Andrews took Ruth to lunch at a hotdog restaurant. He was becoming increasingly fond of the American fast food. He specifically asked the cab driver to take them to one “on the other side of the railroad tracks.” Sure enough, there was a thriving community of black women, and while upon cursory examination the houses and businesses looked prosperous, the streets, sidewalks, and public works were clearly not as well maintained as those in the rest of the city. They ate their hotdogs. Their encounter with the police however, had fouled both their moods and neither felt like continuing afterwards. Upon returning to the Biltmore, Ruth went to the Ladybugs’ suite, while Andrews spent the evening going through the thick file that had been put together for him in Chicago. There he found a brief notation regarding a town in Mississippi called Oxford. The next morning, he asked Agent Wright about it.

“A woman named Pearl Kerrigan wrote a long rambling threat to the Ladybugs back in ’72,” she said, after examining the note. “It seemed serious enough at the time, so it was investigated by local police.”

“What did they find?” he asked.

“I don’t have any record of a resolution of any kind, but that was three years ago and the woman hasn’t been heard from since. We rated the threat level pretty low, both because of how long ago it was received and the distance from any tour venue.”

“I have half a mind to go check it out myself, just to find out what happened.”

“I think it’s a waste of time,” said Wright. “But if you want to requisition an airflivver, I’ll sign off on it. I don’t think both of us should leave the area though.”

“No, that’s fine. I can handle this myself.”

The airflivver met him on the roof of the hotel two hours later. About as wide and tall, not including the dragonfly wings as a good sized car, and about two and a half times as long, this particular flivver was owned by a private contractor who leased it out to the government when it needed vehicles. Andrews dreaded getting into such aircraft when they were still running because of the reaction that some of the pilots had to him. This pilot, a pretty girl barely old enough to have a pilot’s license, had apparently had contact with men before. Though friendly and curious, she didn’t seem shocked to meet him.

“Hi, I’m Deb.”

“Agent Andrews.”

“We’re going to Oxford?”

“Yes, you know it?”

“Yes indeed-oh!” She pulled back on the steering column and the vehicle shot into the air and spun around in an arc so tight that Andrews thought he would be thrown through the door.

Airflivvers typically had an airspeed of nearly two hundred miles per hour, and this one seemed to be one of the fastest, so the flight to Oxford took just less than two hours. Along the way Andrews learned quite a bit about pilot Deb Gale, who was nothing if not communicative. She was twenty-one, had moved to Atlanta from Ohio in order to get her piloting job, lived with two friends in a small apartment, and had a long distance friendship with a young man in the enclaves named Bud that she hoped would blossom into romance.

“I want to eventually get a job flying one of the big dirigibles, after I get enough airtime in. Right now, I’m just enjoying the adventure. You’ve got to have fun and adventure in your life while you’re young. That’s what I keep telling Bud. He’s twenty-four and he’s still afraid to move up north. Pretty soon he’ll be too old for adventure and then what will he do.”

There was no airport in Oxford, at least not one capable of landing an airship. There was a small tarmac where four or five airflivvers parked next to a single Quonset hut. A single black and white police cruiser was waiting nearby. Once they had landed, Andrews climbed out of the passenger side. Deb secured the craft and then followed him. They were met by a single uniformed woman climbing out of the car. She was a stocky woman in her fifties, her hair shot with grey.

“Agent Andrews?”

“Sherriff Donnelly.” He reached out and shook hands.

“My goodness, I can’t believe it. An actual man right here in Oxford.”

“There are no other men in town?”

“Not for years now.”

“But you’ve known other men?”

“I’ve known a few,” she said, but didn’t elaborate.

“As I told you on the phone, I’m looking for Pearl Kerrigan.”

“I can drive you out to her place. She lives right outside of town. Nobody’s seen her in weeks though.”

“I’m coming too,” said Deb, as they piled into the police car.

“All right,” said Andrews, “but stay out of the way.”

They drove through town. The once thriving main street had fallen to disrepair and beyond it was a town filled with old worn down houses with peeling paint, and newer mobile homes set back from the street in lots overgrown with weeds and brush. Beyond the edge of town were a few small farms and then the ruins of abandoned farmhouses. At last they pulled up in front of a turn of the century home. It was in better shape than some of the places they had seen, but it looked quiet now. The windows were all shuttered over and there seemed to be no sign of life.

