a standard desktop PC. On a nearby shelf was a metallic cylider that Jorge recognized as a Kalindra unit. Our friends Kalon Industries at work. The fourth wall had another shelf. Sticking out from it was an opened briefcase inside which Jorge spotted his Troubleshooter armor.

Okay, first things first, he thought. Let's try our friendly voice-controlled assistant, as that's the least likely to be booby-trapped. "Hello, Kalindra."

"Hello," it said.

"Kalindra, where am I?"

"You are in the sub-basement of the Felser-Smallins building, at 1400 North 60th Street, Millennium City, Michigan, USA."

"What's Felser-Smallins?" Whoops, didn't say Simon Says. "Kalindra, what's Felser-Smallins?"

"Felser-Smallins is a securities holding company which had offices in Millennium City. The company was founded in 1996 and went out of business in 2017."

"Stop. Kalindra, who uses this building now?"

"The Felser-Smallins building is leased to several tenants, including David MacDonald, M.D.; the law offices of Moffett and--"

"Stop. Kalindra, who owns the building?"

"Kalon Industries."

Curiouser and curiouser. Was it a coincidence that Jorge had been kidnapped and brought to one of their buildings at a time when they were trying to take control of his company? It seemed unlikely, but he needed more to go on.

He decided to try the computer next. It booted up and he had no trouble getting on. Could he use it to send a notification to somebody letting them know where he was? No, external communications and access to the Internet were locked down and required authentication based on biometric data scans. Those could be worked around but that would take time that he probably didn't have. The Kalindra unit was on the network and could be accessed, but that was about as far as he could go.

He connected to the unit and sent over some instructions. "Hello, world!" the Kalindra unit said, which was what he had programmed. So he could control it, but it couldn't send a message out or do anything else to help him either.

At least he could use the computer to see what else was in the building. There was a feed through which he could connect to building security cameras. Past the door, which the server said would be open, was a storage room and a flight of stairs. On the floor above, a robot, about eleven feet tall. The computer had design schematics for the robot, which Jorge read through eagerly. The technology was amazing. The robot was actually made of a series of smaller components, each one about an inch wide; these components were independently powered and controlled and could be directed to rearrange themselves under the control of the central processor.

The conclusion seemed simple: Jorge had to fight the robot to get to the other stairs that led up and out.

A couple of things came to mind. First, all of this really didn't seem like something that Enchantra would set up. Technology wasn't her thing. It was likely that she was working with, or for, someone else. Second, if the point was to keep Jorge here, why provide him with all this information? It seemed more likely that they wanted him to fight the robot. Was this a new reality show that someone was making? Or were they looking to size up his combat ability to prepare for another fight later? For now, there was no way to tell.

After poking and pushing the case in what was probably a futile attempt to check for booby traps, Jorge took the suit out of the case and put it on. He ran on-board diagnostics and scanned the exterior of the suit with the microscopic lenses. Everything was, or at least looked to be, quite normal.

He activated the helmet's radio unit. Oddly enough, the reception didn't seem to be blocked; he adjusted the frequency and picked up some guy ranting about how godless minority immigrants were destroying our way of life. Yeah, there was a reason he didn't listen to AM talk radio. But could he transmit out? He tried sending a signal, but a cloud of white noise immediately burst out onto the frequency that he used. Whoever had arranged all of this certainly knew their stuff. He really wanted to study whatever equipment they had and learn how it all worked. But first things first.

The suit's antigrav generator activated. Jorge zipped through the air and zig-zagged through the stairwell up to the next floor. The robot immediately turned, and part of its body seemed to crumple and fold, morphing into a fairly formidable-looking blaster rifle attachment. A burst of energy shot towards Jorge, but he managed to get out of the way in time. His helmet picked up an exchange of digital radio signals, at the extremely short-wavelength end of the band, back and forth between the robot and somewhere else. It was being coached?

Time to return fire. Jorge aimed his armor's blaster at the robot's midsection and fired. It staggered a bit.

