As always, Melody thought, footwear was a problem. High heels were the social expectation, but the fact was you couldn't save the world if you couldn't run without tripping after three steps should the need arise. And wearing sneakers or combat boots to formal occasions tended to cause comment. Which was the last thing a secret agent wanted, though to be fair she had never been all *that* interested in the secret part. --- As one of the Lawndale underworld's leading flickering, dirt-encrusted light bulbs, DeMartino is relatively used to the sweet, cold feeling of the end of a pistol silencer when placed against some essential body part. So he hardly bats an eyelid at this one, a wise move given how close it is to his left eyebrow. "A *WAL*ther PP*K*. Silenced. Only *THREE* men I *KNOW* use that gun... and I be*LIEVE* I've *KILLED* *TWO* of them." He hits the floor hard, a large, bloody hole in the side of his head. Melody prods the body with a boot. "You forgot the one woman. Now," she smirks, throwing a closet door open to reveal a trembling young accomplice of the late DeMartino and moving her gun to the general area of his neck, "would you be able to tell me where a gal like me could find a Ms Janet Barch, occasionally known as Arachne?" The masterless apprentice shakes his head, whimpering, unable to take his eyes off the gun barrel. "Are you absolutely certain about that?" He looks up, gives the slightest of nods and stared dumbly into space. "Oh well..." She starts to squeeze the trigger, thinks better of it, gives him a hard blow across the face with the butt of the pistol, and adds a steel-toed kick to the groin when he hit the ground for good measure. Then she shoots him. No point in leaving evidence capable of active communication. "You wanted to speak to me, Miss Powers?" She turns around to look down the barrels of three appropriately nasty-looking firearms held by Arachne herself and two of her henchwomen. One of them, tall, "well-proportioned" and blonde, makes a vague "drop it" gesture. Melody carefully puts her gun on the ground. "No, I just relieved our only mutual contact of half his skull for the hell of it." "You killed DeMartino." It's not a question. "Guess I should be thanking you." She pauses. "Of course, that doesn't make up for what you did to my labs..." She fires. Melody collapses to the ground, and the henchwomen go to pick her up. A leg thrashes out. The blonde henchwoman is now on the floor, and the brunette has a knife uncomfortably close to her throat. "Now, Miss Barch, I was wondering if you could help me out. There's this woman, name of Li, who's frankly been giving me the shits lately and I heard you might know where she is." "Li? Oh, not a problem for a dear like you. Are you a mountain climber, Miss Melody?" "No, unfortunately. I have a fear of falling thousands of feet onto a jagged glacier." "But you know how to ski." "I've been known to dabble." "And you can see in even the thickest of snowfall." "No worse than anyone else." "You'll need to," and Arachne drops something explosive. The smoke clears after a time and there is only one thing in the room still living. Arachne and the blonde have escaped. One more person departs by the door they came through. She has brown hair. Back in DeMartino's old dressing room, some anonymous henchwoman's blood slowly spreads across the floor. Melody folds back the knife as she leaves and stuffs it in her belt. "Damn, and I liked that jacket too..." --- "No, it's not a problem, Ms Dench. Her Majesty will know the moment we do." Hang up. "Believe me, we'd like to know where she is too, monsieur Mathis. Yes, of course you'll be informed." Click. "Damn froggy bastards..." "No, Mr Nicolson, your interest is important to us. We'll let you know as soon as we know." Slam. "Stupid banana benders..." Direct Communication Headquarters. DCHQ for short. "DC" being the latest government euphemism for what happened when someone powerful pissed someone more powerful off so much it was decided it was time for the first someone to be relieved of some of their power, allies, possessions and very likely this mortal coil, often quite messily. Oh, and they ran the country's spy operations too, whatever those testosterone-overloaded morons at the CIA thought. Speaking of which, the head testosterone-overloaded moron was on the phone right now. "Believe me, Mr Gateman, if we knew where Powers was, you would be the very next to know. And you." The head of DCHQ looked up at her secretary. A young man, with black, curled hair, a perpetually sleepy look and a voice which sounded like he enjoyed rather too many of the cigarettes so generously provided by one of the current ruling political party's principle sources of funding. He wore a suit typical of the office, but he was of the type who appeared to be dressed casually and messily no matter what he wore. Really, he'd be better off in some steam-filled bar playing in a third-rate rock band, but nobody ever told him that. Rumour had it that he and Powers were close, and, well, most people were rather used to not being able to see the colour of their own kidneys. "So, Lanestreet, has anyone else called asking after Agent Powers?" She paused, for extra sarcastic effect. "Egypt, Israel, Iraq?" "Israel were pretty worried, something about a Palestinian double. Uh, Egypt just gave a generic 'send word' message. Oh yeah, and Iraq wanted to know what happened to all those Saddam lookalikes. Whatever." H looked momentarily stunned, but only for a moment. "Yes, that's great. But that still doesn't tell us where she is..." --- Normally, she wouldn't have cared. Okay, so the guy was attractive enough. Black hair, decent body, looked a little like George Lazenby on a good day. But Melody's policy on suicide had always been that if someone wanted to off themselves, great. Save her the trouble. She was fully aware of all this, but stopped the car anyway, and ran out, grabbing the man around the shoulders and hauling him back to shore.