Sheriff Donnelly got out of the car and walked up onto the front porch, peering into the front window before knocking on the door. Andrews got out and walked back along the long driveway toward the separated garage behind. He heard the sheriff knock several times and then call out but there was no answer. The garage had a door that slid from the side and it proved to be unlocked, so he pushed it far enough to create a two foot wide opening. He stared into the darkness inside.

At ten o’clock the following morning, the airship Rosalie Morton rose up from the field at O’Hare and made a slow, majestic turn toward the south. She would make a quick trip to Atlanta, arriving just before 2:30 local time. Andrews was seated at his tiny desk in his very small cabin, completing the extensive reports that had to be filed anytime a Science Police agent fired his weapon. A knock at the door brought him to his feet even though the door opened before he had a chance to reach for the handle. Ep!phanee stepped inside. She had to press up against him in order to close the door behind her.

“Hello stranger,” she said.

“Hardly a stranger. We saw each other half an hour ago.”

“Yes but we weren’t alone. I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“What’s more, my clownfish misses you.”

Sometime later, after the coral reef dweller in question had renewed his acquaintance, Andrews lay on the small single bunk in his room. Piffy was draped over him like a blanket, her skin separated from his only by a thin layer of perspiration.

“So what is the fascination with sea life—the whole aquatic motif?”

“I like fish and the coral reef. When I’m home on Thatch Cay I go snorkeling almost every day. Sometimes I go spear fishing.”

“Thatch Cay?”

“Yes, that’s the island we own.” She giggled. “I managed to say that almost like it’s a normal thing—we own an island.”

“You all live there?”

“Well, we all have houses there. Agave Studio is there. Then there’s an old fishing village I had fixed up as the port for our boats. And I had my beach renovated—two hundred barges full of rocks and debris hauled away, the sand sifted, and several rows of palm trees planted back from the shoreline. But until a couple of months ago, I was the only one there besides the caretakers and their families. Steffie and Penny were both in Europe and Ruth was staying with her mother in St. Croix.”

Andrews was quiet for a moment. “Really? Spear fishing?”

“Sure.” She climbed off of him and began putting her clothes back on. “You know that island is why we got back together.”

“How so?”

“Oh, we were all fighting about recordings and copyrights and who was going to be the band’s manager, but when it came to selling our joint assets, Thatch Cay was first on the list and nobody wanted to let go of it. Penny and I got together after not speaking for a couple of years to figure out what to do with it, and we ended up in the studio together.”

“Then the world owes Thatch Cay a debt of gratitude.” He sat up and folded his hands behind his head. “I hope we get a chance to sneak out for dinner tonight or maybe tomorrow. I hear they have a very famous hotdog restaurant in Atlanta.”

“That’s not going to be possible I’m afraid.” Now dressed in her tee shirt and mini skirt, Piffy wobbled like a stilt walker as she put her feet into her platform sandals. “We have some planning to do for the show this evening, and I want you to spend tomorrow with Ruth.”

“Ruth? Why?”

“She’s nice. She’s pretty.”

“I know she’s nice. She’s famous for being ‘the nice one’, and I think she’s beautiful. But we’re hitting it off so well, I thought we could spend some time together.”

“We are hitting it off and we’ll spend more time together, but if I have a man it’s just not right that I don’t share him with my best friends. It’s not like we come across men every day.”

“There are men… around,” he sputtered. “What are you going to do, loan me out like one of your guitars?”

“Don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t loan Ruth my guitar… maybe my Dreadful, but not my Rickenbacker. Anyway, she can’t play guitar for shit. Besides, you should be loving this. Men are supposed to be like that. You all make your monthly donations willingly enough don’t you? You’re supposed to be… what’s that word that you are?”

“Promiscuous?”

“Horny. That’s it.”

“You have no idea what men are like, do you?”

“I’ve seen men before, though I admit I haven’t really gotten to know one until now.”

“Not even your father?”

“I didn’t have a father. My mother ordered her genetic sample from the Science Council.” She stopped and stared at him, eyes and mouth wide open. “Oh shit. Oh shit.”

“Relax. I’m thirty-five.”

She stared uncomprehendingly.

“I’m too young to be your father.”

“Oh my God,” she let out the breath she had been holding and put her hand over her heart. “What a scare. I guess Ruth doesn’t have to worry about that. Penny doesn’t either, though that’s just the kind of kink she’d probably enjoy.”