More radio signals chattered back and forth. There was a slight scraping of metal against metal inside the robot, and its body now glowed with a slight yellowish sheen. Jorge had a sneaking suspicion as to what this meant.

He fired another blast, then ducked at it came right back at him, zooming right past his head. As he'd thought, the robot, along with its silent partner somewhere, was adapting, developing defenses against his attack. That meant he had to take it out quickly, using the attacks he had left that it hadn't seen yet, before it had a chance to develop counters to them.

The robot's gun appendage morphed again, into a wider cannon. It shrieked, filling the area with a deafening sound that made Jorge's whole head vibrate. "Hey! No fair copying my own attack!" he said. In hindsight, it would've been a good idea to add a defense against that sonic thingy into his armor. But this meant that the robot not only adapted defensively but offensively as well. It had had trouble hitting Jorge with its regular attack so it switched to one that covered a wider area.

Now or never, Jorge thought. He hovered near the robot, adjusted his gravitational field generator to increase his effective mass, and reared back to throw his Sunday punch. It landed with thunderous force making a sizable dent in the robot. It shook and sputtered, and radio signals went frantically back and forth. Jorge couldn't let up now. He got ready to do it again.

Suddenly the world seemed to twist around him, and he fell sideways across the room, slamming into a wall. For a moment he couldn't react, and his brain locked up like a computer given indecipherable input.

The robot had now formed its front end into something akin to a gigantic conical drill, about a meter in diameter. It charged forward. Jorge made a mad dive above it at the last minute, and the drill skewered into the wall where he had just been.

*What do I do now?* he asked himself as the robot backed up. He could make a run for it up the far stairwell but he'd be a sitting duck for whatever it came up with next. The only attack he hadn't tried was the laser drill. That was primarily intended to cut through obstacles, not for combat. But he would have to try it. He switched that on but it would take twelve seconds to warm up and he would have to avoid its other attacks in the meantime. And there was no reason to think that it wouldn't be able to adapt to that just like it had his other devices.

Digital chatter buzzed over the shortwave radio band. An idea began to form. He just hoped he could stay alive long enough to put it into effect.

The robot remodled its exterior again, and the blaster rifle attachment was back. Jorge dodged over a burst of energy. So far so good, but it would get nastier.

The gun shifted back into the sonic cannon. Jorge waited until it had positioned itself and was about to fire, then sped across the room to get outside the cone. The sound screamed through the air. He had just made it.

The robot morphed again. The cannon turned into a sphere, raised up over its body on what looked like a thin pole. Jorge guessed that this attack would cover the entire room. With no other option, he pressed his fingers against his ears. Sure enough, the sonic attack wailed through the entire area. Thankfully, this one didn't seem quite as loud as the last, and he was still conscious after it stopped.

The laser drill showed as ready, and Jorge flew forward. As he approached the robot, he set his radio to start transmitting on the same frequency that the robot had used. The same interference from before started up again, on that same frequency. That meant that, unless the robot had some backup communications system that he didn't know about, it would be momentarily unable to communicate with its home base. He zipped over to a certain spot and started drilling. This spot was, according to his receiver, the spot from which the robot's shortwave signals had originated. The laser cut through the metal. The robot undulated from side to side and spun around. Jorge stayed in front of the same spot and kept cutting. The metal was loosened enough for him to pull back a tab, exposing some computer chips. Jorge drilled through them.

The robot stopped moving. Jorge continued using the laser until the thing's entire internal workings were exposed and anything that looked like it might possibly be important had been destroyed. He paused, half-expecting the broken pieces to start slithering together and re-form. When, to his relief, that didn't happen, he flew onward and upward.

***

The second flight of stairs led to a ground-floor office suite. Jorge could see the hallway that led to the building exit behind a glass door. In the center of the room stood a large wooden desk, behind which sat a man in an expensive business suit. Jorge hadn't seen this man in over a decade, and he no longer wore thick glasses, but nevertheless he was instantly recognizable. "Kalon?"

