"You'd think that someone in her financial situation right now would be doing anything but shopping," Mira sighs to herself.

No sense getting grumpy over it girl, she thinks to herself. It's not Odyssey's fault you currently have Dr. Emori shoving pills down your throat and giving you stern lectures about the fastest ways to shorten your life. Radiation poisoning. Leave it to me to stumble into something that will make glow at night. To top it all off I've got Martin treating me like he's been appointed my dad and Armitage threatening to have me committed to Tran's tender mercies if I don't take a few days off. Mira shudders at the thought. Thank goodness Tran's in Phoenix.

 "Oh well, at least it gives me some time to work on the book," Mira says to herself. "I have got to get a boyfriend. Now I'm talking to myself."

 While she had been gone only a few days, Mira had found that a complete turnaround had occurred with Odyssey during her absence. Tony apparently had been given his walking papers. Mira was able to overhear several conversations between Cassandra Salvatore and her friend about the decision.

 "I told him that I had never really lived my own life and that I was going to do that first before I even thought about returning," Odyssey says, flipping through a rack of Gautier suits. "To be honest, I don't think I'm ever going back. Tony wants something different than I do. I love him and I think he loves me but I also think that we both recognize that we don't agree on the new life that faces us."

 Mira closes her eyes. Marital problems.

 Sighing, Cassandra pulls out a blue suit and holds it up to her body in front of a mirror.

 "How'd Tony take it?" Antoinette murmurs.

Antoinette "Toni," that's Cassie's friend from the grocery store.

 "I must say, I was a little hurt. He wasn't devastated at all," Cassie exclaims, putting the suit back on the rack. "He even volunteered to take care of divorce proceeding costs. He didn't put it quite like that," she says to Antoinette's shocked expression. "He just said he understood my decision and that he would take care of everything. I think he still believes that I have never forgiven him for walking out on me that night after the change. He pretty much accepted it was over."

 Mira winces at that. I'd have thrown him out on his butt if he stood me up when I needed him, she thinks. Cassie is better off without the slug.

 "Have you?" Antoinette grabs a sea-green pair of slacks and hands them to Odyssey. "Forgiven him that is?"

 "Strangely yes. I mean I haven't said it doesn't matter to me It's just I realized that I had kind of built Tony up as this superman in my mind. I thought he was strong and sexy and caring all at once. And then when he left I felt betrayed. But finally I realized that the Tony I was in love with wasn't the real Tony after all. He wasn't strong enough to love me and stand by me when all this happened. That's reality. After everything, I decided that I deserve someone whose strong enough to face things with me and Tony's not that guy."

 Way to go girl, Mira silently cheers.

"Well, tell me when you find this great new guy," Antoinette jokes. "I'd love to meet a guy that can handle what you've been through. Personally I don't believe there's a guy out there who could weather being totally transformed without whimpering. They breakdown when they show the slightest sniffle let alone webbed feet."

 "That is the voice of a woman without a boyfriend," Odyssey replies. A broad grin crossing her face.

"Hey, I wouldn't laugh. You're one of us now sister. And let me tell you the pickings are mighty slim."

 The two women move on to another shop and Mira leans back wearily.

 I could put up with my hair falling out in clumps if I could just get ride of this feeling of tiredness. I feel like I could sleep for a year. Pulling herself up from the mall bench, Mira decides it's time to head home.

 After a two hour nap and some orange juice, she feels invigorated and rededicates herself to the quandary of convincing Odyssey to let her talk to her.

 Her first two requests had been met with "Thank you but Odyssey is not giving interviews at this time." I don't blame her, Mira thinks, sifting through her background material. The Golden Gate Guardians aren't the darlings of the press right now. In the wake of the debacle surrounding the destruction of San Francisco's PRIMUS base, the court of public opinion had certainly turned against paranormals. Even Maria Chow is keeping a wide berth from paranormals, Odyssey included, and they were friends.

The Chronicle was averaging a column a week speaking out in support of reviving the paranormal registration act. Even the Examiner was getting in on all the hoopla. It didn't help that TIME ran a cover picture showing Silver Avenger clutching the body of Agent Kestler and the headline "How many must die?" A quick roll call of the Golden Gate Guardian's reads like a catalog of PRIMUS worst case scenarios:

 Protector: MIA with a woman believed to have headed or at least been in cahoots with the local VIPER chapter.

 Knightblade: Housed in a mental facility under heavy guard for his alleged role in a VIPER plot.

 The Dragon: Destroyed PRIMUS base and runs off with the Dragon Queen, also of VIPER.

 Dragon Fist: Disappeared, rumored to be on some sort of personal quest.

 Comet: A few sightings in San Francisco, but nothing concrete.

 Proteus: Also MIA from San Francisco, rumored to be off hunting Dragon Fist's Dragon.

 That leaves a remade Odyssey - white hair, webbed hands and a slightly blue complexion - trying to put back together a destroyed personal life.

 It's no wonder that her answers to my requests for an interview have gotten a little testy lately, Mira acknowledges. What was it that she said in that last letter. Mira pulls it out of a manilla folder marked correspondences. Ah yes, "Surely you have some REAL journalism to do instead of harassing a resident of this city."

 Oh well, luckily I have thick skin. Guess I'm going to have to try the up-front-and-personal approach.

 Mira had to wait an hour before Odyssey returned home. Mira waited about 20 minutes more before she approached the building. A few days of observation had yielded a number of names and apartment numbers to successfully get buzzed in.

Five minutes later she was knocking on Cassandra Salvatore's door.

 "Yes?"

Boy she really is pale now, Mira thought as she looked into the face of a woman she had been trying to sway for nearly a month.

