“Hey, Sally,” Liz called in a relaxed voice—no louder than a truck’s air horn—“Got a fax here for you, and I think we ought to look at it.”

Sally got up from her desk, pretty sure what the fax was all about—there had been a couple conversations the night before with her rather upset brother. Over at the assignment director’s podium, she glanced at the fax. It had the heading, “MacMurry and Spangler, Attorneys at Law”, so it was exactly what she expected, but she took her time reading it for Liz’s sake. “You’re right,” she said finally. “We really ought to cover it, but I can’t do it. Ben’s going to blow a breaker if I go overtime, and besides, I have a date.”

“Gonna have to send someone,” Liz said. “We’re getting to the end of the pay period and a lot of people are in overtime trouble.” She nodded over at Jason, who had his feet up on his desk, laying back in his desk chair, leafing through the Blade sports section. “He might be available.”

“I’ll ask,” Sally said as she smiled and walked over to his cubicle and leaned on the divider. “Jason,” she asked nicely. “I’ve got a story on my beat, and I can’t cover it. Would you like to?”

“I don’t know,” he said, not taking his attention away from the story on last night’s Mudhens game. “What’s it all about?”

“No big thing. Just a check-passing tonight at the Women’s Crisis Center.”

“Not interested. Nothing I care about.”

“Well, okay,” she parried, eyeing him carefully. “I thought you might be though. There’s going to be someone there you want to meet.”

“Who’s that?” he said, reaching way out for the cup of coffee on his desk.

With timing honed by thousands of hours of fencing, Sally saw the opening, and launched her thrust: “Hippolyta.”

Jason gave a start at the word—not a good idea when at the absolute limit of his balance. The chair shot out from under him, and he rather spectacularly fell in a heap on the floor, the cup of hot coffee landing on top of him. “Shit!” he cried out, squirming as he felt the heat soak through his clothes.

“Are you all right?” Sally asked with a touch of concern in her voice masking her internal smugness, and tricking him into that little acrobatic act just now was only part of the reason for it. Yeah, he had a thing for Hippolyta all right, and that proved it. With that suspicion confirmed, there was a world of possibilities …

“Are you sure?” he asked, wrestling around to pick himself up.

“It’s what the fax says,” Sally said. “I take it that’s a yes.”

“Well, yeah, sure,” he said, standing up and peeling out of his suit coat, which had taken the worst of the coffee hit.

“Keri’s free to do camera, I think,” Liz said loudly but complacently from the assignment director’s podium, but with a grin and a sparkle in her eye that Jason didn’t notice, though Sally did. “I’ll have her meet you here about a quarter after seven.”

“No one else?” Jason said, unbuttoning his coffee-stained shirt.

“Got overtime problems with the cameramen too,” Liz told him, knowing full well that the tough black lesbian camerawoman had the same problems with Jason that he had with her, which was to say just short of a formal declaration of war. It would not be as pleasant an evening for him as when that Andrea broad wound up at his apartment last weekend. He’d smugly told everyone about it, repeatedly. “From what I saw of the fax, it looks like a straight check passing, but there might be an opportunity for interviews.”

“Sure would be neat to get an interview with Hippolyta,” he said excitedly, not even feeling the bruise forming on his butt or seemingly aware of the dry cleaning bill he was facing for his Italian suit.

“Yeah, it would be,” Sally agreed, nice enough to help him pick up his scattered clothes from the floor where he’d dropped them, while thinking that he didn’t stand a prayer, but doing what she could to fuel his hopes. The whole thing bothered her from a professional sense. The involvement of the Spanglers was really her story, her beat. She hated the thought of giving Jason a shot at it, because she was sure he would screw it up and miss the point of the story, which was the Women’s Crisis Center, but under the circumstances, that wasn’t all bad. On the other hand, with at least one other station, and possibly all of them present, along with the Daily for sure and probably the Blade, there wouldn’t be much room for Jason to grandstand, so there would really be little in it for him. But he didn’t need to know that now. He’d find out. “With her there, it might even turn into the late lead,” she added, throwing him another bone.

“Thanks for thinking of me, Sally. Liz, maybe I’d better run home and change my clothes.”

“Looks like it to me,” Liz said. “Sally, can you cover for him a bit?”