Kalon turned almost robotically towards Jorge, but said nothing.

"You're behind this?"

Kalon nodded.

"You better have a good reason for having me abducted and locked up."

"Of course I do. I don't do anything without a good reason."

"Let's just go to the police," Jorge said, feeling about to boil over with anger and frustration. He tried his radio again, but the same static came on. He had to get out of the building for it to work, he supposed.

"I don't think so."

"I don't want to fight you, but I will if it comes to that." Jorge looked over at Kalon who didn't seem to have any weaponry or other equipment at all. "I've got a suit of powered battle armor. What've you got?"

"This." Kalon reached behind his desk and pulled out an object which he set on the desk. It was a cubic box, about half a meter on each side, dark brownish red with yellow metal siding inlaid across the edges.

"Ummm... what is it?"

"It's a box," Kalon said. "Inside is a machine. Or possibly a being. Or maybe something that's a bit of both. I don't know. Something alien to Earth."

"What does it do?"

"It learns. Adapts. Analyzes potential threats and obstacles and develops techniques to deal with them."

"How'd it get here?"

"Someone sent it. Whatever race built it. I've no idea who that is. I haven't asked, and it hasn't told me. What I do know is that it's the precursor to an invasion force."

"Invasion? So you have no qualms about selling out your planet to another race without even knowing who they are?"

"None whatsoever. When they've dominated the Earth, I'll be their proxy and rule it in their stead. And they will dominate it. The machinery to control your race is pretty much already in place. The biggest threat will be independent persons with special abilities, such as yourself."

Your race. Not our race. Evidently that thing had already taken over his mind, or at least most of it. "So you're, I mean your box is, studying people like me to figure out how to beat us? That's why you had me fight that robot?"

"Correct. Someone like you might be a problem for us. But every problem has a solution."

Ugh. Jorge had heard enough. Well, almost. "What's Enchantra getting out of this?"

"Money. She has no idea what our long-term plan is. We offered a reward to anyone who would help us detain the persons we needed, and she accepted."

"I don't think I buy that. With some of the magic I've seen her do, she could get lots of money pretty easily if that's what she wanted."

"You will buy it, because it's what I'm offering." Yeah, Jorge thought, there's the business model of Kalon Industries in a nutshell.

"Enough of this," Kalon said. Jorge braced himself in midair, looking from side to side for an attack that was clearly imminent. It never came. The box began to hum and whir. All at once, the charge level on his internal battery went from full down to empty. His flight unit cut off, returning his gravity to normal and landing him on his rear end with a thud.

Jorge got to his feet and walked toward the door. But the box continued to make noise, and it was in his head, a screaming voice that couldn't be heard but overwhelmed his thoughts and ate away at his consciousness. He slumped to the floor.

***

Enchantra pulled her cloak's hood off her head, making herself visible. Some sort of robotic servants were carrying the unconscious Troubleshooter down the stairs. "Is he going to die?" she asked.

"Do you care?" Kalon said.

"Well, no. But yes. I mean, it would be a waste. He's actually quite useful to have around."

"Yes, of course he has to die. He knows about me and my plans. I can't let him go around telling people. Somebody might believe him."

"All right, it's your call, I suppose." Enchantra thought it would be a good idea to leave. She activated a spell. It was an enchantment she'd invented herself, that left an image of herself in place and let her walk away invisibly. It was great for getting away from troublesome people before they even knew she was gone.

She stepped towards the door, and did a double-take when she saw that there was no image of herself, and she was still visible.

"I'm not the fool that you evidently think I am," Kalon said. "While I was analyzing him, I also analyzed you, and we came up with a field to block your magic."

"I just want to leave," she said, but he obviously wasn't about to let her. She moved toward the box, intending to do... something. Without being able to cast spells, there wasn't a lot she could do.

A stream of gas emanated from the box into Enchantra's face. She felt her knees buckle, and then she felt nothing at all.