 "Yes," Mira reaches into her bag for a card, "I'm....."

 Before she can get out "Lakota Whiteyes" she struck by a wave a water that knocks her back. The door is slammed shut and Mira is left alone, dripping wet in the hallway.

 "....Lakota Whiteyes," she finishes.

 OK, while a very memorable moment, not very successful one.

 Carefully she gathers up her purse, dumping out the water that accumulated it and a mountain of soaked business cards, receipts and checks that have been fused into one big glob of wood pulp.

 Next she wrings out her shirt and pulls off her hat and squeezes her hair. Before she can finish, the door opens again.

 "Oh look I'm so sorry," Odyssey says standing there. "I thought you were going to pull a gun out of your bag. A few days ago I had some loony come at me and I just reacted. Oh my, your hair."

 Mira looks down and sees a few more strands in her hand. Damn! I thought I might be able to keep some.

 "Oh look I'm really sorry, you must have come to see me for help," Cassie says, pulling Mira inside before she can protest. "Is it cancer?" She asks in a serious tone as she sits down across from Mira.

 "No it's not cancer," Mira sputters.

 "AIDS then. Oh I wish I could help. You must not have heard. I've lost my ability to heal people. I'm so sorry you came all the way here and there's nothing I can do," Odyssey says, looking at her with such a sense of sorrow.

 "Augggh, no it's not that," Mira says, jumping up from the couch, where she has left a spreading water stain. "Look we got off to a bad start. I was trying to say that my name is Lakota Whiteyes. I've written you several letters about possibly interviewing you for a book I'm doing."

 The minute the name comes out of her mouth, Mira notices an immediate change in Odyssey.

 "Get out of my house. How dare you impersonate someone truly in need. You people are truly despicable. Is it not bad enough that you printed every seamy detail of my life and marriage in your filthy publications. Now you have to harass me at home. GET OUT!"

 "Wait a second. Look I don't know who you have been dealing with. But I can assure you I haven't written anything about you. I write books, not newspaper articles and I haven't written anything about you yet. And furthermore, I didn't ask to come in her in the first place. You're the one who pushed me in, saying something about cancer and AIDS. I'll have you know that I in know way was lying to you. I was prepared to identify myself at the door but before I could you hit me with a ten gallon salute!"

 Mira's words only seem to infuriate Odyssey. Reconsidering her tact, she backs off.

"Look, I'm sorry," Mira says, sitting back down. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I am losing my hair. Bad radiation accident. I guess I was kind of embarrassed that you saw." She puts her hat back on only to have water that was in the crown of the baseball cap cascade down her face.

 Cassandra chokes on a laugh at Mira's bedraggled appearance.

 "I do look pretty bad." Mira wipes her face.

 "Ah, ahem," Cassie clears her throat and regaining her composure. "You don't know how long I've wanted to soak a whole bunch of people in your profession."

 "Yeah, there's a few of them I'd like to soak too. Look, here's the deal. I know you don't trust the press. Hell with the latest escapades of the Globe and the Enquirer, I'm surprised you let anyone with a camera lens within 10 feet of you. I just want to get a fair hearing. Let me talk to you one-on-one and explain the book I'm trying to write. It's not a flashy expose. It's not a grocery store thriller."

 "People, they're upset right now. What happened at the PRIMUS base and around the nation, they're afraid of paranormals. They just want to blame someone. But if they can understand you. See that you're human and that you feel the same emotions that they do. It just might make a difference."

 "I don't want to be the poster girl for the be-kind-to-mutants movement," Cassie says, standing up. "Ms. Whiteyes, you seem like a nice woman, but I really don't want anyone prying into my life right now. It's hard enough putting everything back together as it is."

 Mira looks at Odyssey and inwardly sighs. If I lie to her now, I'll never get a second chance. The only way I'll convince her to trust me is if I tell the truth. If I lie about my name and who I am, she'll eventually find out and it will be all over. Maybe, just maybe, she'll believe me.

It's not like she'll go running off to tell PRIMUS. From what I heard, paranormals aren't on their VIP list right now. And Ralph trusted her. That's got to count for something.

 "Look, my name isn't Lakota Whiteyes. I mean it is but it isn't," Mira says. Seeing the confusion on Cassie's face. "I'm not weird. I'm sorry I'm not explaining this well. My real name is Mira Stafford and I go by the pen-name Lakota Whiteyes. Right now I'm wanted by a couple federal agencies that most people in the country don't even know exist. I spend my life running around investigating things that a lot of people don't want uncovered. I was 24 when my father died because of the work he was doing for the government. They nearly killed me when I found out what it was they were really working on."

 "It sounds fantastical, but it's not. It's true. I've seen some scary things out there that the government doesn't want anyone to know about. I'm telling you this because, well, I think you're a good person. And I think that any sort of conversation that we have should be based on the truth. The only thing I have to cling to anymore is the truth."

"I try and find the truth. And right now I want to find out the truth about Cassie Salvatore and what it was like to suddenly have the chance to make a difference in the world."

 "I know I've been babbling along like an idiot and you probably think I'm some lunatic. Look, you've got friends. Check me out. Just try and not mention this to any government types. I really am wanted by some black ops government groups. Lately I've kind of decided I do like living, even if I have to put up with going bald."

 Mira gets up, peeling a wet card off the stack she hands it to Cassie. "Here's my phone number. If you decide I'm not a lunatic and you'd like to talk further, give me a call."

 Odyssey takes the card and opens the door for Mira. A slightly perplexed look crossing her face.

 "Sorry about the wet sofa and all," Mira adds as she squelches out. "I really didn't expect this to go this way." Didn't expect it to go this way at all, Mira thinks, the door shutting behind her.