Teleporting feels a bit disorienting, but is not painful or anything, and produces no visual effects. We all hold on to each other, and after a moment of dizziness I notice that we are in a big warm park. There is a car parked next to us, with two men sitting on the hood.

"Cool," says the younger man.
"Hi," says the older one. "Long time no see," he tells Elina. "Hardeep Singh," he introduces himself to the rest of us.

Hardeep is in his fifties, tall, with a beard that would make Osama green with envy, and a turban on his head. His back is very straight, as if he has a pole up his ass. I immediately shield my mind from reading. He doesn't notice anything anyway, because he is busy shielding his own.

"Brendan Donovan," says the younger man. He is maybe a few years younger than us, short and slightly overweight, with brown hair which the sun has bleached to almost-blond in places.

"Let's go to my place and make some plans," says Hardeep after we introduce ourselves.
"Don't you already have a plan?" asks Elina.
"No plan survives an encounter with the enemy, and mine didn't even survive the encounter with the allies," he says dryly.
"I have a plan," says Jamie. "We call Michael and ask him to return Katie, nicely."
"Can't hurt, but won't work," says Brendan.

Hardeep's home turns out to be a very nice big house in the suburbs.

"What do you do for a living?" asks Rudy, earning another elbow from Tarja.
"I am retired now. Used to be in the special forces. My wife is the chief of surgery in a fairly big hospital," Hardeep says, pointing around us as if to say that his wife has earned most of the house.
"I see," says Dana. "All the men with mind-sense are married to rich women."
"I'd been married to her for 25 years before I got the Skills," says Hardeep gently. Dana blushes.
"Anybody has Michael's phone number?" asks Jamie.

Elina, Hardeep and Brendan say it simultaneously. Jamie dials and, much to my surprise, gets an answer.

"Hi... Where is my wife? I want her back... I'll think about it, but first I need to talk to her, to see that she is really there and alive." Long pause.

"Hi, honey! Are you OK? Remember what we were talking about last night just before going to bed?...You do great voice imitation, honey, but I'd rather talk with the real Katie... OK, let me talk to Michael again... Listen, asshole, if anything happens to my wife, I will..."
"...cut your balls off and shove them up your ass till they come out of your mouth..." prompts Rudy telepathically, for all of us to hear.
"...cut your balls off and shove them up your ass till they come out of your mouth..."
"...and then I shall take away your healing Skill and then push you slowly through a meat grinder,".
"...and then I will take away your healing Skill and then push you slowly through a meat grinder." Jamie hangs up.
"Good man," approves Rudy, suppresing his desire to scold Jamie on the use of 'will' instead of 'shall'.

"And now that you've asked nicely," says Brendan, "we need to make plans for the attack."
"Shouldn't you guys be doing that telepathically?" asks Tarja. "Don't worry about me."
"Either they can See from that building, girl," shrugs Hardeep, "in which case they'll See our plans anyway, or they can't, in which case they can't hear us."
"Uhm. I think I can do something about that," says Dana. "What do you want them too see, in case they are looking?"
"Whee!" Brendan approves.
"That we are gonna attack the building from a helicopter," says Hardeep.
"Michael knows I can fool the Sight," says Dana. The two men nod.

"OK," says Hardeep. "We have a building. Four-story, rectangular, about 60-by-60 meters. Concrete fence with barbed wire on top, electrified. 6 armed guards between the building and the fence when we looked. The building, the premises and the area immediately around them cannot be seen by Sight. We don't know how many people there are, or who they are, apart from Michael and Katie. We do know that the guards treat Michael as their boss. We assume everyone is armed. It's a pretty difficult mission we have there, kids."
"If I had a mission there," comments Jamie, "I'd be running in the opposite direction, screaming. Unfortunately, instead of a mission I have a wife, and cannot run away. Which brings me to the question: why are you helping us? Not that I am not grateful or anything..."
"I think he is up to something bad, have been thinking that for a while. Now with you here we have a chance to nail the bastard," says Hardeep.
"Kidnapping a family member is considered to be very bad tone, and a cause for immediate Community intervention," says Elina.
"I asked my wife and daughters to take a vacation as soon as I heard," adds Hardeep.

Brendan just nods, but the sudden wave of hatred from him reveals that he has some more personal motive.

"Boy," says Hardeep to Jamie. "I know you can break into my mind, but this is considered to be rude."
"Sorry." Jamie has the grace to look embarassed.

"Does Michael have a family?" asks Rudy.
"Don't even think of it, son," says Hardeep.
"Easy for you to say. My baby sister is in there, unconscious and defenseless!"
"No, he doesn't." answers Brendan.

"Elina, girl," says Hardeep, "I can see your prophecy didn't work out somehow, but will you tell me what the hell it was all about?"
"Prophecy?" I ask.
"You are not supposed to know about it," she says icily, either to him, or to the rest of us.
"My girl, it's my job to know things I am not supposed to know."
"Then you don't need an explanation."
"But we do," Jamie looks up.
"There ain't much I know, my dear child," says Hardeep. "The official Community maintains that nobody can predict future, but there used to be such a person. Her name was Marianne Leitner, and her predictions were not 100%, but she did occasionally predict future. At any given time a few people know about her predictions, and our Elina is one of those. And now some prediction is supposed to come true. Or was supposed to, and failed."

Jamie turns his face towards Elina.

"OK. The prediction was that a destroyer - that's the word she used - of great Skill power will rise sometime this year somewhere in the North. The destroyer will be a descendant of Marianne herself - which you are - and Vikings. With eyes and hair dark as midnight."
"Does this prophecy also have Jamie's name and social security number?" inquires Rudy.
"No. Not at all. In fact it's not talking about him at all. Marianne was very specific about the destroyer being a woman. And now I must ask you, Jamie: do you, or do you not, have a daughter?"
"I don't."
"You sure? Rudy thinks otherwise."
"He is wrong. The person he is thinking about is blond, blue-eyed, and not my daughter."
"What about chance encounters with strangers?"
"I haven't had any."
"You sure?" Elina doesn't believe him.
"Absolutely."
"You don't seem like a monk," Elina radiates belief that all men would have sex anytime when offered. I wonder what her own sex life is like.
"I am not. I just happen to know everybody I've had sex with. Except for those Angolan rapists, but I am quite sure I didn't get pregnant after that."
"Are you sure they didn't, either? That they were all male?"

He rolls his eyes.

Rudy and I are trying to suppress one thought: "Karen". Jamie's sister, who fits the description and whom I can easily imagine as a destroyer.