***

A pair of robots burst into the square room, carrying Enchantra's limp form. Jorge could see his armor in the storage room outside the door, but they clearly weren't about to let him get at it. After very indelicately setting Enchantra on the floor, the robots exited, shutting and locking the door behind them. Groaning, she began to stagger to her feet.

"Well, well, well," Jorge said.

Enchantra turned and saw who she was locked up with.

"Sorry," she said.

"Oh, that's all right. You kidnapped me and turned me over to a maniac who's under the control of alien invaders, and now he's probably going to kill both of us. But at least you're sorry about it!"

"He wanted me to bring you here so you could fight his robot. You're always fighting your way out of these kinds of situations. I figured you wouldn't mind."

"I fight because I have to, not because I want to," Jorge said. But berating her, however much she had it coming, didn't seem like it would be very productive at the moment. They had bigger problems. "Look, we need to work together to stop Kalon and whatever that thing is that's giving him orders. I don't suppose you like it any more than I do. But there's no way around it. At least for now, we need to be open and honest with each other. Can you manage that?"

"I'll try," she said. "I've never been good at being open and honest. I spent over a year running and hiding from people who'd killed the rest of my family. The only way I survived was by not trusting anybody."

"I feel for you. And truth to tell, I don't mind some of the stuff you put me through. Trying to anticipate what you're going to do next can be fun, like solving a puzzle. But this alien thing intends to kill us, and down the road they're going to invade the Earth and take over. Does that mean anything to you?"

"When you put it that way, it sure does," she said. "I'll help you beat Kalon. After that, no promises."

"Okay, then. First off, tell me the truth. What were you looking to get out of this? Not just money, surely."

"You're right. It was the thing in the box. There's a component to it that's mystical. That's like a thumb in the eye to some very powerful forces who would look very favorably on someone who brought it to them so that they could destroy it."

"Are you sure that's what they want to do? Not try to use it for their own purposes?" Jorge interjected. "We need to destroy the box ourselves. That's the only way we can be sure."

"Kalon's the key. There's what you'd probably call a symbiotic relationship between the two of them. Together they're formidable. Apart, not so much."

"Okay. Let's get out of here. You've probably got a whole bunch of ways to do that. We can talk about all of this afterwards," Jorge said, knowing full well that this would be one of those "somedays" that never came.

"Okay. I don't feel any suppression field down here, so it shouldn't be a problem." She began to wave her hands and chant, then yelled "Ow!" as a loud Zap! sounded from something on her neck. It was some sort of metallic collar that hadn't been there before.

"It looks like that whatever-it-is in the box has analyzed you too. I suppose that's going to happen every time you cast a spell?"

She started a different set of motions and sounds. Zap! "Aiee!"

Jorge sat at the computer and began to look through the files. It had been pretty good about providing information earlier. "Oh yeah, I see. That alien thing has analyzed you pretty good. There's a complete algorithm for what you need to do to cast something, and the collar is programmed to zap you when you do."

"Can you get it off me?" she asked.

"Not without tools." He saw some other files on the system and examined them. "Oh for the love of God. Do you know why Kalon hasn't killed us yet? He put out inquiries looking for anyone offering a bounty. Now there's a good businessman for you."

Enchantra grimaced. "Any takers?"

"Looks like it." Jorge examined some other files. "The Circle of the Scarlet Moon for both of us... Argent for me... for you... DEMON?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I borrowed some things from them that they didn't want to give up. Sort of a long story." She leaned in towards him. "There's still one thing I can do. But it'll send me away in a random direction. It may take me some time but I'll come back for you. Okay?"

Jorge shrugged. "I guess it'll have to be." He still wasn't sure whether to believe her, but what other option was there?

"Okay, then, time to make my egress," she said, and disappeared. "Egress" must've been a trigger word set to activate her teleport. A moment later she appeared again, by the center of the far wall. "Aaargh!" she screamed in frustration, her hands flailing.

"Looks like the room somehow blocks your teleport," Jorge said. Had this alien creature thought of everything? "Is there anything else you can do that doesn't require you to chant and gesture?"

"Well..."

He glared at her.

