His first days in Chicago flew by smoothly and quickly. Tommy soon had found himself in fulltime charge of the kitchen, as he always was at home, and meals had been met with quiet approval. The remainder of his time was spent between knocking Lydia around the gym, helping with renovations, and continuing his scouting duties for Camille.

The training with Lydia had been nothing short of brilliant. Sam had prepared her in every conceivable way, save one. As the Chicagoan himself had acknowledged, he was far too gentle with her, and, as a corollary, Lydia was reluctant to throw her full strength into striking Sam, for love of the man and for fear of hurting him.

She would never learn to fight by holding back. So, their first few days of training, were long and were spent going over the many drills and techniques Sam already had taught her, with the new teacher throwing progressively harder and more punishing blows at the pupil.

Halfway through the first day, Tommy had realized he was on the right track when he saw from the corner of his eye that Sam winced at every kick and blow Tommy delivered to the girl. It was clear Lydia had reached the limit of her durability midway the second day when a hard right punch Tommy delivered to her rib cage elicited not just a loud gasp of pain from Lydia but a sudden and savage assault from Celia, who mere moments after the punch had landed hurled through the gym doors, leapt in the air, and smashed Tommy hard on the right ear.

The smaller girl's punch had been remarkably sound—Sam had been training her several days a week as well—but it was some minutes before Sam and Lydia could calm and console the fuming and frantic Celia and turn her over to Christy's ministrations.

Celia's wrist had suffered a minor sprain that healed in no time, but from that instant Tommy sensed that any reserve Lydia had about hitting him as hard as she was able had dissolved. Afterward, she threw her punches and kicks with ferocious abandon.

"You were great, today," he'd told her at the end of that second day. The praise had seemed to take her aback. "Hit me as hard as you can. Like Sam said, you usually want to be easy on normal folk, especially in public. You don't want people seeing what you're capable of. But when you fight others like us, never pull your punches ...."

"Because I have no idea how strong my opponent might be," she'd finished solemnly.

"Exactly," Tommy had said, using his finger to strike an exclamation point in the air. "Avoid a fight whenever you can, but once someone strong like us backs you into a corner, hit them with all you got."

The goofy grin his statement elicited had forced him to laugh, and over the next several days Lydia had grown increasingly aggressive. And as her timing improved, her extraordinary speed had enabled her to deliver more and more punches to what otherwise would've been vital spots on Tommy's nearly invulnerable body. On their most recent bout, Lydia had delivered a barrage of punches and kicks so quick and so hard that a powerful right-hook caught the bridge of Tommy's nose and actually caused his eyes to water.

"That was fantastic," he'd excitedly told the grinning young woman.

During that same time, the girls had studied hard, acing several tests, and even cheerfully had pitched in with finishing and painting. Most of the bedrooms were complete, and Christy and the girls had reclaimed their now-expanded spaces.

Things had gone so well, in fact, that Sam and Christy had declared a holiday, the first for the children in some time.

So, while Christy took Lydia and Celia for a Saturday morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo, followed by an afternoon at the Art Institute, Sam and Tommy set out on the last of Camille's errands, a recon of a large brick and concrete building located on the east side of Chicago's South Lawndale neighborhood.

By early afternoon, however, their five hours spent watching the building and observing the area around it had taught them little.

"I'm just saying," said Sam, "you should try your hand at teaching. I think the girls would benefit from someone who actually lived through some of the things they're learning about."

Tommy laughed as he tried to take in another mouthful of fries. Looking down from their perch on the second level of a small parking garage, he noticed the same gold '71 Charger drive into view that'd been parked near another location on Camille's list. The vehicle came to a stop in front of their target, and a tall, heavily-inked man with thick, corded muscles, sporting short dark hair and an exquisite beard, got out and went inside.

There are not too many cars like that, he thought and took a picture of man, car, and tags for Camille, before responding to Sam.

"And I keep trying to tell you, I wouldn't be very good at it, and having me there would only confuse the girls and get in the way of their studies. Historians get a lot wrong."

He straight away could sense Sam's excitement at the notion of learning what, exactly, historians had gotten wrong. Sam was as bookish as Tommy was not. In fact, Tommy had learned to read, to really read, just over a century before, and despite his extraordinary memory, it was something that had never come easily to him.

"Look," he continued, "I went on a history reading binge in the '70s. None of it seemed right. I'm pretty certain historians are missing at least two or three hundred years from the European Middle Ages."

Sam gave him a long, surprised look. "Like, where exactly?"

"I'm not sure, for certain. I didn't spend much time in Europe after Rome came unglued in the West. But historians say that about seventy-five years separated the Battle of Hastings and the Anarchy. I'm pretty certain it was well over two-hundred. I'm also fairly convinced there was another invasion of Britain during that time."

"How certain?" asked Sam with another blank look.

"Not a hundred percent," said Tommy in a meek voice. He had left out several other things commonly believed by historians that he knew weren't accurate and suddenly regretted having broached the subject. There is no good time to bring up something like this, he cautioned himself.

