“Spidershade! I have a job for you!”

The voice came from speakers in the ceiling. Her target wasn’t in sight. Not yet.

“According to the messages you retrieved for me, Sentinelle will be escorting a valuable delivery to C.O.M.E.T. Labs tonight. If we act quickly, we have an opportunity to secure both of these prizes.”

It was an opportunity, all right — a perfect opportunity to deliver some richly deserved payback. When Sentinelle showed up, she could give Doctor Dumb-o-Farce a surprise ass-kicking and then leave him for the heroine to haul off to prison. If worst came to worst and the sneak attack didn’t work out, he’d still be facing two-to-one odds. Maybe helping the good guys take down a bigger villain would get them to cut her a little slack next time they ran into each other.

Her musings were cut short as a screen mounted in one wall came to life. “Meet me at these coordinates in thirty minutes.”

She studied the map. The rendezvous point was familiar from Spidershade’s previous visit to the lab. It was on the access road leading to the loading dock, outside both the security perimeter and the flow of ordinary traffic. It was a good place for an ambush. She revised her opinion of the villain’s intelligence a tiny bit upward.

“On my way,” she told the hidden microphone that was presumably in here somewhere. Suddenly, she realized that she might have made a mistake. Was there a hidden camera watching as she tore apart the brainwashing chair?

She looked around. She saw the speakers in the corners of the ceiling, and little protrusions that might be microphones next to them, but no sign of cameras. Even if there were, the villain had been busy reviewing the stolen information.

Well, it couldn’t be helped now. Disabling the chair was the right thing to do, to make sure she didn’t get a second treatment if she slipped up and got caught. All she could do now was keep her guard up just in case.

She headed out. Her motorcycle got her to the site ten minutes ahead of schedule. She settled down to wait.

Doctor Dynoforce arrived barely on time, in a gaudy flying-chair contraption that looked even more ridiculous than his outfit. All it needed was a neon sign proclaiming “TARGET”.

“We don’t have much time!”, he warned as he landed at the side of the road. She bit back the impulse to suggest that he should have gotten his butt there sooner. She was supposed to be a loyal follower who didn’t give that kind of backtalk.

“Back behind the bushes there’s a good spot to hide that,” she told him, pointing. There, that sounded properly supportive while subtly making the point that he was being completely clueless. He looked a bit annoyed, but he took the advice.

“Now!” she whispered to him just as he trudged back through the thicket. The truck was rounding the curve in the road. There was no sign of Sentinelle — perhaps she was keeping a low profile by riding in the cargo compartment instead of flying overhead.

“Draw her attention!” Basically, he was telling her to throw away her strengths at stealth and surprise. His tactical sense was even worse than his fashion sense.

Spidershade waited until the truck was too close to stop, then leaped out of the bushes and tossed a handful of caltrops into the road. Normally, she would have stayed hidden, but for some reason that wasn’t the plan. Dumb-o-farce probably wanted her to be the target so he wouldn’t get his fancy suit scorched.

The truck lurched and skidded to a halt as both tires on the left side went flat. The driver jumped out the door. Spidershade expected her to run for cover, but instead she whipped off her dark jacket, revealing Sentinelle’s bodysuit beneath. She raised her hands as energy flared around them.

“Spidershade! I’m giving you one chance to give up and do this the easy way.”

Doctor Dynoforce emerged from the shrubbery, brushing leaves off his lapels. He held a black box with a big red button. “Sentinelle! Now, I shall bend your will to mine!” he declaimed as he hit the switch.

Understanding suddenly clicked into place. Those chips she’d planted in Sentinelle’s headgear weren’t trackers; they were mind-control units. Doctor Dynoforce had just taken control of the heroine. Her chance to deal with him was slipping away unless she acted now.

Spidershade closed the distance with a quick leap and pushed Doctor Dynoforce back into the bushes. She immediately put him in a chokehold. Don’t let him talk; don’t even let him think....

