Dragon Attack!, Part 1

Well, I've gotten to the point where my arms don't hurt as much when I move them, so I guess I can start giving my eyewitness account of what went down. But first, the date.

It went well, for a couple of hours. When I got to the Market, Alice (we agreed not to call each other by our aliases when we're out of costume) was waiting. She was dressed well: red tank top, jean shorts.

"Hey," she said. "Glad you could make it."

"Glad I could, too." Christ, what kind of a line was that? "So, where do you want to go?"

"I was thinking we'd check out the stands, find something we could agree on," she said.

And so it went. We ended up getting lunch at the Dutch Eating Place. As we sat, we talked about hobbies, interests, all the stuff we hadn't really gotten a chance to talk about while out fighting crime. Alice likes Coen Brothers movies and kendo, so that's a plus. Afterwards, we stopped at Miscellanea Libri, which houses a collection of books that would make even the most ardent conspiracy theorist go, "Dude, what the fuck?" We read excerpts from some book about lizardmen from the seventh dimension (I don't know) and laughed.

Afterwards, we decided we'd take the SEPTA to Chestnut Hill and check out some of the shops. I say "decided", because while we were on the train, our sigils went off.

"Oh, no..." I said. And it was going so well, too.

Alice looked disappointed, too, but she just said, "Duty calls," and pulled out the sigil. I did the same.

"So, Quint, what it is?"

"I just lost contact with a mystic! I'm picking up nothing, which means Wu's covering his tracks well. Doc, Judy, I need you two to get to 532 Delmar St., pronto."

I looked around the train. The very crowded train. This was obviously going to be tricky.

I turned to Alice and tapped my forehead. She recognized the sign, because next thing I knew, I heard her in my head. What should we do? she said.

Well, we can either wait until the next stop and possibly risk losing the trail, or we could port out here and risk blowing our secret identities.

I think I have a solution, she said. I could possibly make everyone think that we're still on the train. At the next stop, "we"'ll get off and disappear into the crowd. But I'll need a little time.

Fancy. Do it, I said. I sat there and waited when, not one minute later, Alice said, Done. Let's boogie.

I grabbed her hands, focused on her apartment building, and ported. We ended up outside, and she ran up the stairs.

"How long do you need?" I yelled.

"Give me five minutes," she shouted back. "That'll give Dad and I enough time to get ready." Then she ran in and closed the front door. I ported home and started changing into costume.

Well, I thought, it could have been worse for a first date.