Another car pulled up behind the Charger, a gorgeous lava-red '67 Firebird, and two people got out. The driver was a perfectly proportioned woman a few inches over five feet, with dark hair so short it was almost a crew-cut. As young as she was, there was a tough-girl beauty about her that allowed her to boss her older partner around with a few words in Spanish. Tommy clicked some more photos.

"Speaking of history." He pointed the vehicle out to Sam.

"Beats the hell out of my truck." Sam had purchased a ten-year old pickup for use around their home. It looked shabby but was dependable, and it had even gotten them to their destination that day.

"Gimme a second," he told Sam. "I'm going to drop a line to Camille. I've seen that Charger before. I think these guys are together." It wasn't his first mention of the young detective since his arrival, and he knew Sam was fond of her.

The Chicagoan took the bait. "Been meaning to ask you," he said in a smooth, deep voice lacking its normal gravel, "how is the good detective doing?" Sam had that grin, the one that charmed some and frightened others.

Tommy typed for a few moments more before hitting send. "As lovely and fiery as ever. She texted the other day and said she had something important to discuss when I got home. Which is ominous. She didn't even want to talk about it over Philly's secured network."

Sam raised his eyebrows, his sensual thoughts of the detective seemingly now in the background. "That is ominous."

Tommy could tell the powerful wheels in Sam's head were spinning.

"It has to be something important," the Chicagoan whispered. "When did you hear from your friend in D.C. last?"

Tommy sighed and replied slowly. "Just over a month ago. As far as Max knows, we still have the same modus vivendi."

In the fourteen or so months since the disappearance of former vice president and presidential contender Mallory Chaney—a subject about which no one, not even Sam or Rhonda, had spoken—Maxine Seifert, a DoD official and friend of Tommy's dating back to the 1980s, had delivered to him several informal, off-the-record messages from what Max somewhat obliquely had referred to as the "defense-intelligence community."

Chaney's disappearance apparently had alarmed many in Washington. The gist of Maxine's communications had been that the defense-intelligence people were willing to observe a truce of sorts. That part of the government at least would take no action against Tommy and his companions for what they had done at two government facilities in Utah and Montana—provided he and his friends refrain from further actions. It was not exactly a return to the way things had been before 1991, but it was a loose approximation.

Tommy knew such an affair would never last. It was the reason he was so zealous in supporting his friend Philly Mettouchi in organizing a Gifted network, a means by which people like them might in some small way protect one another. It was only a matter of time before the government once again shambled into action against them, especially given the nasty tone set by the new president, a monied conman and unprincipled bigot Sam once had described as "Archie Bunker in a silk suit."

"I'll give Max another call later this evening," he told Sam. "In the meantime, I'm going to take a quick look around. I'll be right back."

Sam nodded his assent, still in deep thought over what information Camille might have to share.

What Tommy really wanted to do was go down and get a quick sniff of the cars parked on the street below. It took him only a few minutes to descend to the street and approach the two vehicles. They were pristine and beautifully restored, and as he admired them, first the Charger and then the Firebird, he took a whiff of the passenger compartments, imprinting the smell from each on the faces of the persons who recently had been in them.

"Hey, ya' big, ugly fucker, you wanna get away from my car ...."

Tommy, who still was bent double beside the Firebird, hands on knees, glanced up to see the car's driver. As was not uncommon, her voice in English had a decidedly different quality than it had in Spanish. It was deeper and had a timbre that didn't seem to fit a figure so slight.

But the pitch of her pipes wasn't the real surprise. He could tell from her reaction, the way she stood and the manner in which she'd spoken to him, that she saw him as he truly was, not the random face of beauty conjured by his Gift. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to suppress a smile. Such people were incredibly rare.

As he stood to his full height and took a casual step in her direction, he stopped trying to hide his smile altogether. "Sorry," he said in his most disarming tone, "I was just admiring. I didn't touch a thing."

"I know you didn't," she said.

The threat and belligerence in her tone was obvious, and he noticed she'd squared her shoulders and jutted out her chin when she spoke. Tough girl, he chuckled inwardly.

Still, there'd been the slightest flash of worry in her lovely green eyes as he'd stepped toward her. It was understandable. Tommy's true face wasn't just ugly; most who saw it found it fearsome. His size alone was enough to cause alarm, and he hoped his apparent youth and casual attire might help soothe the young woman.

"I heard you roll up," he continued in the same disarming tone. "That's not a stock 400 ... is it?" He thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile. As the young woman paused, her body almost quivered. He could tell she was weighing two conflicting desires, the desire to bust his balls further and the intense hankering to brag on her car.

"Nah," she said after a few heartbeats. "It's a high-performance small block."

"Fucking purists," Tommy snorted in his most playful tone. "I never understood that."

"Yeah, right," she shot back, flashing her first smile—it was a delight. "If I wanted to see the original parts, I'd go to a museum."