“Sure, I’m here till we’re done with the twelve o’clock. Then I’ve got to go off clock, or it’s overtime country. Just as well, I’ve got some shopping to do.”

Sally really did have plans for some shopping, but the details weren’t something she could talk about in the newsroom. When done with her visit to the Spangler’s two evenings ago, she hadn’t bothered with the total quick change, but just went back to goth girl to drive home. When she’d gotten there, she discovered a nasty hole in the knee of Hippolyta’s Spandex pants. She could get away with that in a shadowy visit like at the Spangler’s, but if Hippolyta was to be on camera, it just wouldn’t do.

The pants were several years old now. They went back to the original Hippolyta outfit, back when she was still at Ohio State. There hadn’t been enough time to shop yesterday, and a quick survey revealed that shiny black stretch pants like them weren’t as easily available as they’d been a few years before. But that morning, thinking about the problem in the back of her head while she worked on a package about construction delays at a rail crossing in east Toledo, her mind rolled back to the visit she’d made to the Women’s Crisis Center on Monday. There’d been a woman there—a client, not a staff member—who’d been wearing some snug and flexible leather pants. At the time she’d thought it was the sort of thing that Hippolyta really ought to be wearing, so during a brief opening she asked the woman where she’d gotten them. It turned out to be a leather shop out in Pioneer, a good hour to the west. They mostly dealt in biker leather, but she’d added that she’d gotten them for a very reasonable price.

With any kind of luck, tonight would be Hippolyta’s last appearance, but a neat and sexy pair of pants like that had other possibilities. She really hated to take Hippolyta or someone like her out of the running as a FantasyCon character in the future, for she still liked attending those events. She’d given some thought to doing a modified Joan of Arc, but that involved expensive chain mail and a skirt, neither of which set very well with her. She’d also have to give up all that Amazon character background she’d gathered over the years. Maybe a rethink there and slight modifications to the costume, along with a new name might allow her to continue. And it could be that a pair of tight, sexy black leather pants might go well with the new costume.

Besides, there was no point in rationalizing. She wanted something like that. So it was off to Pioneer that afternoon.

Shortly after the noon news was over, Sally was in her Mustang heading out of the parking lot. It was a very nice afternoon for late September—warm, a big blue sky, with a clarity that let her see for miles.

This was a ragtop day, if there ever was one.

The only problem was that the Mustang, as nice as it was, wasn’t a convertible. How neat it would be to make this trip in Daddy’s ’64 Mustang convertible, just like Ben was talking about the other day, she thought, but she knew she wasn’t allowed to take one of her father’s precious collector’s pieces on a trip like that.

That left the Shay … and why not?

She liked driving the Shay. True, it was a powerful and unpredictable beast if she pushed it, and she’d learned that the hard way, fortunately without any scratches or splintered fiberglass. Besides, she’d planned to drive the Shay just a bit the previous weekend to have an excuse to put a tarp on it, but first one thing and then another had happened, and the time had just never come around. With little more thought than that, she turned the Mustang for home.

Fifteen minutes later, she felt the rumble of the 351 Cleveland as it started. Even with the turbocharger’s waste gate open, it was a powerful engine, really too much for the car, as hot as anything on the street and more, so long as she kept it on a straight line and was real careful in the corners. With the gate closed … well, she just didn’t close it. Ever. One of the problems with the Shay was that it had much more engine than the tires could handle, even though they were quite a bit oversized for a Model A. In other respects, it looked pretty much like a real classic, so long as the viewer didn’t get too close and see that the body was fiberglass and not metal—and as long as they didn’t hear the sound of the big V-8 that no Model A could have ever dreamed of producing. And, unlike a stock Model A, there was a CD player in the dash, with a Ventures’ album, of all things, already in the slot.

Under the circumstances, the perfect machine for a perfect day.

She now realized that she needed a road trip. Badly. A run out to Pioneer on the turnpike wasn’t enough time to let the experience fully soak in, but she could and did take US-20 to stay away from the heavy truck traffic roaring along at well over the speed limit, allowing her to take her time on the quieter two-lane. One of the nice things about the Shay was that it looked enough like a classic that no one was too upset when they found her cruising along at a nice, legal fifty-five, with the wind that crept around the windshield making her hair fly around. And driving the Shay made it more intense, a chance to leave Toledo and the First to Know Newsroom behind for a while, really behind, and let her mind wander through the events of the last few days.