Her own thoughts raced. Sentinelle had been hit with the device, making her obedient to Doctor Dynoforce... and anybody who worked for him. To her, it would look like she was working for him. She hadn’t really seen her attack him, just push him. It would look like she was getting him under cover to protect him.

All she could do was try. “We’ve got trouble!” she yelled. “I’ll protect the boss; you hover and keep watch!”

Sentinelle followed the instruction. Good, the plan she was cobbling together on the fly just might work.

The villain’s face made a very satisfying sound as she slapped it full force. She tossed him aside just before emerging into view. “Over there!” she yelled to Sentinelle as she pointed to the rustling bushes where he was trying to get back to his feet. “Stun blast! Now!”

Spidershade got a glimpse of the villain’s body twitching as the energy surge lit it up. If she didn’t already know who it was, she never could have identified him through the glare. Judging from what she knew of Sentinelle’s powers, he’d wake up sometime tomorrow afternoon feeling like he’d gotten drunk on cheap rotgut and picked a fight with the biggest meanest guy in the bar. By then, the lab security people investigating the crashed truck would find him and haul him off to prison. Served him right.

“Where’s the boss? Are you all right? Who attacked you?” Sentinelle was in tactical-combat mode, evaluating the apparent situation in terms of her new loyalties.

She echoed the style. “First: The boss headed back to base. Second: I’m all right. Third: Wait a minute while I take a look.”

She disappeared into the bushes and pretended to search for a few minutes, then returned holding a couple of dead branches. “This is all that’s left. It must have been one of Vine Vixen’s plant creatures.”

Spidershade accepted the explanation without comment. Good, that cleared up the immediate problem. Now, she had to figure out a solution to the bigger issue — how was she going to get Sentinelle back to normal?

It was tempting to wash her hands of the problem and let somebody else figure it out. She couldn’t bring herself to do that. She’d gotten Sentinelle into this situation. If she’d kicked Dumb-o-Farce’s sorry ass as soon as she got the chance, this wouldn’t have happened. She could have hit him before he knew what was happening. Hell, she had hit him before he knew what was happening, but too late. She’d waited for help dealing with her own problem because she was too lazy and cowardly to fight her own battles.

Rationally, she knew she was being too hard on herself. Having backup on hand before launching the attack had been the smart thing to do. Letting Sentinelle’s fellow heroes handle the situation was the smart thing to do now.

The smart thing, maybe, but not the right thing. She had to at least try to clean up her mess before dumping it on somebody else. For now, her instincts told her to hole up while she figured out what to do next.

“The boss wants us to lie low,” she said. “We’d better get out of here before somebody comes looking for the truck. Follow me.”

She led Sentinelle to her hidden motorcycle, “Sit behind me and hold on tight.”

“I can fly and carry you,” the heroine suggested.

It was tempting. Flying would be faster and more fun. But... “Too conspicuous,” she told her. “Besides, I want to keep the bike handy.”

Spidershade rolled out, following the access road to the industrial district, keeping to the back streets as much as possible.

The tight grip of her passenger’s arms around her body began to spark another temptation. It was out of the question, of course. Sentinelle was not herself. Taking advantage of her would be too much like what those goons had tried to do....

Those goons whose attempt to take advantage of her had snapped her out of it.

It seemed too good to be true. The smart thing to do, the right thing to do, and the fun thing to do all lined up perfectly. She was going to take Sentinelle back to her hideout and brazenly put the moves on her until she broke the heroine’s compulsion to obey.

There was a catch to her plan, she realized as she thought it through. That was reassuring; maybe the idea wasn’t really too good to be true. She had to get Sentinelle out of the supersuit before breaking the mind control, or else she’d get blasted, captured, and probably blamed for the whole mess. That would be tricky. She remembered that the goons telling her to get her naked had been the last straw that broke her own brainwashing.

She had an idea. If it worked, she’d be safe, if not, it would still give her a small head start before the heroine came after her.

Spidershade grinned as she approached the hideout. She didn’t know how far she’d be able to push things before Sentinelle returned to normal, but at the very least her plan would lead to nice memories that could spark even nicer fantasies.

It was going to be an interesting night.