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“I’m only a few blocks away, actually. Small city,” she answered, holding out her hand for the pooch to sniff. Dogs: she actually had a slight phobia, there, now that you mention it. There was just something about the way they stood around, all fur and muscles, their teeth on display for everyone to see. Their big, white, predatory teeth. Just... Thor here. Maxine drew back her hand as soon as it was polite, after a too-hearty scratch to the huskie’s ears, more to make friends with his owner than with him.

“Oh, sweet tea, please.” Maxine followed Kealey into the kitchen. Thor followed Maxine, bumping into her side as he trotted past. She brushed his hair off of her skirt.

“What first got you involved with the Mansion and the X-Men?” She asked, offhandedly accepting the white pad that a paperclip tentacle had dug out of her purse. A black pen flew up of its own volition, perching between her fingers. If Kealey noticed, Maxine would just give a shameless little smile. She hadn’t been able to learn the woman’s powers... but given the company Ms. Quinn kept, the x-gene should be nothing new, to her.

July 15, 2011: Chaotic Chronicles/ New York Inquisitor, and Rule #3: Run while you still can.

The red head was stretched out on a cloth beach chair, on a swath of white sand. She wore a modest white towel wrapped artistically around her hips, in contrast with her rather shameless red bikini top. Behind her was as fake a painting of the ocean as an hour of the intern’s time could provide. Oh, interns: she could really see the appeal in bossing them around. One of them, a college boy dressed in a T-shirt with a tux on it, stepped on screen to hand her a very pink drink with an umbrella in it. She liked the little dramatic bow he cut on his way out: she could get used to people bowing.

The red head took a sip from her drink, and handed it off to the side. Paperclip tentacles rose up from behind her chair to envelop it.

“New York City. Summer in the concrete jungle. I hope you’re all watching from somewhere cool, because tonight our Summer Series is rolling on with something hot. Hit it, boys.”

The opening chords of I Kissed a Girl kicked up. So did the footage.

Isabel Gone Wild

The film was black and white. Enhanced security tape footage, spliced together to the beat. Isabel and another woman, with their own tentacle-arm action. Cut to them crashing through a pair of glass doors in a Ferrari, the bonemancer giddily steering from the other woman’s lap, as hands disappeared under the lines of her half-way unbuttoned shirt; fire sprinklers first sprouting to life, rapidly turning the bonemancer’s white top into something that wasn’t suitable for younger viewers—

The black-and-white kiss, take two. Woo.

The clips rolled on in the top corner of the screen as the red head’s little slice of beach reappeared in the bottom.

“Bone Bikini Babe posters, calendars, and the extended Isabel Gone Wild footage now on sale at my blog: WolfNews.com/EqualInStupidity. Ten percent of sales will be donated to the NYPD. Just like Ms. Duskmoor would have wanted. Right, Isabel?”

Tentacles brought her drink back; she took a sip, and gave a devil-may-care grin.

“Maxine Ralls, Wolf News.”

A toe poked.

From the white mass shot a silver tentacle, aiming to wrap itself around toe and shoe and shin. If it succeeded: a mass of paperclips meshed together in the shape of an octopus would soon be using her as leverage to pull itself free. If it failed: it would writhe from the paper mass, rising up one tentacle at a time like a conquering god.

Octosaurus Rex could not be contained by such traps as this.

In the center of the horde, a hand briefly clawed its way free; then a carrot-top mess of hair (you’d have to forgive her: Maxine’s stylist was out). Finally, a young woman gasped for breath above the parchment sea. Air first: breath in. Exhale: obscenities. She briefly made eye contact with the other red head, standing just outside the assault radius. “Water! Water will—”

And then a pack leapt on the back of her neck. Maxine disappeared again into the voracious horde.

As for Rex: now that it had disentangled itself from the attack, the octoclip did not show any particular concern for its creator.

She was twenty-one years old. Astrological sign: Scorpio. Chinese horoscope: Snake. Blood type: O. Single and available, gentlemen.

She had red hair, a veritable forest of summer-time freckles across her nose and cheeks, and a B.A. in journalism officially under her belt. And yes, friends, that did stand for Bad Ass. (Come on, boys. You know you want some.)