“So you want me to go out and have sex with your friends?”

“Only if you hit it off. If you don’t click, then no problem. Unlike most women, they can afford to fly south and find their own man. And just Ruth and Penny—not Steffie. She had her own man and the bitch never once offered to share him with me. Well, all right. Maybe Steffie too. We’re kind of a package deal. You understand how the world works, don’t you? There just aren’t enough men for us not to share. You can’t just date one girl, no matter how much I would like to have you all to myself.”

Andrews ordered a taxi and rode with Ep!phanee back to the American, where the rest of the band and entourage had stayed. Once she was safely under the protection of the Chicago Police Department, and after he had made a quick stop at his own room to shave and change, he took the same cab back to the international building and met up with Agent Wright and the team.

Two of the local agents were working in the office, coordinating with other Science Police teams who were investigating possible threats in cities around the globe. Andrews and Wright, each taking one of the local agents with them, set out to determine the veracity of threats in the Chicago area. Wright and her temporary partner Agent Finnegan were to investigate the source of some anti-lesbian letters, while Andrews and Agent Loginova were looking into a woman who had sent several long, rambling quasi-religious, anti-rock and roll letters. Downstairs in the garage, Andrews bid farewell to Wright and followed Loginova to the large black Packard Clipper.

“You know the area better,” he said, as he climbed into the passenger seat, aware that many women didn’t trust male drivers.

Loginova was a tough looking woman of five foot eight. She had the body of an athlete, and while her face was attractive, it boasted several scars that said she could take a beating as well as give one. Her burgundy-dyed hair was cut into an unusual bob, very high on the back of her head and featuring bangs that came to a point in the middle, just above her nose, rather than being cut straight across.

The last known residence of Miss Athena Kesting was in Bolingbrook, which with traffic took almost forty minutes to reach. The quaint little village was covered by a large glass and steel dome to protect residents from the acrid smoke and acid rain that was the bane of the Midwest. The address in question proved to be huge house on a large, fenced estate.

“Not what I was expecting,” commented Loginova, as she pulled the car up the driveway, past extensive gardens.

The two agents parked and got out. On either side of the front door were life-sized marble statues of women in long flowing dresses. Andrews knocked, using the brass doorknocker, and when the door opened, he was surprised to find a woman who was the spitting image of the statue on the left.

“Good morning,” said Loginova, showing her badge. “We would like to speak to Miss Athena Kesting.”

“Oh. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Can you give us her forwarding address?”

“Won’t you come in please?”

The two agents entered a home that was as opulent inside as the outside had hinted. Passing through a foyer covered in rich wood paneling, they entered a stunningly decorated living room and sat down on a beautiful antique sofa. Two other women were seated when they came in, but both rose to their feet.

“Inga, would you ask Mr. Larkin to come down?” asked the woman with whom they had entered. “My husband will very much want to speak with you.”

A few minutes later, the gentleman in question entered the room. He was an average looking man, wearing casual though expensive clothes. He was slightly balding, something that he had chosen not to try to cover up by combing his hair over.

“Good Morning,” he said, shaking hands with both agents. “I’m Evan Larkin, and these are my wives Elke Lom-Larkin, Angelina Redmond-Larkin, and Inga Lom-Larkin.”

“Agent Andrews, and this is Agent Loginova.”

“So what can we do for you,” Larkin asked sitting down across from them. Elke sat to his right, while Angelina and Inga stood behind them.

“They are here about Athena,” said Elke.

“Oh yes. Well, no surprises there. She was a troubled girl, I’m afraid.”

“What was your relationship with Miss Kesting?” asked Andrews.

“We were engaged. My wives thought that she might fit in with us here, so she moved in for a trial period. I’m afraid it was not to be, though. She left, what has it been now? Six months ago.”

“Do you have a forwarding address?”

“Inga will find that for you. May I ask why you are looking for her?”

“I’m afraid we can’t say. It involves an ongoing investigation.”

“I see. Well, it’s no stretch of the imagination that it involves Athena’s strong feelings. She was brought up in a very religious community in Idaho.”

“They were very strict adherents to morality and believers in a patriarchal lifestyle,” said Elke. “That’s why we thought she might fit in here.”

“And you are all adherents to a patriarchal lifestyle?” asked Loginova.