"No, she was the first thing we checked," comments Elina telepathically. "She is normal."

He has several cousins that fit the description, too, but I suppress the thought.

"I don't believe this shit," says Jamie.
"How many people fit the description? When did that Marianne live?" asks Timo.
"She was born around 1580 and died in 1624," says Elina. "Unfortunately she has quite a lot of Scandinavian descendants. Her second son, Johannes, moved to Stockholm and fathered nine children there."
"How inconsiderate of him," says Tarja.
"This whole prediction stuff scores 10 out of 10 on my bullshitometer," says Jamie, "and yet you," he addresses Elina, "seem to believe in it".
"It's true enough," says Elina. "She predicted Titanic, World War II, invention of the airplane..."
"All after the fact?"
"Before. Way before."
"I mean you found out about the predictions after the fact."
"We can talk about prophecies later," says Hardeep. "Do any of you have any military experience?"
"Yes," says Dana reluctantly.
"Timo plays WoW a lot," volunteers Rudy.
"I shoot a lot," says Timo, "real guns, but no military experience."

The rest of us shake our heads.

"Anyone else can shoot?"

I nod.

"Mira and Timo took me shooting skeet twice," says Tarja.
"I have a sword and I know how to use it," adds Rudy.

Hardeep sighs.

"Hold on," says Jamie. "You mean we are attacking that building? With real weapons? We might hit somebody!"
"That's the idea, son."
"Who is in there? Do you even know? How many? How many of those are bad guys?"
"We have no idea. We know that the place belongs to Michael and the people are his employees. They are probably not all bad guys, and we probably shouldn't kill them unless they are trying to kill us."

We try to digest this. In the meanwhile Hardeep opens his closet.

"This is for you, girls," he hands Dana and me two huge guns. Eek. I usually shoot a .22 Ruger and have been shooting a 9-millimeter once for my birthday. I found it too loud.

"It's a G36K. German special forces use this, girls," Hardeep beams at us and pulls some more weaponry out. "Kalashnikovs for you," he hands them to Rudy and Tarja. "Here's for you," he hands another gun to Brendan, who looks almost as surprised as the rest of us. "Here's for you just in case, but you better spend your time reading minds," he gives another one to Jamie. "And this one is for me."

Timo starts thinking technical things about the weapons and I shield his mind from the others, just in case.

"Don't I get one?" he asks.
"No, Elina and you will stay in the car, in case somebody needs healing."
"I am not staying in the car."
"Yes, you are," says Hardeep.
"I am going right in with the rest of you. Somebody might need healing right there. I am not gonna let my girlfriend shoot people without me. Uh. I didn't mean it quite the way it sounded."

I open my mouth to protest, then realize that the whole thing is much safer for Timo than for the rest of us, and going into battle is a lot less scary when you have your own almost-instant healer with you. Besides, Timo is a really good shot. Unlike, I might add, myself.

Eek! Battle! These are real weapons! This is gonna be a real battle, like in the movies! Oh God. I am about to commit an act of war on Australian soil.

The rest of the guys are thinking pretty much the same kind of thoughts, except for Elina who is not going into battle, Dana who has been in a real battle and is therefore exceptionally grim, even in comparison to her usual disposition, and Rudy who tries to put all the bad thoughts out of his mind. I guess the rest of us are trying to put all the bad thoughts out of our minds, too. Jamie is thinking about everything that can go wrong, and turns out to have a much more vivid imagination than I have ever credited him with. Tarja is just angry - I didn't know she could be that angry, and it doesn't show on her face. Timo keeps cycling between retreating into thinking about this all as a game, or a movie, reminding himself that this is horribly real, and retreating into the game/movie thing again. I don't dare check out Hardeep's and Brendan's minds.

"Come inside with us," Timo tells Elina. "You are one of the invulnerable people, right? Aren't all healers?"
"I am. They are," she recoils from him, terrified. "I am not going in there."
"She is affected by the pain around her," says Brendan. "She better not come inside."
"So I am not the only one?" asks Jamie. "I can sort of keep it out when I concentrate."
"About one-fourth of people with mind-sense are afflicted that way," says Hardeep. "Most of them can keep it out for the most part, but some can't."
"Oh my God," says Rudy, "You mean you actually felt it, in the warehouse, when we..."
"Only the first guy," says Jamie. "I managed to close my mind right after that. Wasn't fun."
"Are you sure you should be there at all?" Rudy is concerned.
"Yeah. It doesn't hurt when I am ready for it. Unless I kill somebody directly with my mind, in which case I get to share the pleasure..."
"Can you shield yourself from that?"
"I've done it only once, and I am not experimenting again unless I totally have to."
"Don't use other people's physical or chemical Skills, unless you totally have to, either," says Elina. "And, by the way, people: try not to set the place on fire. Fire in an enclosed space is a really bad idea even if it's Skill-generated fire and it doesn't burn you. You can still be killed by falling roofs, smoke inhalation, lack of oxygen - you get the idea. Unless you have really high chemical Skills, which you don't."

Hardeep puts a few more guns in a bag, just in case.

"You have a whole arsenal in here," says Tarja.
"Do you have a tank?" says Timo, sarcastically.

Hardeep beams like a child showing his new toy.

"Son, you'll be surprised."

He leads us to the garage and shows us the tank. Elina just raises her eyebrows.

"Where'd you get those things?" asks Timo, amazed.
"Job benefits, when retiring from the army," Hardeep is not expecting to be believed.
"We are so gonna get a ticket," whispers Jamie, trying to hold on to some illusion of normality.
"No, it doesn't have a license plate," answers Rudy.

"Anyway," says Hardeep. "The idea is that you three," he points at Rudy, Tarja and Dana, "go there in a tank and break the front wall and make noise, and you three", he points at Brendan, Timo and me, "fly to the roof and attack from there, and we two," he points at Jamie and himself, "go through the maintenance tunnels and actually get her. You lead the roof team," he points to Timo, "you lead the tank team," he points to Tarja, "and I'll lead the maintenance tunnel team. Elina waits in the car in case somebody needs healing."

"How well can you heal?" asks Tarja, who is keenly aware of her own vulnerability and lack of Skills. "Can you also heal regular people like myself?"
"Yes," answers Elina. "Timo - I still need to show him some tricks - and I can heal a wound in a few minutes. There are some limitations. If you die before you get to us, we can't do anything. Also, the way this healing works, we replace the destroyed bits with your own tissue. We can't really grow new tissue very fast, except for ourselves. So if you lose big bits we can only stabilize you and work on regrowing them for the next few days. Even many gunshot wounds, especially if they bleed hard, might be impossible to fix immediately. So, basically, a death will kill you and a major tissue loss will put you out of circulation. Be careful."