The two talked for some minutes more, mostly about cars. Despite a phase he went through in the 1960s and '70s, Tommy didn't know much for automobiles, at least nothing newer than the last forty years or so. But it gave the young woman, who did seem a true enthusiast, a chance to talk about her Firebird. People loved such things, and he knew just enough about autos to ask questions he was certain she would want to answer.

"You guys got a club, then?" asked Tommy, tossing his head lightly toward the Charger.

"Nah, that's just me and my brother."

"Big guy? Lots of ink?" he enquired further.

"Yeah ... why?" she replied with a hint of suspicion.

"Nothin'. I saw him pull up earlier." He gave her a wink. "You definitely won the genetic lottery in your family."

"Are you trying to flirt with me?" The young woman laughed aloud, her smile finally going fully to her eyes.

"Nah, I'm just saying your brother is ugly."

The young woman's laughter continued to flow honestly, and for just a scant moment, she looked as if she might speak. Tommy suspected she wanted to make a dig about his own appearance, but she didn't. He realized that in a few short minutes, he had won her over.

"Hey," he said, "where's a person go to get a drink around here?"

"I'm not going anywhere with you." She smiled coyly, yet her eyes flicked the length of his body. As tragic as his face was, Tommy's physique had few equals. The young woman continued to smile.

"Banish the thought," he said and turned back to where he had left Sam. Camille would run the Firebird's plates. If all went well, he could follow up with this young woman later. He gave her one more wink. "I'm Tommy. I'll see you around."

"Alhambra," she said as she turned to watch him leave.

"That's a pretty name," he called back over his shoulder.

"It's not my name, you dumbass. It's a bar on Western Ave. A lot of car lovers hang there."

"Then I'll definitely be seeing you around." He caught one last glimpse of the still-smiling young woman before turning into the garage where Sam waited.

***

"Is this one soon to be widowed?" Tommy heard Sam ask before he'd even reached the second level.

"I don't know," he replied, springing over a barrier. "I didn't see a ring, and she's on the youngish side for such foolishness. Either way, she's safe from my charms."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, she sees the same face on me that you do."

"The poor kid," Sam lamented. "It's probably for the best, though. She seemed to like you anyway. If she'd seen that pretty face you show everybody else, she'd probably be pregnant by now."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Tommy replied, his thoughts still down below. "I noticed quite a lot down there I didn't expect."

Sam gave him an enquiring look.

"She's afraid," Tommy said flatly. "I thought it was of me at first. But this was something different, something faint, but you could almost smell it on her."

Sam made not comment.

"And I could see inside some of the windows from that angle" said Tommy. "Odd as it was, the security cameras they had there, which looked new, all pointed inward. And ... there was something about the smell down there. It was nothing I could put a name on, which leads me to believe it's something artificial. It was strong."

"Like disinfectant?" asked Sam.

"Yeah, sort of ... either that or deodorizer. Really strong deodorizer. The smell down there's strong enough to cover up anything else in the building. Who would go to that much trouble?"

Sam was silent. He seemed deep in thought, as he had been, to a greater or lesser extent, since Tommy mentioned Camille. The two men watched the building across the way a little longer. After thirty minutes or so, they saw the young woman and her companions leave in the cars in which they'd arrived.

Tommy was beginning to feel hungry and went back to Sam's truck to rummage around. When he returned five minutes later with a large bag of cookies and some sodas, Sam asked a question.

"Have you ever seen a monkey that could fly?"

"No. I can't say's I ever have."

"Ever see a duck that could move things with its mind?"

"No," Tommy laughed.

"So, would you agree, then," continued Sam, "that Gifts are unique to humanity?"

"Yeah. I never really thought of it, but ... yeah."

"That's my best argument for why there's a God," said Sam. "It isn't because God is special. It's because humans are. As much as we're like the other animals on this planet in so many ways, we differ from them in that one important thing."

A silence fell between them for some time longer before Sam spoke again.

"You asked me about God the other day. I shouldn't have joked about that. I know what Rhonda might be going through.... I had a crisis of faith myself not long after I got back from Vietnaam, and a few since then. I'm not sure ... not a hundred percent sure ... I ever completely lost faith that God exists. I dunno, maybe I did a time or two. But I'm sure I lost faith in God's love for us at least one of those times."

Sam lay his hand on Tommy's back and looked over into his eyes. "I decided I couldn't depend on God's mercy and love, not without some reservations. Since then, I've lived my life with one simple rule, and that's that we get the justice in this life that we make for ourselves. What comes in the Hereafter isn't my business."

A somber silence fell between the men, and they ate cookies and drank soda for some time. When their chitchatting resumed, it was on subjects less-divine. There were no other comings or goings from the building they watched, and the two friends had just decided to call it a day when Sam's phone rang.

It was Christy Sue. Lydia had attacked a man in downtown Chicago, in front of hundreds of witnesses, and then had disappeared.