“Not really,” replied Elke. “We’re more of a pragmatic family. We just thought that having grown up that way, Athena would fit in. It just didn’t work out. She was far too inflexible.”

“She thought that everyone had to believe the way she did,” added Angelina.

Andrews felt rather than saw Loginova cast a glance in his direction.

“Would you ladies mind if I spoke to Agent Andrews alone in my study?” asked Larkin.

Early the next morning, Andrews and Wright met in the Chicago Science Police field office. They sat down in a room with four local agents. Stacked on a conference table were five large cardboard boxes. Wright looked at each person seated in turn.

“We have our work cut out for us this morning ladies. Inside these boxes are as many of the threatening letters, unsettling telegrams, and creepy missives that the Ladybugs have received in the past twelve months, as a group or individuals, as we could get a hold of. Lucky us. We get to go through and read them. I want them sorted by who they are targeting, the reason for the threat, their geographic origin, their likely source, and the threat level.”

The team sorted through the files by placing each of the items into matrix created by Agent Wright. Sandwiches and coffee were brought in and they worked right through lunch and well past five o’clock in the evening. In the end, they had 342 individual threats to investigate.

“All right,” said Wright. “The most important factor is threat level. We begin farming these individual items to the field offices based on their geographic origin, but we do so in order of threat level, starting with the most severe.”

“That’s a lot of woman-power strung out all through the bureau, isn’t it?” asked Anna Finnegan, one of the local field agents.

“Chicago was willing enough to spare the four of you. I’m sure that the other offices can spare a couple of agents to investigate someone living in their area. We’ll all meet back here first thing tomorrow.”

“Agent Andrews…” two of the women started at once, and then looked at each other.

“If you’re not doing anything for dinner…” one of them continued.

“I’m sorry ladies, but my partner has a meeting,” said Wright. “I however, would be happy to escort any or all of you to dinner.”

“I have a meeting?” Andrews leaned over and asked.

“In the lobby.”

The lobby of the Grace Coolidge International Building, though spartan, was large. It took a minute for Andrews to find his appointment waiting by feet of the statue of Justice. He almost didn’t recognize Ep!phanee. She was dressed in faded jeans and a Nehi Blue Cream Soda tee shirt. Her hair was tucked up under a black military cap.

“Is somebody here with you?” he asked.

“Nope. I ditched the cops back at the hotel. Buy me a hotdog.”

“You shouldn’t be running around town without an escort.”

“Well I have one now. Besides, I just want a hotdog. There’s a hotdog cart just down on the corner. I saw it on the cab ride over here.”

She took him by the arm and led him to the glass-enclosed front of the building, holding the door open for him. The hotdog vendor was stationed just where she had described, a chubby little woman with a striped shirt, a large stain covering most of the front.

“Two dogs,” Ep!phanee ordered, then turned to Andrews. “What do you want on yours?”

“I don’t know; whatever’s customary.”

“Haven’t you ever had a hotdog before?”

He shook his head. “German food’s not very popular in the enclaves.”

“Hotdogs are as American as apple pie. All right. Bacon, beans, avocado, catsup, and mayonnaise. Do you want jalapenos?”

“Yes please.”

“So you don’t have street food in the enclaves?”

“Sure. Tacos– usually fish tacos, but sometimes grilled shrimp.”

The vendor handed Piffy the hotdogs, already loaded with beans and avocado. Stepping to the end of the cart, she scooped on the jalapenos and then squirted on squiggly lines of red catsup and white mayonnaise. Handing one of the dogs to Andrews, she watched as he took a tentative bite. She then opened her mouth wide and shoved in about a third of hers.

“Good huh?” she asked, her mouth full.

He nodded and then took another bite. Ep!phanee began strolling down the sidewalk and even though she was moving slowly Andrews had to take a few quick steps to keep up. He was still eating his hotdog as they walked, being careful not to spill the condiments on his jacket. She finished first and dropped the little paper hotdog caddie in a trashcan beside the street.

“I should get you back to the hotel.”

“I’m staying in this hotel now.”

Andrews looked skyward to find that they were in front of the Palmer House. When he looked back down, Ep!phanee was already going through the revolving door. He stuffed the last bit of hotdog into his mouth and dropped the paper waste in a can beside the door, following her. The lobby was huge, with a tiled vaulted ceiling that looked like it belonged in a cathedral. Andrews felt self-conscious even walking on the rugs.