There was a lot to think about, mostly involving Hippolyta. Really, the whole situation, from the character all the way through what had happened to her, was rather silly, right out of an old Stan Lee comic book. Well, except for the fact that there were two men in jail who might otherwise not have been there—one of them most likely facing a trip to death row—were it not for the Amazon who had come to life in her head. What’s more, there was a sweet little girl still alive who almost certainly wouldn’t be without that sword-wielding superheroine persona, and a woman who also had been facing possible death. That balanced out a lot of silliness.

But Hippolyta was also now getting to be something of a pain in the butt. Charlie had been right in that she’d done a couple of things she had no business doing, except for the fact that they had both worked out. Already, maintaining the secrecy was a problem, and she couldn’t see how it could help but become more of one if she kept putting on the costume. There was no way that Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent could have kept their Batman and Superman identities secret in real life for as long as they did in the comics. There were too many people already who knew enough about her fencing history to be able to make the leap of imagination required to put Sally and Hippolyta together, and the publicity tonight was going to raise the number.

Every time she’d put on the outfit in the past two weeks, Murphy’s Law of Unintended Consequences had poked its nasty nose into her life, taking her places she hadn’t intended to go. The whole idea of the visit to the Spanglers Tuesday night had been to quiet Missy’s father down, to keep him from making more of a public fuss—and it backfired, though in a good cause. At least the idea of using Hippolyta to make a fool out of Jason had worked a few times, though she was sure she had yet to realize its full potential.

Monday night she’d told Charlie that she was planning on packing up and putting away the Hippolyta outfit, since revealing her identity would cause a lot of problems, the least of them embarrassing, and some possibly dangerous. Then, she’d turned right around the next night and become Hippolyta again. So much for good intentions.

Picking at the problem for an hour didn’t solve anything, though it at least clarified it some in her mind. The hour and the good rural road went by quickly, even at a double-nickel fifty-five on this warm, sunny day. All she knew about the leather shop was that it was “outside of Pioneer,” but a quick stop at a convenience store in town gave her the directions. It was a few miles out, and as advertised, it proved to be mostly a biker place—but inside, it smelled of good, honest leather, and the walls were filled with an awesome collection of leather wear.

The shop was run by a dark, middle-aged guy, and it wasn’t busy on a Thursday afternoon. Within minutes, he’d found a pair of black leather pants that were about what she was looking for, just a little loose in the waist. “No problem,” he told her. “We can get these altered in just a few minutes.”

While she was waiting, she explored some more. A number of items gave her some good ideas for a replacement for the Hippolyta outfit for the FantasyCons. She’d already decided that she wanted something a little more overtly sexy, something that showed more skin than the hard-case Amazon’s outfit. There was a fringed leather halter top that would go well with the pants, but with winter not far off, perhaps it was a bit much. When she saw some Native-American decorated vests, it gave her an idea. “How much trouble would it be to do a halter top like that, maybe with, uh, a little padding, and some of that bonework?” she asked.

“I couldn’t knock that out this afternoon. But I could have something like that for you by the weekend. If you can design it, we can build it.”

“Let me think about it,” she replied after considering it for a moment. “That’s got some potential, but I’d like to work on the design a bit. Just out of curiosity, though, do you think you’d have a leather top that would match those pants?”

“You’re looking for something really snug, right? Shouldn’t be any problem.”

In a few minutes, she was trying on a zip-up black leather shirt that was so well fitting, so supple that it was like a second skin. It was a man’s shirt, so it was even just right in the chest. It felt … right. It wasn’t exactly a giveaway price, although less than she would have expected, like the pants, and … oh, well, it was only plastic, until the bill came. Besides, how would Hippolyta look on camera tonight wearing a worn Spandex top? And, after all, who knew what the future would bring? She might have to do Hippolyta again after all, like it or not.

In a few minutes more, she had both the pants and the shirt on, looking at it in the mirror. What an outfit! Not real biker chick, as it worked out—just very sexy chick, maybe a little on the kinky side, but very, very nice. For a moment, she thought of John Varney, the sports director for Channel 5. On a number of occasions, she’d seen him wearing a grungy black T-shirt around the office—but when he put a First to Know News blazer over it, he looked downright businesslike, just a little casual like a sports director is supposed to look. It’d almost be tempting to wear this shirt on camera, maybe with a vest or something to dilute the harsh skintight sexiness of the black. Maybe not in the studio though. The leather would obviously get hot under the lights.