She was Maxine Ralls. The rising personality at Wolf News, broadcasting equal-opportunity snark at humans and mutants both, every Friday night on Channel 9 (9.1, local HD users; 29.1, cable and satellite; streaming online at wolfnews.com/EqualInStupidity). She was a strong young woman with a soaring future. (Still approachable, though. Really. Don’t be shy.)

Currently... she was somewhere under that collapsed display. Office Max, Aisle Five: printer and copy paper.

The white packs of 500 sheets made an angry, moving mass on the floor. By all accounts, they shouldn’t be alive. But you just couldn’t argue with them. Trust her: she’d tried.

Maxine Ralls. Office Supply Animator. Control of abilities: somewhat lacking.

“ ‘elp!” Came her muffled cry, from somewhere under the mauling sheaves. Store employees just weren’t trained for this sort of thing.

There was something about Dave that Maxine didn’t like. Something... like oil on water. Like eyes a little too blue, or hair a shade too dirty to be blonde. And underneath it all, he was just too... too...

“Aurum?”

Her mistake, apparently. She let the nice handyman into her apartment, with only minor staring.

In any case, the minnows were safely locked in their fish tank with a magnetized octoclip, the homicidal paper had been put out with this morning’s recycling, and all pens had settled into that complete stillness that only a cat show could bring. This reprieve from flight brought to you by Purina’s Gourmet Fancy Feast: for those people willing to spend more on their cat’s dinner than on their children’s.

Still, as the judges’ voices drifted snootily from the living room, their pseudo-British accents scratched and twined against something in her memory. Not that the man had any accent of which to speak, besides the usual East Coast schnoz-speak. Something about those blue eyes, though, made her think Brit. Did she even know any Brits? Seriously. Looking at this man bugged her, like a band aid dangling half-way off a knee. Like the memory of something vaguely obnoxious. If she could just...

By the time she felt the mesh of clips, it was too late. Octosaurus Rex was on the water main, a small horseshoe magnet dangling from one of its tentacles, and there wasn’t anything either of them could do about it.

Except flood her kitchen. Unlady-like words poured from her mouth as she danced out of the raging current.

“Do you know how to fix this?” The red head did not shrill. Future reporters never shrill.

Breathing. Breathing was harder then it seemed, if she thought about it too much. Air in, air out. Should her breathes sound so ragged? Was her heart supposed to hammer against her windpipe like that?

>> “No blackouts, right?"

“I,” Maxine said, after inhaling deeply, “don’t remember.” Exhale.

The ambulance. It would make everything better. And the hospital. She’d never wished more for an ocean of bland florescent lights. The street light cast only a puddle of safety. All around, the night pressed in.

Gauze. Gauze was a start to everything being better. She accepted it gratefully, and tucked it under her leaking nose.

“Thank you. For scaring her off.” Also, for the gauze. Priorities, though. “What’s your name?”

It was probably something she’d asked before. Maybe she should get the answer written down, this time.

Head trauma?

Lame. The red head was pretty sure she’d remember getting... head... trauma. Okay. So even if she didn’t—remember recent events, that was—she was still pretty sure that head trauma would leave a... pounding reminder in her skull, a raw scrape on her forehead, and a squished nose.

No. No no no.

She squinted at the woman’s note-shield, trying to find the lies behind it. The can opener had attacked her. This woman had intervened. Her assailant had fled. It was like reading cliff notes on someone else’s nightmare. Maxine vaguely recognized where they were: it was only a short way from Wolf News. This was just the end of her shift, like any other day. She’d been on her way home, minus a little detour. There wasn’t room in that for... this. Things like this happened to other people: then she reported on it. That was the natural order of things. Maxine seized on the only clear lie she could find, and hugged it close.

“I am not slanderous,” she protested, sitting up straight to glare over the pad at the woman. The motion triggered a small, warm drop to trail over her lip from her nose. She wiped at it, and stared at the red on her fingers. Blood had such a strange color. Thick. It didn’t look as real on her hand as it did in the movies.

“...Did you call an ambulance?” She asked wobbly. “I think I have head trauma. And memory loss.”

That wasn’t good. Was it? Cue hyperventilation.