“Let’s go over everything you saw,” said Paul. “Step by step.”

We were in the living room. My armor was in storage for now, as was Anne’s; unfortunately, Furniture Destroyer was tied to me as a person, so I still had to be careful around chairs.

“I only spoke to her for a few minutes,” I explained. “Tried to tell her she could help against the aliens, instead of fighting us.”

“What did she say to you? Exactly?”

“She said the Esperanzas sent their regards.”

“That’s it?”

“Well… it was a bit weird. Before that, she asked me if I felt fighting the aliens justified what I do.”

“What did she mean?”

“I’m … not sure. I asked her what it meant. She… seemed to think I should know.”

Paul nodded gravely. “Do you know anyone with the name Esperanza?”

“Not a soul.”

“Could it be the names of the Blackhats or the Grunters’ families?” asked Anne.

“I have no idea.”

“Did any of the Blackhat villains look Hispanic?”

“No, they looked like a very large gorilla, a mutated snake and a white guy in a tiger mask....”

“So maybe it’s Grumman’s real name?”

“Why would Grumman be referring to himself in the plural? Unless he’s cracked duplication or is secretly twins ....”

Paul cut our chatter short. “I think we’ve veered into the area of guesswork now. Let’s focus on what else you noticed. Any idea how she collapsed the mall?”

“It was a trap,” I grumbled. “She prepared the entire area in advance, and led me to it.”

“But how’d she know you would be at the lawyers?”

“We were in there for an hour. Enough time for word to get back to her.”

“For word to get back and to set up a trap? That’s suspiciously fast.”

Anne spoke up. “What about this has to do with saving London?”

“I don’t know. The quest just …. appeared.”

“Maybe she has a role to play in defending the city,” Paul observed. “That means London’s going to be attacked by the aliens. You’d better warn them.”

I nodded in agreement. “I’ll call Fraser, let him know. Doyle, too.”

“You’ll call? Not e-mail?”

“I got my first three Unplottable Smartphones done. Here.” I handed a phone to Paul and another to Anne. “They’re untrackable by any technology.”

“How exactly does that work, or is that too advanced to explain?”

“Actually, it’s pretty simple. Falcao’s design involves burying a base station in one fixed location that’s tied to a known cellular network. The signal transmits from the base station to the smartphone through a quantum entanglement array.”

“Quantum entanglement is a little more complicated than my cellular plan,” muttered Paul. “What happens if someone uses the base station and track you down?”

“The base station sends fake location data when transmitting to the cell tower.”

“Then how does the cell tower send the return signal?”

“The return signal is broadcast like radio - in every direction around the cell tower.”

“Does that mean anyone can listen in?”

“The return signal’s coded. Only the base station can decode it; anyone else would hear a bunch of random static.”

“What happens if someone finds the base station?”

“That’s why Falcao buries them under a ton of concrete. I’ve done roughly the same thing. Anyone breaches the concrete wall, the base station self-destructs. It’s as close to untraceable as we can get.”

“Back on topic,” Anne prompted, “I wanted to talk about my plan.”

Paul nodded. “Go on.”

“To get Agni, we have to find her location, and then pin her down. Prevent her from jumping out. If she’s losing, she just runs, right?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “If I can hold her in one place, I can overpower her.”

“The main problem is her teleport. So we need a teleport jammer. Like the one built into the alien shield generator.”

I did a double take. “You want me to reverse engineer a shield generator to build a teleport jammer?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s…. Like using a tank to mow the lawn.”

“If you can figure out how to jam teleports in any other way, I’m all ears.”

I shook my head. “I’ll need to ask the Army to get me access to the Liverpool samples. Even then, it’s pretty doubtful.”

“Well, maybe you can get partway there.”

“I’ll look into it. What next?”

“We have no idea how Agni found us in the first place, or where she goes to between battles. But we may be able to - if I seed the whole city with nanobots.”

I winced. “Anne - that’s too many. You’ll need millions to cover the city.” A thought struck me. “And that’s not even counting the fact that she might be teleporting halfway across the world.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll get some nanobots on her in powered-down mode. When she teleports, I’ll send the activation signal.”

“Portals scramble your nanobot communications.”

“Portals do, teleportation doesn’t - necessarily. Nanobots circuits get fried in going through a portal or teleport, so they stop working as a collective and start working as individuals. Most of the ‘bots don’t have enough circuitry to function on their own.” She took a deep breath. “I have one model of bot that can make the transition, though, and keep transmitting for a few seconds. Long enough to send me a location fix before it dies. And if I know the location she’s at, I can send more bots to spy on her. Get you actual coordinates. Then….” She shrugged. “We wait till she’s distracted. Or asleep. And you go in with the heavy artillery.”

“Something to subdue, rather than kill,” I suggested.

“That plan does make sense,” Paul agreed. “Anne - how long will it take you to make enough nanobots to cover the city?”

“Uh… a month? It’s a lot.”

“And if you skip school for a while until it’s done?”

Both of us gave Paul a surprised look. He shrugged. “School’s important, but so is saving lives.”

“Ten days,” replied Anne. “I can forge them full day, morning to night, for ten days straight. Seed them throughout town.”

“Do you have to travel around town to get them there? Or I can drive around and drop them off.”

“They can travel under their own power. I just … I’ll be eating a lot. Even with Cloud Energization at Level 3 I can only power about a kilo’s worth of nanobots, and I keep getting hungry very fast.”

“I’ll get you HungryMan meals. Jumbo size.”

“Ugh… Dad, those taste horrible. Can’t Andrew cook something?”

“Andrew and his Level Eight Cooking skills will be on the other side of the Atlantic, learning how to make teleportation jammers.”

“I’ll travel back,” I replied.

“Andrew, travelling transatlantic is expensive. And they’re not going to give you a Traveler for your personal up-and-down trips every night.”

“I did fine with the jet transport….”

“That was for the U.S. Army and on their dime, and the hospitals were mostly within the continental U.S. Transatlantic is different. You go to England, plan for at least two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“I’m budgeting some extra time for Anne to finish the nanobot production and deployment. I don’t want her worn out.”

“Dad, where’s he going to stay in England?”’

“A hotel. I believe you mentioned a payout of a million dollars?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I can afford a hotel.”

“Although I’d advise privacy. You don’t want Agni showing up in England.”

I nodded. “That would be dangerous. And might trigger the nine million body count in itself.”

“On the other hand, if you show yourself while you’re there, and she attacks you there within a day, you’ll know she’s capable of transatlantic flame teleportation.”

“That’d be an expensive way to find out.”

“So stay secret. And pack light.”