"There is one class of spells, but I don't think it'll help us get out of here. These don't work on the physical world. They influence other people's minds."

"I see," Jorge said, coming to the inescapable realization that the only other person in the room was him. "So we can't get out, but at least you've got me at your mercy."

"I could've had you at my mercy at any time pretty easily, sweetie" she said. "That's not how I play the game."

Jorge had to admit, she had a fair point there. Had she wanted to, she could've ambushed him in the shower, or any other time when he didn't have his armor on. So maybe she did have some sense of fair play and there were some lines she wouldn't cross. But none of this would help with their immediate problem.

Clicking an icon on the computer, he connected and sent a message, and the voice of Kalindra spoke up: "Looks like we're in deep doo-doo." Enchantra boggled. Jorge pointed to the text on the screen where he had sent it the message, and she nodded in understanding.

The vestiges of an idea formed in Jorge's mind. Not a good idea, but at this point he was willing to try anything. "Can you cast your spell to blow open the door, but without voicing the words? Just go through the motions and lip-synch the words?"

"Sure, but if I don't say the words, the spell won't work."

He smiled. "Like I said, there's a full analysis here of what you say to trigger your spells."

"So?"

"So, I think I can get someone else to do the words."

He glanced over at the Kalindra unit. She followed his eyes, and hers widened.

***

The lightning blast struck the door, blowing a hole in it and knocking it off one hinge. Jorge wasted no time in scrambling over to his armor and suiting up.

Enchantra pointed to her neck.

"Right, hold still," Jorge said, and stopped to think a moment. He could snap the thing, but he might accidentally choke her. There was the laser drill, but that might also injure her if his accuracy were less than perfect.

He reached around to part of the collar that was thicker than the rest. Grabbing it between two fingers, he squeezed and crushed. Bits of circuitry poked out from the glob that was left.

"See if you can do your stuff now."

She did, and managed to produce a small mystic bolt with no reaction from the collar.

"Good enough for now," Jorge said. "We can get a metal snips later and do it right." Footsteps sounded from above. "That'll be Kalon. We have maybe less than a minute to figure out how to beat him and his box."

"As soon as he sees me, he'll switch on an anti-magic field, and I won't be able to do anything," Enchantra said.

"He can drain my armor as well." Jorge's mind raced, looking for a solution. Every problem has a solution. That was Kalon Industries' slogan, but Jorge knew that it wasn't always true. "What can we do?"

She smiled, and raised a hand. "I know something I can do."

"Oh no. You're not going to just pop out and leave me to face him alone, are you?"

***

Box in hand, Kalon reached the bottom of the stairs to find Troubleshooter by himself. "She left?"

"Uh huh. What else would you expect from somebody like her? All she cares about his herself. Your thing will probably wipe the floor with me but I've still gotta try."

"How noble." His box whirred and clicked, and registered in his mind that the armor had been drained, and it was once again attacking him at a mental level. "The exact same tactics, and it still works. It seems that you don't adapt very well."

Troubleshooter staggered forward, looking like he was about to collapse. Then suddenly he stopped and faced Kalon. "Then again maybe I do." He reached out an arm and made some quick motions while speaking incomprehensibly. Then a mystic bolt from his hand slammed Kalon into a wall.

"How--" Kalon said, and then blacked out.

***

Cancelling her Alter Self spell turned Enchantra back into her usual form. "I always say, being super-intelligent doesn't mean they've got brains," she said. "I'll have my cloak back now, please."

Troubleshooter appeared and handed her the cloak. "That's handy. Can I get one like it?"

"Only if you can make it. If you study for ten years you might be able to learn the spell."

"You know, I really think you're more convincing as me than I am as me." Jorge grabbed the box away from the unconscious Kalon and set it by the stairs. "This has to be destroyed."

"I know." Enchantra stood looking down at Kalon. "But I owe this one for gassing me and locking me up. I always pay my debts." She began casting a spell.

"Please don't kill him," Jorge said.