Elina wants to take a deeper look at Jamie's mind. He tells her that he'd let her if she also opens her mind to him. They get to inspect each other's minds to the mutual satisfaction.

Her phone rings. It's Michael.

"Hi... I think it will be better for everyone if you just return the woman and we forget the whole thing..." Hardeep and Brendan scowl at the idea. "I don't think you really want him... Listen, idiot, when people start talking about a Jewish conspiracy you know they need a psychiatrist... No, don't even think of it! Jewish, Mossad, whatever! Don't be an idiot... Although I suppose you can't help it."

She hangs up.

"He really wants you," she tells Jamie. "It might be unwise for you to come."
"My wife is in there. What was it about the Jewish conspiracy?"
"Michael thinks one of us is a Mossad agent."
"Mossad his ass," comments Dana, sure that we are about to suspect her, although I would like to think that Mossad hires more stable individuals, and Michael is just trying to sow confusion.
"You are not in a very good shape," Elina tells Jamie. "Not much strength left."
"I feel fine."
"It's adrenaline. There is a limit to how far it can get you."

Elina says that we all need to eat something, especially Jamie and Dana, on account of him misusing the Skills in energy-consuming ways and her having been recently injured and healed. Rudy thinks we all need sunscreen, which is a pretty good bit of thinking, and we get some and put it on. Hardeep eyes Jamie sceptically.

"Well, son, there is probably no way to make a properly military-looking guy out if you, and there is no point in even trying, but the bright yellow nightgown featuring blue hippos performing unnatural acts is a bit pushing it."
"It's not a nightgown, it's a t-shirt," says Jamie defensively, "they only had XXXL in Tarjoustalo and we had no time to run anywhere else."
"And those are not hippos, they are muumi," adds Timo proudly.
"And giving flowers to each other is not an unnatural act," says Brendan.
"Yes it is, when done by hippos. Son, do you have any other clothes?"
"Only this, but this is even brighter," Jamie pulls out a red t-shirt with hattivatti.
"Penises with hands are definitely not an improvement. I'll see if my daughters have something."
"Heh, you are going there wearing pink lace," teases Rudy.
"Probably beats bright yellow."

Hardeep comes back with a t-shirt that's gray and size-appropriate, and we continue packing. The damn ammo is heavy, and so is the gun. I envy the people in the tank.

Dana thinks for just a moment that this would be a good opportunity to get rid of Tarja, then immediately rejects the thought as evil. Tarja thinks the same, also rejecting the thought as evil. Jamie, Elina and Hardeep exchange a simultaneous glance.

"On the second thought, girl, I think you better fly to the roof," Hardeep tells Dana. "Those two can drive the tank all by themselves."

The drawback to that plan is that there is nobody with mind-sense in the tank, but Rudy says that he prefers it that way.

"How are we gonna get the tank over there?" I ask. "Wouldn't somebody stop us or something?"
"We'll mask it with mind-sense and illusions," says Hardeep.
"What about cameras and suchlike?"
"Won't be a problem," Brendan smiles.

"We've broken so many laws already," sighs Timo.
"I think we are outside the law territory," Elina taps him on the shoulder.
"Yeah, and I am uncomfortable there."
"We all are."
"How about I go there alone and kick Michael's ass?" asks Jamie.
"Bad idea, son. He has you at a disadvantage."
"Because he is an asshole?"
"Yeah. And because it's his turf and his henchmen."
"I have a bad feeling about this," sighs Jamie.
"Try to imagine yourself as a movie character, it helps," says Timo. "Imagine for example that we are the Fellowship of the Ring and going to attack Mordor."
"Now that's a happy idea. Especially since my role would be the One Ring."
"Ugh. Right. Bad movie, bad. Pick another one."
"Right now I'd prefer a romanitic comedy about nerds where the sysadmin gets the girl and goes on a diving vacation and lives happily ever after."
"Don't be silly, they don't make those."

Hardeep shows us how to handle our weapons, and we finish packing.

The one-hour trip to the place passes uneventfully. We take two cars and the tank. "This is not some army cast-off! This is a brand-new Merkava, they only started making this model last year," comments Timo to me. We are in Brendan's car. He is thinking of revenge, gleefully, but is also scared. I don't dare try to find out what this is about. Timo is trying very hard to think about all this as a very hardcore LARP, and almost succeeding. He also decides to shoot as few people as possible. I am sort of ashamed that this idea hasn't occurred to me. Although, of course, it's not like I was planning to shoot everything that moves.

Every once in a while I try to See into the tank or the other car. Rudy and Tarja are having a pretty good time considering the circumstances. In the other car Hardeep and Elina seem to be talking telepathically and Jamie and Dana are having a nap in the back seat.

The tank looks like a big truck both for human eyes and cameras - some kind of visual illusion produced by Brendan.

We park the car by the building - thank God there are no other buildings around - and I can feel the six guards in the yard fall asleep. Jamie grins.

"If I can put the rest of the building asleep as easily, we probably don't need a tank."
"Don't count on it, son."
"You call me 'son' once again and I'll sue you for 18 years of back child support."
"I got a lawyer on retainer."

They laugh nervously.

I almost feel relieved when we finally move in. Jamie and Hardeep disappear into some manhole, Rudy and Tarja drive into the yard, and Timo, Brendan, Dana and I fly to the roof.

Against our expectations the roof is not full of imperial stormtroopers or anyone else. It has some garden furniture that has seen better times, and a locked door. Nobody hiding behind it, either.

Brendan pulls on the door. Nothing happens. I wave him away and melt the lock. We get in and stop, trying to assess to situation.

At first the place feels like a research center, or at least like a research center that has just had a tank drive into its lobby. People screaming, running, hiding, carrying their stuff.

After a second I realize that something is wrong... wronger. It takes me one more second to realize what it is, but Dana is faster:

"Holy shit! They are all Skilled!"

Right. We just walked into a place with at least 70 Skilled people. Eight of us. Talk about homeopathic warfare. We can still retreat to the roof and fly away, but what about the rest of them?

Five armed guards are running towards us. The good thing is that, Skilled or not, everyone else who is aware of our presense is trying to get away from us.