Built in 1929, the Chicago Stadium was the largest indoor venue in the world, almost twice as large as Madison Square Gardens. In its forty-six years of existence, it had hosted hockey and football games, presidential nominating conventions, rodeos, boxing tournaments, and the 1964, 1965, and 1966 Ladybugs tours. Its seventeen thousand seat capacity made it a far smaller venue than Shea, but being indoors, with a permanent stage, had some advantages. Crews had been working on the laser and lighting systems for weeks. A single song had been switched. Casanova was replaced by Paragon of Virtue, allowing the band to use the fabled 3,663 pipe Baron organ in the Madhouse on the Madison.

Andrews watched from just off stage as some local celebrity or other introduced the band. He hadn’t been at the previous concert, but he had seen the segments on the news. If anything, the screaming sounded louder here than it had at Shea Stadium, but at least when the music started you could hear it. The band was making the transition from Peggy Sue to She’s My Dream when Wright tapped him on the shoulder.

“Chicago PD says everything is secure.” She had to scream to make herself heard.

He nodded, and while she hurried back to her position, he took a deep breath, allowing himself to enjoy the experience of seeing his favorite band, the world’s favorite band, play their music. It was easy to see that the girls were more at ease than they had been. During Lonely Girl, Ep!phanee, who played no instrument in the song, began leaping around in circles as she sang, just as she had in the early days. The crowd ate it up. Then during Distortion Penny, Piffy, and Steffie fell into a line and began strutting across the stage with almost military precision, finally sliding toward the audience on their knees as they played the final chords.

The drumbeat continued and the all three took their places to begin Under the Heel. That’s when Andrews saw it. There was a flash of light high up in the rafters above the audience. It wasn’t the flash of a camera bulb, but of reflective light bouncing off a pane of glass—like the end lens of binoculars, or of a rifle’s scope.

Ducking around the back curtain and running through the cluttered backstage, he found scaffolding with a metal ladder at one end. Grabbing hold of a rung, he pulled himself upwards. By the time he was twenty feet above the ground, the scaffolding began to sway dangerously with every step, and he still had more than fifty feet to go. When he reached the top he was sure the swaying structure would go crashing to the ground at any second, but he was able to clamber off it and onto the catwalk that ran the length of the stadium.

The stadium lights were out. All spots were on the performing band. Even if they hadn’t been, Andrews probably wouldn’t have been able to see anything. The catwalk ran above the lighting tracks, and the centermost section, where he had seen the flash, was a long way off. He ducked lower and grabbed the rail, but he didn’t have the luxury of watching from where he was, or even of taking it slow. Hunched over, he ran the length of the clattering, swaying metal walkway. The Ladybugs were playing the last chords of Artificial Man when he saw a human figure, not on the catwalk he was on, but one that intersected it. He ran faster.

When the song ended, the screaming applause continued but it, unlike the music, was not amplified up near the ceiling. Andrews stood up straight, but didn’t slow down. As he ran, he pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster. He flipped on the power and it began to whine as the solenoid charged.

“Hold it!” he yelled.

The person turned, saw him, and ran, the catwalk taking her away at a diagonal. Andrews stopped and took aim, but didn’t fire. There was something in the shadowy figure’s hand, but he wasn’t sure it was a weapon. He raced forward to where the two catwalks intersected, then turned and followed the other’s path. By that time, whoever he was following was a tiny figure half lost in the darkness. Andrews ran on, even when he could no longer see the person he was pursuing, secure in the knowledge that they had to be on the catwalk. But then he reached the end of the building to find a short ladder leading to a roof access door. Climbing up the stairs, he put his left hand on the hatch, his right still holding his gun. He quickly opened the door and stepped out onto the roof.

The moon, fully obscured by smoky clouds, did little to aid him, but Andrews carefully made the circuit around the rooftop, stepping around air conditioning units and other equipment. Suddenly a figure in black jumped up right in front of him.

“Freeze!”

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

“Hands in the air!”

Andrews could now see that it was a woman in front of him, something he had naturally expected. She was in her late twenties or early thirties and she was dressed in an imitation of Ep!phanee’s dark blue costume—spandex leggings and bustier, though her hair was oily brown rather than a bright blue and she didn’t have a nose ring. He grabbed the object she held up in her right hand. It proved to be a Leica 35mm camera.