"I won't." Energies flashed around her hands and onto her unconscious victim. "But I'm giving him a curse."

"What kind of curse?"

"I don't know. The curse spirits decide. I only invoke them."

"Interesting." Jorge looked down, but in Kalon's place was somebody he had never seen before. "Hey, who's that?"

"That's Kalon," Enchantra said.

"No he isn't." Jorge looked closer, but he was sure that this was a different person. "Is he?"

"Oh, I see. That's the curse. It's making it so that you can't recognize him when you see him. I bet no one can, except me because I cast it."

"Nasty. I wonder... Hey, Kalindra!" Jorge called into the other room. "Scan this area and identify every person in this room."

"Three persons present. First Jorge Ramirez, code name Troubleshooter. Second name unknown, code name Enchantra. Third person is unknown, information not on file."

"Holy crap. That's some curse if even his biometric scanners can't identify him anymore. That means he won't be able to use anything on his computer network. It's all keyed to his information. But anyway, thanks. You could've left, but you stayed even though it meant you might have ended up captured again."

"My pleasure, sweetie." She stood facing him, grinning from ear to ear. "I'll be going now. Give me a goodbye hug?"

"Um... would you be offended if I said 'no'?" Jorge waited for a reaction, but there wasn't any; she just stood there smiling, as if she knew something that he didn't.

"Oh no..." he said. He turned around to where he had left the box. It was gone. From the top of the stairs he could hear what might've been footsteps. He fired a sonic cone blast up the stairs, but there was no reaction.

"Bring it back!" he called, flying up the stairs to catch her. But he knew he wouldn't. That was how she played the game.

***

"When I came back to the room, Kalon was gone. Either he'd walked out on his own, or Enchantra had been there all the time and tricked me into going up the stairs to look for her."

"Hold still, please." Jake Parsons said, his eyes unfocused as though he were seeing through Jorge. His code name was Mystic, though he didn't seem to care for it much and only adopted it because people expected him to have one.

"There are no spells on you that I can detect," Jake said. "Have you been experiencing any unexplained effects? Some magic is more subtle and harder to see."

"No, not really. Just a precaution. I really hate dealing with mystical types. No offense."

"I understand. I remember once when I was called to do an exorcism in Borneo. It turned out..."

"Say, if we can find Kalon, would you be able to remove the spell on him? I wonder if he'd agree to confess to what he did in exchange for being disencursed."

"Not sure I could do that. That's really a job for a grade-A sorcerer, not a dabbler like me. And if we did make that deal, I doubt it would stand up in court. He could say that the confession was under duress. Also that the thing in the box controlled his mind and forced him to do all of that stuff."

"Yeah." Jorge shrugged. "In the meantime, Kalon's company's floundering. Apparently he was heavily into micromanagement and left his subordinates not knowing a lot of things. It figures."

"I suppose. I'll see what I can do, but meanwhile I've other obligations. You have my number, so give me a call if there's something you need right away."

"I will. Thanks."

Jake waved and walked out. That reminded Jorge, he needed to call Aaron. He loaded him up in his phone's Contacts app and pushed the call button.

"Hi, Aaron. What's that? Did I get your message? What message?" Jorge checked his phone history, and there it was. "Oh yeah, sorry, yesterday I was in a place where reception was blocked. I called because I've decided I need to keep doing the Troubleshooter thing after all. I was giving someone else a lot of crap because I thought she was about to go and leave me to face the bad guy all alone. I realized this morning that that was the same thing I was doing. So I was wondering if you could arrange a meeting of the senior staff to discuss this. Yeah, Monday's fine. What? The Champions called wanting to talk to me? I guess they didn't have my personal number. Did they give you a callback--- they did. Got it. Thanks, Aaron."

Jorge added the new number to Contacts, and then clicked to dial it. "Hello? This is Jorge Ramirez, the Troubleshooter. Who is this? Oh. It's an honor, sir. You're welcome. I'm glad we were able to help out. Yes, my personal number is 313-555-5757. Okay. What? You're moving where?!"