I melt the iron parts of their weapons, trying to keep the liquid iron cold and, much to my surprise, succeeding. In reponse we get a mind-sense attack that is not even powerful enough to get through me, let alone Dana.

Everyone has taken cover. One guard manages to get Brendan's gun by telekinesis, and I melt it too.

"Just go away!" screams one of the guards. "We are armed and there are more of us!"
"We want our Katie back!" screams Timo.
"Your what back?"
"Katie!"

The guards are even more afraid of us than we of them. They don't seem to know who we are talking about. Timo finds a sofa, flies it to where three of the gurads are, and makes it hover above them.

"Go away! Or else I am gonna beat you to death with a sofa! We are also armed!"

The guards, totally devoid of evil henchman morale, decide to retreat. Timo makes the sofa dance and kick them on the ass a little for additional speed.

"Err," I say, "I think we were supposed to engage them here to distract them from elsewhere."
"Argh, you are right. Hey, you, come back!"
"Fucking circus," says Dana, apparently meaning us. "There is nobody armed on this floor anymore. We should probably search it. Be careful, they can still be armed with Skills."

We split, just like horror movies warn people from doing, and do a room-by-room search. It's uneventful - empty labs and offices, hastily abandoned, and no trace of Katie.

In one room I find an Asian man of about fifty, terrified to death. I read his mind and see myself through his eyes: a barbarian with a gun, about to kill or maim him.

"Please!" he says, "Please! I have three children at home!" He really does have three children, all of them adult by now.
"That's good." I say. "You should probably go and see them right now. There is a bit of, uhm, armed conflict here. I think you better go home for the day. Because people are shooting."
"Yeah, you," he thinks sourly, but calms down a bit. Then he thinks about his research, and decides that he has a copy of everything important at home and that it won't be a big deal if I get a copy for myself.

"And before you go, make a copy for me," I hand him a still-unopened USB stick from a shelf. "I'll know if you copied all the important stuff."

He does, and I let him go. I pick up a whole pile of the sticks, just in case.

I try to check on my friends downstairs with my mind-sense, but they are too far away. I start going down the stairs, all the time aware of my increasing distance from Timo, and feeling very vulnerable, even though there is nobody about to attack me within the immediate range of my mind-sense.

In the second-floor lobby, which was deserted when I walked in, an ass appears. The ass is wearing white shorts and is followed by the rest of the woman, followed by a man and some device the two of them are carrying.

"Sandra!" screams the man, terrified. "Behind you!"

Sandra turns around without putting the device down and gets ready to produce some Skill-flame.

"I wouldn't do it if I were you," I say, putting the weight of my coercion Skill behind it.

She stops, the fire still in her mouth but not coming out.

"And why not?" she says defiantly, wishing she could actually do it.
"Because I have a gun and you don't," I point out.
"I know, that's all you can do. Michael has told us everything about you people," she says defiantly, sure that she is about to die.
"Just take your thing and bugger off," I say, simultaneouly cold-melting the buckle of her belt into one monolithic piece of steel. Next time the defiant Sandra goes to the bathroom, she is in for a surprise.

Sandra and the man run towards the exit, as fast as they can with the device. I find Timo with my mind-sense. He is still searching the top floor.

"There are two people with some device running out of the building. I have a hunch that it might be important. Can you grab it from the air? Be careful, the woman breathes fire."
"No problem."

A second later I see him flying by the window. Two seconds later I am terrified. Three seconds later I start wondering where he puts it after he gets it.

The most logical idea would be to give it to Elina. Argh! Elina! We left her in the car outside with all those people running out of the building! They can take her a hostage or worse!

I run downstairs, barely registering the crash from upstairs and Timo flying back into the building with the device. This might be the best place, but it also causes some more people to run inside.

Rudy and Tarja have gotten out of their tank and are searching the first floor. I can see them from the gallery of the second floor and wave at Rudy, who waves back.

Suddenly Tarja points her gun at his head. He is not even raising his gun or sword or trying to run, just looking at her and saying "honey, please don't, I am sorry".

"Shit! No time to run! Can I jump or am I gonna kill myself?" runs through my mind before I remember that I can fly. I jump and sumultaneouly try to get hold of Tarja's mind. The flying doesn't work out very well, and I land on my ass, but the spell on Tarja is broken. The person who'd tried to make her shoot Rudy, the young female guard hiding behind a column, is cursing silently.

Tarja looks at me with empty eyes.

"Where?"

I point at the column and try to run there after her, shielding her mind and Rudy's all the time. The guard tries to sneak out from behind the column, but there is nowhere to run.

Tarja fires right in her face for about a second or two. There is nothing left of the woman's head, just bits of blood and bone and hair and brain matter all around.

I feel like screaming "What have you done!" What comes out of my mouth instead is "You didn't need to use a sustained burst, two to the chest and one to the head would've been enough."
"Uh-uh," she agrees noncommittally.
"Although what do we need to conserve Hardeep's ammo for? We have lots, and he probably has a basement full of it."
"Uh-uh."

I suddenly feel terribly ashamed about Sandra whose belt buckle I have melted. Did I have to play a stupid practical joke on the brave woman who stood up to me?

Rudy is still standing where he was. "I am sorry," he repeats.
"For what?" I ask. "Never mind, you surely have things to be sorry for. But now there are more guards coming. From there."

Rudy draws his sword.

"Stick it up your ass," I say. "You have an assault rifle."
"Doesn't work."
"That's because you put the magazine in the wrong way."

God, how did he even manage it? Talk about the unnatural acts. It takes some use of the iron Skill to pull the magazine out, fix the damaged parts and put it back in.

"Thanks, Mira. You are like MacGyver. You are better than MacGyver."

In the meanwhile Hardeep and Jamie are in real trouble in the basement. They have run into some kind of shooting machines, both have already taken several bullets and they are trying to retreat using Hardeep's telekinesis, because neither is in any condition to walk.

The only way I can see what happening to them is by mind-sense, I am in their range and they are in mine, but after a few seconds Hardeeps mind-sense is extinguished. Dead? I start feeling cold and sick, even though I just met the man a few hours ago and he has an annoying habit of calling everyone "girl", "boy" or "son".

"He's alive," comments Jamie telepathically. "Just unconscious...gotta get out of here...gonna try to use his telekinesis to fly us out...shot in the hip, can't walk...the automatic shooting was directed below the waist and ended as soon as we fell down..." At the same time he radiates total panic. Hardeep has been shot through the femoral artery and won't live much longer if they don't get out immediately. I try to run to the basement to help them, but before I manage to open the door they make it out of the building.