“Just absolutely perfect,” she told the shop’s owner. “I’ll take it.”

“Would you like me to wrap those up for you?”

“No,” she said, thinking that it had been somewhat cool driving here in the open Shay, and she’d have the sun at her back on the way home. Besides, it felt so good … “I’ll wear them just to enjoy it. I’ve been wondering, though. Do you make these things here?”

“We do custom work and alterations here,” the man explained. “The off-the-rack clothes like that are made in Turkey and imported. That’s why we can sell them for such a good price. There’s no other way you can get high-quality Anatolian leather like that at prices like ours.”

She was heading down US-20 back toward Toledo, the sun at her back, the CD player blaring, feeling like a million bucks dressed neck to ankle in Anatolian leather, wearing its heady smell like a fine perfume … then it hit her.

Anatolia.

The modern name for the Turkish province the Amazons were said to have come from …

Putting Hippolyta away might just prove to be even harder than she thought.

“Oh, shit,” Jason said as Keri drove the First to Know News van up to the Women’s Crisis Center at twenty minutes to eight.

“Yeah,” Keri said with an unhappy tone to her voice—even unhappier than normal. The hefty black woman had been snappy, even for her, ever since they’d met at the newsroom earlier. It was bad enough to have to deal with one big butch bull-dyke like Liz, but there were two of them at the station. “Gonna be a bitch to get a decent camera position. I done told you we should have got the hell out of there earlier.”

“I know,” he sighed. From the vans parked outside, First to Know News was last to arrive at the scene. There were vans from 11, 13 and 24 there already, plus vehicles from both papers as well as at least a couple radio stations. All the good parking spaces were gone, and they had to park a long way from the building. That meant, right from the start, this wasn’t going to be the exclusive he’d hoped for. Instead it was going to be a media circus, or at least as close to one as ever happened in Toledo. The chances of him standing out with his brilliant reporting would be diminished, and everybody would second-guess whatever he did on the basis of what the other stations used in their reports.

But having the other stations present meant that it was actually good that he had Keri on camera. Nobody jostled her with the camera on her shoulder, or she’d flatten them, and the cameramen from the other stations knew it. Oh, well, at least there was a possibility of meeting Hippolyta in the flesh—well, at least in the leather—and there might be some kind of an opportunity, if those bastards from 13 didn’t horn in on it …

He opened the van door and got out of the seat slowly. His hip ached from where he’d fallen on it earlier today. Jeez, he didn’t need that story getting around! It had been a damn fool thing to do, fall like that. “We’d better get inside and see just how bad it’s going to be,” he told Keri as she gathered up the camera and the gear bag. He’d have offered to help, but that was the cameraman’s job, to carry heavy objects and keep the camera pointed where it was supposed to be while he presented the story.

To his surprise, it wasn’t as crowded inside as he thought it would be. A conference room had obviously been cleared out for this little media event, and a handful of chairs set up. There were reporters and cameramen from the other three stations, a couple reporters from radio stations, a stuck-up little broad from the Blade, and a tall, plain-looking woman from the Daily who he’d run into on occasion. That much, at least, was good news—it meant that Charlie Parker wouldn’t be here with his snide remarks and calling him “Panty Raid.” That was surprising; after the Melissa Spangler rescue last week, he’d figured Parker was dead certain to be present.

There were a handful of people who were pretty obviously staff from the Women’s Crisis Center, none of them anything to write home about in the looks department, and a few others, including some men who were unidentifiable in the shadows behind several TV lights that had been set up. Too bad Andrea was working the late shift all this week, he thought … have to give her a call tomorrow and see if she’d be free Saturday, because it didn’t look like any potential scoreboard activity here. At least, nothing he would want to score on, except for maybe … and he didn’t think he stood a chance of that, not with all the other media around.

“Hi, Keri,” the tall, older, blond-haired cameraman from Channel 24 said as they entered. “We saved you a spot. Figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

“Thanks, Jim,” she said nicely to her fellow camera ape. “We got out of there a little late, and got screwed by the lights. What’s the deal on this, anyway?”