The guards run into the lobby and start shooting. They have clearly been educated in the School of Imperial Stormtroopers. Unfortunately, so have we. I am not sure that anyone is really shooting to kill.

I desperately want to know what is happening upstairs, but my mind-sense doesn't extend that far. There is shooting. I console myself with the thought that Timo is definitely alive, and that I will somehow survive without Dana and Brendan, if something happens to them. If I survive. Ugh.

Suddenly Tarja gets up from our cover. Rudy and I grab her before the guards have time to shoot.

"What the hell?"
"Look, Michael!"
"Leave him to Katie, she prob..."
"I'll apologize to her later," she says, but I can only hear it with mind-sense, because she is shooting at Michael, who has just appeared on the second-floor gallery and is trying to get from one room to another. Some of the bullets hit, but this doesn't stop him.

The guards move to cut us off from the stairs to the second floor. They plan to push us towards the exit, but are in no hurry.

I really need some kind of connection to Timo, and finally remember that I have a cell phone. I send the message "Rudy, Tarja and me OK, first floor, six guards. Jamie and Hardeep wounded, left. Michael on the 2d floor. No sign of Katie." After an eternal minute I get an answer: "We are OK. Searching 3d floor, everything locked. Brendan is going after Michael. Device might be Sight-block."

Hardeep gets back into the basement, crawling. The basement weapons are silent. Jamie climbs into some basement window on the other side. I ask them telepathically, and both assure that they are OK, Hardeep planning to disable the weapon systems and Jamie to look for Katie. We continue our pointless shootout with the guards.

A mental cry of triumph from Hardeep, followed by a cry of dismay. He has managed to disable the weapons, but something has locked him in the weapon control room, and he can't get out.

"Are you guys gonna be OK here?" I ask. "I gotta go to the basement and help Hardeep."
"We'll be OK. But maybe we should all go?" says Rudy.
"No!" protests Hardeep from the basement telepathically. "Somebody gotta stay and secure the first floor. I am no immediate danger, one person is enough."

I run to the basement door, Rudy and Tarja covering me with lots of shooting and obscenities. The cover turns out to be useful, because the door is locked and massive.

As soon as I get downstairs I hear a telepathic cry of distress from Jamie. He has also walked into some self-locking room, and into some net, like a fish. This damn place is full of traps.

As soon as I think about it, a door closes right in front of me, and another one behind me. The doors have so much iron that I can get through them, but it takes time. I decide that Jamie is a higher priority than Hardeep and start melting the door that goes his way.

I check the cell phone. It doesn't work here.

By the time I have melted the door, I see another one in front of me. In the room where Jamie is struggling in the net like a big angry octopus he is not alone anymore. Michael and a woman are there, lookign happy and victorious. I can't understand why he doesn't just make him let him go, or teleport somewhere else.

"Didn't know you can't teleport from enclosed spaces, did you?" asks Michael. "OK, Sophie, let's get him on the table."

The room is really strange: half of it is a prison cage, the other half looks like a fairly civilized lab. They put him down on the lab table, and tie his legs and arms to the corners.

He is in a total panic mode now. He has a lot of phobias, but the strongest of them is the fear of being physically tied up.

"Why don't you just make them go away or eat them or something?" I try to get through to him.
"Her mind-sense is strong enough that I can't get in, and she is shielding Michael, too. Don't come in here, it's a trap!"
"I'll think of something."

Good. At least he is coherent. He maintains constant telepathic contact now, mostly for comfort.

Sophie takes scissors and cuts two holes in his pants, one in the front and one in the back, all the time chatting with Michael about some lab results. Somehow this seems more obscene than if they had just pulled the damn pants off. She takes something that looks like a torture device and starts shoving it up his ass.

"Careful," says Michael. "Try not to hurt him too much."
"Why?"
"It's not nice. We try not to hurt rats unless we have to, and he is sort of a human being."
"Whatevargh!"
"Yeah, and he also bites."
"You could have started with that!" Sophie stops for a second to disinfect her forearm. She also wraps Jamie's head and upper body in a blanket in a way that makes me wonder whether she wants to strangle him. The way he is screaming, however, suggests than his air intake is not obstructed in any way.

He is not in much physical pain, but screaming makes him feel better for some reason. He registers the device in his ass as an offense against his person, but at the moment the restraints upset him a lot more.

The device turns out to be some contraption for eliciting a sperm sample. It's over pretty fast, before I get through the second door. They also take a blood sample. They stick him into the prison sell, hadcuffed, wrapped in a blanket and tied with some leather straps over the blanket. Michael takes the samples and some other stuff from the lab, and heads for the door.

"I'll see if we can take him with us. If not, at least we got these."
"What are we gonna do with him if we can't take him?"
"Just leave him here."
"What, alive?" Sophie is disappointed.
"He is too precious to waste."
"What about the wife?"
"Carlos is watching her."
"Carlos?" Sophie is taken aback.
"Yes. He..." Michael walks out without finishing the sentence. Sophie grunts. I start working on the third door. How many more are there?

"Can you do something about these handcuffs from where you are?" asks Jamie.
"Let's see."

He maintains the perfect illusion of total panic as I cold-melt the handcuffs and make a knife out of them. I also destroy the buckles on the leather straps that are wrapped around him, and try to melt the bars and lock of his cage, but they are made of some other metal. I give up and continue working on the door.

"Stop screaming," says Sophie, leaning on the bars of the cage. "You can't get into my mind."
"Don't need to," he answers, rolling out of the blanket, grabbing her with one hand and breaking her cheekbone with a punch. "Open the door."
"Don't even dream of it!"

His second punch breaks her nose.

"Open the door. I have asked you nicely twice, cunt. Do I need to ask again?"

She opens the door, sobbing and angry, and realizes that she is alone in a room with an adversary whose mind she can't control. An adversary who is a few centimeters taller than her, a few years younger, male, and apparently has no compunction about hurting women.

I finish with the third door. There is a flight of stairs and a fourth one, but it's unlocked. By the time I run inside Sophie is on the floor and Jamie is approaching her with the knife.

"What are you doing!"
"Gonna teach the bitch some empathy. Don't worry, the knife is just for cutting her trousers."
"Don't! You can use them! Your own are ruined."
"That's a pretty good idea."

Sophie hurriedly pulls her pants off and Jamie pulls them on. They are not a good fit, but ok with belt.

"I still think she needs a lesson on why people don't like it when other people stick things up their ass without their permission."
"Don't be silly."
"I didn't do it... for... sexual satisfaction..." sobs Sophie.
"Neither am I," reasonably points out Jamie.

His heart, however, is not really in it, and neither are his other parts.

"Cactus," I think, since he is really not doing this for sex. Before I manage to shield my mind from him, he picks up the idea and grabs the lone phallic cactus from under a plant lamp. I lunge after him and we fall on the floor right next to the wide-eyed terrified Sophie.

I am probably fighting the most powerful being in the world. Physically. On the floor. For a cactus.

This realization makes me double over, and he grabs the plant. At this moment I figure out that I don't need to get hold of the cactus in order to win, rip the cactus to shreds with telekinesis, grab Jamie, sling him over my shoulder and walk out of the room. He offers only nominal resistance.

"Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam..." I start as I walk up the stair, Jamie's butt on my shoulder.
"What?"
"I am trying to thank the Lord for giving me telekinesis, so I can carry your stupid ass out of there without straining my muscles too much. What the fuck has come into you?"
"Sorry."

He removes himself from my shoulder with a really amazing feat of agility, considering that he is not using any Skill for that, and we collide with Michael, who is very pale and very angry.

"What have you done to her! Coward! To hit a woman..." we don't get to hear the end because Jamie hits him in the solar plexus. "I thought you didn't believe in revenge..." Michael croaks.
"Consider this a preemptive strike," hisses Jamie, kicking Michael in the balls, throwing him down the stairs and jumping after him.

I try to follow, but he screams "stay out, fire" and slams the door in my face. I run to the upper basement and close whatever remains of the third door. I have half-expected the doors to heal miraculously after me, but now I note with satisfaction that this one stayed broken.

There is an explosion downstairs, fire, and Jamie appears, all his clothes burned off as usual. We start walking back to the stairs.

"They alive?"
"Yeah. Didn't have the heart."
"We gotta find you some new clothes."
"Fuck that. They'll just burn again anyway. I am gonna be like that guy who fought naked and ate people in Africa, what's his name..."
"General Butt Naked."
"Right."
"We need to find you at least a pair of shoes. There's glass everywhere. Even General Butt Naked always wore boots to battle."
"He did?"
"Definitely."
"Whee!" He sees somebody's abandoned gym bag lying on the floor. Luckily it turns out to contain reasonably approriate-sized gym clothes and shoes. Jamie wearily curses the erstwhile owner for failing to include the underpants.

"Go find Katie," I say. "I'll go rescue Hardeep."

Hardeep is already within the range of my mind-sense, and a bit frustrated. I destroy another door.

"About time, girl. I thought I'd die of old age in here."
"Shut up, it was like five minutes."
"Is that the way to talk to your commanding officer?"
"Yeah."
"The kids nowadays. Check this out."

Wow. In the last five minutes Hardeep has completely dismantled what looks like a very complicated weapon system and cannibalized all the interesting-looking hardware from there.

"Were you some kind of a weapon specialist in the special forces?"
"Bright girl. Here, take this," he gives me an impressive gun. "Soon as we find Katie and all our people we'll raid the armory."
"What is this, then, if not a raid?"
"A minor appropriation. Let's go now."

On the first floor Rudy and Tarja are standing triumphantly, with no guards in evidence.

"Hi! What happened!"
"The guards saw Jamie and ran away."
"I told him to put clothes on."
"He had. He said he knows where Katie is and ran upstairs just a second ago. He said they have some rapist guarding her. My little sister, completely defenseless..."

A horrible scream comes from the second floor. A door on the second floor opens, and a tall black man runs out, screaming. He is on fire, and running doesn't help.

"Hey, drop and roll!" screams Rudy.

The man is followed by a five-meter tongue of flame. Out of the same door runs Rudy's defenseless little sister, passing huge tongues of flame out of her mouth and waving an axe. The man is a good runner and normally Katie would have no chance to catch up, but being on fire tends to slow one down.

"Katie, love, please don't!" screams Jamie from across the gallery, but she swings her axe, and the man's head falls to the first floor and stops at Rudy's feet. He just stands there in the same pose as Judith with Holofernes's head in Giorgione's painting, and with the same pensive expression, torn between the feelings that can be briefly expressed as "gross" and "cool".

"Katie, honey, put the axe down!" shouts Jamie, running towards her.
"The handle is ruined anyway!" adds Rudy.

Katie turns and runs somewhere.

Screams and swearing from upstairs.

"Help!" screams Timo. "We are out of ammo and they got Dana!"

I run to the third floor and collide with six guards running down. They seem to have run out of ammo too, and they don't pick a fight with me. Rudy, who is one stair flight behind me, decides to hit them with the first heavy object he manages to grab, which turns out to be another guard, but this only encourages them to run away faster.

When I reach the third floor there is nobody there. Just an open window and Timo flying away, Brendan sitting on his back.

I follow them. Flying out of the third-floor window is really scary.

They come to a small house, where Brendan dismounts from Timo's back and immediately runs inside. "Idiot, they are armed!" screams Timo and follows him. "Timo, don't!" I try to stop him before remembering that he is indeed invulnerable.

The house is full of gunfire and truly horrible things, monsters and orcs and smoke and devils. It takes me a few seconds and one bullet wound to realize that the whole monster squad with fire and brimstone was conjured by Brendan, and I slide to the floor.

On the floor I realize that the wound is just a scratch, and that I am about to get more serious ones if I don't leave the premises immediately. I crawl outside and reach in with my mind-sense. There are three kidnappers, one of them wounded. Brendan is wounded too, but it doesn't stop him.

I sit outside and try to make the kidnappers give up. One of them does. Brendan manages to shoot another one in the head, and Timo drops a bookcase on the third one.

Brendan carries Dana out in his arms and collapses on the ground right next to me.

"You OK?" asks Timo.
"Yeah. Just a little wound. Maybe you should check them out first."
"You are my girlfriend and they aren't," he whispers, healing a deep scratch in my side and then turning to Brendan. I am glad he did. In the movies a flesh wound is nothing to worry about, but in the real life it hurts like hell when I move my arm, and the fact that it's not dangerous and is gonna heal is not much of a consolation.

"Ladies first," says Brendan as soon as he is healed enough to talk.
"I am not a fucking lady," protests Dana. He hugs her. She sneers but hugs him back, and then the rest of us.
"We gotta get back before Katie kills everyone," I say.
"It's much better to get back after she kills everyone," points out Timo. "I for one don't wanna watch."