“They’re doing a short presentation,” he told her, “and holding interview opportunities afterward. I brought some lights in, so we all don’t have to dink with light bars.”

“I owe you on that one, Jim,” Keri said, as Jason shook his head. The cameramen from the various stations could be thick as thieves, gossiping like hell when they got together. Oh, they’d try to burn each other if they got a chance, but in a deal like this, they worked together too much in his opinion.

“So how you doing, Jason?” Bill Mingus from Channel 24 said smugly. “I heard someone told such a good one over in your shop this morning that you fell out of your chair laughing.”

“Wasn’t that good,” he said with a rueful grimace, realizing that the cameramen—or someone—had been talking back and forth around the stations. Shit, the story was probably around to all of them by now, and he wouldn’t have put it past that snotty little Parker broad to be the one to do it rather than the cameramen. There wasn’t much he could do but admit it and put the best face on it. “The chair slid on me a little as I was reaching for a cup of coffee.” He changed the subject. “Any idea how long before we get going?”

“They want to get started at eight, sharp,” Bill said. “The principals are out in back somewhere, I guess.”

There was a little, short-haired woman, fortyish, maybe, with big glasses and streaks of gray in her hair who seemed to be in charge of things. Promptly at eight, she stepped in front of the podium, which was decorated with the microphones of all four TV stations, plus a couple from radio, and said with the authority of a grade-school principal, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Dr. Angela Morton, the director of the Women’s Crisis Center. I’d like to welcome you to the center tonight. Due to the extraordinary nature of this presentation, I’d like to ask that you all remain in the building until we have completed the interviews following the main presentation. We’ll keep this brief, and you can soon be on your way.”

That was a little unusual, Jason thought, as he stood in the shadows next to Keri, who already had her camera running. But nobody else seemed to mind, so under the circumstances, he didn’t have reason to complain.

“That much said,” Dr. Morton continued, “There are people here tonight who I would like to introduce.” A side door opened, and several people walked in, most of them familiar—and one, all too familiar. “From your left,” she said, “Maureen, Melissa, and Robert Spangler, Corporal Janice Watkins of the Toledo Police Department, Officer Charles Parker of the Swanton, Whitehouse, and Waterville Police Departments, and RuthAnn Richardson.”

No Hippolyta? Jason frowned. Hell, if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be here. RuthAnn Richardson? Oh, yes, that middle-aged woman from the Shop’n’Go. He’d interviewed her the night of the holdup, almost two weeks ago, now. That meant … well, maybe Hippolyta might be showing up after all.

“In addition,” Dr. Morton continued. “We are joined tonight by Abner Komarynski, Mayor of the City of Toledo, and I’d like to ask him to join us at the podium during this presentation.”

One of the dark men walked out of the shadows behind the lights. Sure enough, it’s Abe, Jason thought. Must have smelled a couple of votes, or he wouldn’t be here at all.

Dr. Morton asked the Spangler family to come to the podium, and stepped to one side as the three of them stepped forward. Maureen Spangler picked up the little girl so she could be seen better, and her father began to speak. “A week ago tonight was the most terrible night of my life,” he said. “You all know the story. Melissa, our only daughter, was abducted, and we feared we would never see her alive again. In a faint hope, we offered a large reward for her safe return, and prayed desperately that we would be allowed to present it to someone.

“Then, late in the evening, we received a phone call from the Toledo Police Department, telling us that our daughter had been rescued and was safe. I cannot tell you how beside ourselves with joy my wife and I were at the news. Only later did we learn the names of the people to thank for our daughter’s rescue and safe return. Corporal Janice Watkins and Officer Charles Parker were involved in her rescue, but both of them said that the real credit went to a third person, who a few days before had possibly also saved the life of RuthAnn Richardson, who is here with us tonight. My wife and I, to be honest, could not bring ourselves to believe the truth, even though the officers and our daughter insisted this third person was real and that she was the one who had really saved our daughter’s life.

“My wife and I offered the reward to both the officers, and they declined, saying their departments would not allow it. Two nights ago, we offered the reward to the third person, and she refused the offer as well, and instead suggested that the reward be donated here, where women who have been the victims of crime and abuse may find shelter and solace. We agreed, only on the provision that she accept the award in the name of the Women’s Crisis Center. Ladies and gentlemen, in this day and age, a masked superheroine dressed in black seems surreal, but nevertheless, Mrs. Richardson and our family owe more than we can repay to Hippolyta.”