When we get back Michael's building is completely on fire. Elina and Tarja are running back and forth.

"What happened?"
"Jamie passed out somewhere in the building, and Rudy went to find him, and Katie went to find them, and God only knows where Hardeep is," explains Elina, terrified.

"Hardeep accounted for," points out Timo, as Hardeep runs out of the burning building, coughing and carrying a huge load of weaponry.
"Hardeep!" I scream, "We have three people in the building!"
"Shit! At least Katie can't die in the fire."
"Hey," I suddenly realize. "I can see them all with the Sight!"

The sight is not reassuring. Jamie is unconscious, and horribly burnt and injured but still-barely-conscious Rudy is trying to pull him out of the building with telekinesis. He can't even touch him physically because Jamie's body emits its own fire, or rather Skill-fire borrowed from someone else. They are completely cut off and will probably soon run out of oxygen. Katie is running around looking for them. She is completely engulfed by fire, which does not seem to bother her.

I start running towards the building. Timo overtakes me flying.

"Don't! You'll die there! I'll go in, I can't die."
"I am not trying to go in, I wanna show them the way out."

I try to make telepathic contact with Katie and fail. Dana puts her hand on my shoulder.

"What are you trying to do?"
"Tell her 'at your two o'clock, twenty meters'".
"OK."

Katie's mind-sense is not enough to notice unconscious Jamie or barely-conscious Rudy, and she can neither see in the smoke nor See with the Sight, but she does find the right place. When she comes into the room, she makes the fire disappear, except for the fire that comes out of herself and Jamie.

She lifts Jamie, and wants to lift Rudy, but she can't do that without burning him even more. He manages to get himself airborne. She walks out, clearing their path in the fire, Rudy flying uncertainly in her wake.

Timo and Elina are already at the exit when they emerge, immediately grabbing Rudy with telekinesis and starting working on him. I try not to get in their way, but their expressions are alarming - it looks like there is no time to lose, anyway. Apart from the horrible burns, he has some serious internal injuries and is bleeding inside.

Elina gives one look to Jamie and says "can wait".

He is regaining consciousness, and looks somewhat injured, but that's not what's wrong with him. He is incredibly weak and cold. Katie is sitting on the ground with his head in her lap and crying, radiating the sense of enormous guilt for failing to protect him.

Dana comes up and clumsily tries to comfort her.

"Don't cry... He is gonna be just fine. Rudy is gonna be just fine, too," she adds, less sure.
"She'll be OK," answers Jamie telepathically. "It's not really about me."

I go and hug Tarja. She hugs me tight and doesn't say anything, but relaxes visibly when it starts looking like Rudy is gonna make it.

"Give him a Coke," says Elina to Katie, without turning or stopping her work on Rudy. "There is some in the car. If he can't drink it, try the other end. He really needs fluids and sugar."

The threat of a Coke enema gives Jamie enough strength to drink it up.

Timo starts working on Rudy's face.

"Maybe you should take a look at Jamie before you start doing cosmetic things," says Rudy. It takes him quite an effort. The very idea of his face horribly burned is devastating to him, even if he knows it can be fixed within minutes.
"No, I'll be fine. Let's fix your face and hair first. Somebody give me more Coke," answers Jamie, too weak to actually speak with his mouth.

They finish with Rudy's face, and Elina moves on to Jamie while Timo is making Rudy's hair grow back.

"Mirror?" asks Rudy hopefully. Tarja has one ready.
"Argh! My hair is all wrong! Wrong color, too! Can't you do something about it?"
"I grew your hair a couple of centimeters longer than it was, so you can easily fix it at a barber. Can't do anything about the color. Dark brown is your natural color, and I can't just generate the hair dye. Can't reproduce your ten styling products, either."
"Six. Oh, that's no problem, I have them with me. But the color..."
"L'Oreal," Tarja quotes some ad. "Because I'm worth it."
"That's so unfair," says Rudy. "People teleport and bring penguins and fly and read minds, and nobody's got a hair-dyeing Skill."
"Life is hard," says Dana.

Rudy sighs.

Elina heals Jamie's injuries with much less drama, partly because he is much less injured, partly because his hair needs a shampoo rather than a healer, and mostly because he is still too exhausted for drama. Katie, on the other hand, is in a very dramatic mood, even though she only has bruises, but she has no words to express it. All I manage to read from her mind is that Carlos - the man she killed with an axe - was one of the people who killed Faye, and that she is not sorry, but she still feels like shit. Jamie is doing the mind-sense equivalent of patting her on the head. Brendan brings blankets for both of them.

Only now I notice that Rudy's hands are cupped together and there is something in there.

"I rescued a monster," he says.
"I am not a monster," feebly protests Jamie.
"Oh yeah, almost forgot, I also rescued a moron. Here's the monster. Careful, it's so tiny..."

He makes a gap between two fingers. A tiny, spectacularly ugly face sticks out of there, looks around with blind eyes, and says "meep" questioningly.

"Ooh!" Katie is almost breathless, "Oh! It's adorable!"

The rest of us think "now that's one ugly motherfucker" in surprising and touching unity.

"What is it?" asks Rudy.
"It's a dog, idiot! Tiny adorable puppy!"
"Look at what those people did to a dog! Don't they have animal protection services here?" Tarja is outraged.
"I think it's supposed to look this way. My best guess would be a mix of pug and Chinese crested. So young, hard to tell," says Katie.
"You mean it's supposed to look like that?" I ask.
"Great," says Rudy. "Now it excused itself on my shirt."
"The shirt was ruined anyway," points out Tarja.
"Where is Hardeep?" I ask.

Hardeep and the hardware are nowhere to be seen. There is a note under Brendan's windshield wiper.

"Please don't look for me or my family. I helped you get what you wanted, and I got what I wanted. Best of luck. Hardeep."

"What'd he get?" asks Elina.
"The device that blocks out the Sight," answers Brendan. "And some other gadgets."
"Shit."
"We have another one," Timo runs to the nearest bushes and carries it here.
"Yeah, but where did the first one go to?"
"Mossad?" asks Rudy.
"He is not even Jewish, he is Sikh," says Brendan.
"Maybe Mossad is an equal opportunity employer," I say.
"Anyway, where are the people from the building?" asks Timo.
"I talked to them about the Community and made a list of them and invited them to the IRC channel," says Elina. "Some just ran away. Looks like Michael was running his own shadow Community in here, which consisted of Sightless Skilled people he found. They don't really know how he found them, just that every once in a while he brought a new one. He didn't tell them about the real Community."
"What happened to Michael?" asks Rudy.
"I shot him many times, but he got away," sighs Brendan. "And some woman with him."
"They took a sperm sample from me by force," adds Jamie.

Elina gasps.

"A sperm sample! Why didn't you say? Shit!"
"A whole lot of good that's gonna do them. I am sterilized."
"Not as of yesterday, you aren't. I did ask you about body modifications."

A second of silence.

"Shit!" groans Jamie. "I am the king of morons and the supreme overlord of total idiots."
"And so nine months from now a destroyer is born," says Rudy. "And she can sue you for child support."
"Do you have to rub it in?"
"What are we gonna do?" sighs Elina.
"I wanna go home," says Brendan. "Can give you a ride somewhere if you want".
"I have a better idea," suggests Jamie. "Why don't we teleport to a beach?"
"You need serious rest," says Elina.
"I can rest there. With a pink non-alcoholic drink with a little umbrella in it, and all of you for company."
"I really need to get home," says Brendan. "And you need to clear our of here before that. As soon as I am gone the Powers that Be will notice the fire."
"So it's you?" exclaims Tarja. "I was wondering when the firefighters would show up."
"Are you sure you are up to teleporting?" Elina asks Jamie.
"Takes very little energy."

* * * Community's IRC channel

<Else> Anyone heard of them yet?
<Olafur> You have asked at least twenty times already.
<Wei> We can't find Susan or John.
<Else> Maybe something happened to them? Susan and John, I mean.
<Lauri> Nothing has happened to them. They are just very far away, it's Sunday evening there, and they might be busy doing something.
<Sinikka> Just got an SMS from Elina. Everybody is alive, Michael had been keeping a whole compound of Sightless Skilled and had some devices to block the Sight, they attacked and destroyed the compound, Michael ran away with Jamie's sperm, Hardeep ran away with one of the devices, and we are gonna get 70+ newbies real soon now.
<Perv> Do you think any of them might be looking for a job?
<Olafur> Shut up, Perv.
Sandra(~sandra@unknown) has joined #Community
<Sandra> Hi. Are you the Community?
<Else> Sandra, yes. I suppose you are one of Michael's people? Welcome.
<Sandra> Yes. What is going on?
<Olafur> That's what we are trying to find out. We hadn't heard of you before today.
<Sandra> You killed several of my colleagues.
<Sinikka> We are really sorry. Must have been a misunderstanding.
<Sandra> Some misunderstanding!
<Wei> Sandra, did Michael say anything about us?
<Sandra> He said that there are a few Skilled people somewhere who were spying on us. Today he said that a group of them was going to attack us, and they did.
<Hanne> That's because he kidnapped one of us today. Just grabbed a woman and teleported with her.
<Sandra> Teleported?
<Sinikka> You didn't know he could do that?
<Sandra> I don't believe you.
<Sinikka> How about we tell you what we know, and then you tell us what you know?

* * *

The beach is very nice, if somewhat crowded. This is the biggest touristy town of the Great Barrier Reef.

We have rented a huge umbrella, which turned out to be a great investment in this heat, and Rudy has bought a bucketful of industrial-strength sunscreen.

In spite of the heat Jamie is still feeling cold. Usually he avoids direct sunlight, but now he has poured half of the sunscreen bucket over himself and crawled out from under the umbrella in order to lie in the sun. He is feeling better after two strawberry smoothies; every once in a while he wakes up without opening his eyes, gives serious consideration to a third smoothie, and falls back asleep without reaching a definite conclusion.

Katie is lying next to him, constantly spreading the sunscreen on him and some suntan oil on herself. She doesn't say much, and her mood oscillates very quicky between triumph and remorse, between "how could I kill that man?" and "why did I kill him, now I can't find out if there are others!". She knows that the man's name was Carlos, but never refers to him by name even in her mind. One word sneakily makes its way into this cycle of remorse and barbarian triumph, and the word is "ice cream". Well, that's two words.

Timo appears with a whole box of ice cream cones. He gives the first one to me, then hands them out to the others and takes one himself, sits down and puts his head on my shoulder.

"Feeling better?" he asks me in Finnish.
"Yeah. Still can't believe I threw up among the cute little fish."
"You threw up on the cute little fish."
"Thanks for the correction."
"How about we go for a swim again after the ice cream?"
"You've managed to talk me into it. Hard, wasn't it?"
"I understood that!" says Katie, whose Finnish is not enough to understand the conversation but who has been reading our minds. "You were talking about swimming and throwing up on the fish. I am not sure why you wanna do something like that."
"The swimming is in the future, throwing up on the fish is in the past," explains Timo. "Although swimming is also in the past, and throwing up on the fish is probably also in the future."
"You are so cute when you are explaining Finnish tenses."

Rudy and Tarja are sitting up in the shade, looking like a virtuous young couple with a newborn. They have bought a baby bottle and some milk, and are trying to feed the puppy that everyone seems to have nicknamed One Ugly Bastard. The Ugly Bastard seems to have a good appetite and a tendency to piss all the time. It's completely bald, except a for a huge tuft on the head, and had a face like it has run into a wall at a high speed. Tarja keeps idly wondering about the fact that such a creature can probably interbreed with a wolf. Rudy is just happy none of his women have killed him yet. Occasionally he thinks about putting his woman affairs in order, but then decides that if he hasn't managed to do that in the last 36 years, it's probably too late to start now. He also wonders what happened to Debbie. I decide that what he doesn't know can't hurt him.

The big TV screen in the nearby beach cafe is showing news about a big fire in a research facility near Sydney.

"Poor thing," says Dana to Elina, pointing at Jamie. "He wanted to go diving so much, and now all he can do is sleep."
"Tomorrow is a new day."
"Will he be OK by tomorrow?"
"Not yet, but he'll be well enough to go diving. It's not like he can drown."
"We gotta get home tomorrow," sighs Tarja. "Have work Tuesday. I wish we could stay here longer."

Elina grins.

"Hey, I am a doctor. How about I write you all sick leave for the rest of the week?"

The suggestion is met with great enthusiasm, and Katie immediately makes some new arrangement for the dogs, who are staying in some dog hotel in Espoo. Timo just sends his parents an SMS and asks them to keep the cat for a few more days.

"Sorry I can't write you sick leave," Elina says to Dana. "Finnish sick leave is porbably not accepted in Israel."

Dana looks at the rest of us with the expression of infinite superiority.

"I don't need sick leave, wage-slaves. I am a student."