With that word as a cue, the black-clad Amazon strode into the room, and Jason could feel her presence, the power, the authority. Yes, she was dressed in black leather, head to toe. The smell of it was intoxicating. She was taller than Jason had imagined, slender, but with strong muscles bulging the tight leather, firm and full breasts filling the studded corset around her waist and torso. A strap was slung over her shoulder and around the hip, and behind her shoulder he could see the handle of that sword she had used so effectively. A holster was slung from one hip, and he could see the butt of a gun protruding. She was masked, too; even her eyes were covered with wraparound mirror sunglasses. All he could see of her was the lower half of her face and a full shock of curly red hair that cascaded halfway down her back. What an awesome woman! He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in her presence—yes, this was a woman worthy of respect, unlike Andrea and the other sluts and easy lays he’d known in the past …

“Thank you, Mr. Spangler,” Hippolyta said slowly in a husky, sexy mezzo-soprano. “As I told you the other night, only chance had me present last Thursday evening and placed to do my sworn duty as an Amazon. I could not accept your reward with honor for just performance of duty. An Amazon has no more duty than any other citizen, which is to fight evil where it is found, with whatever weapon comes to hand. If citizens do not stand up to crime and to evil, then they well deserve to have that crime and evil visited upon them. In spite of the efforts of the police, and of good citizens, evil too often wins, especially against helpless women and children. That is the importance of the Woman’s Crisis Center, and why I am willing to accept your reward in their behalf. I have been informed that others wish to reward and honor my actions of a week ago. If anyone wishes to honor those actions in like manner, you are free to help this place, which does a great deal of good, but is in desperate financial need due to proposed city budget cuts.”

Hippolyta stopped, turned toward the mayor, and even Jason could feel her visible anger as she said in an extremely hard voice, “Mr. Mayor, I ask you to reconsider those cuts, and to restore full funding to this house of desperately needed refuge.”

“Ma’am, may I offer a comment?” the mayor said, obviously uneasy. Jason could see him break a sweat, and he was sure it wasn’t from the heat of the TV lights.

“You may,” she said icily.

With unconcealed nervousness, the mayor slunk to the podium as Hippolyta backed a couple of steps away … just about the right distance to pull her sword, Jason thought. “Ma’am,” he said. “Those budget cuts were just one item on a list of possible options, and are being reconsidered as we speak.” He turned and scuttled back to his place at the end of the line, as a low murmur arose among the news people.

Hippolyta stepped back up to the podium. “Mr. Mayor,” she said, a little more warmly but no less firmly. “I am sure you will give the matter your wisest consideration.” She turned back to the cameras. “I am a creature of the shadows, and am unaccustomed to the light, so to the shadows I must return. Good evening to you all.” She turned and headed for the door, Officer Parker right behind her, and Corporal Watkins following—except that Corporal Watkins stopped, closed the door, and faced the room wordlessly.

Damn, Jason thought quickly. Maybe I could catch her outside … he looked toward the other door, and saw another police officer who looked familiar standing in front of it, too. Well, so much for that notion. The cops had clearly set it up so the Amazon would be able to leave without the media pursuing her. Hippolyta was real though, he thought. No one could just buy a costume and put on an act like that. There weren’t many people in Toledo who could set the mayor to pissing his pants, either. Damn, what a woman … if there were only some way he could get to her! It was obvious as hell that Charlie Parker knew how to contact her, but Sally kept saying she hadn’t been able to get a thing out of him. And Parker had a reputation as being a hardass himself. He’d learned it was true the hard way, more than once …

“This concludes the presentation,” Dr. Morton’s voice brought his attention back to the room. “Those remaining will be available for interviews.”

There was little else Jason could do but interviews of those left. He did a quick one of the mayor, who protested again that cutting funding for the center had been just one of many possible options, another quick exchange with Corporal Watkins, and one with Robert Spangler, who would only go so far as to reiterate what he’d said earlier. The other stations also did one with the little girl, Melissa, so Jason figured he’d better get one with her, too, just to be on the safe side.

He wasn’t real good at talking to kids, but he’d picked up a couple of questions from the other reporters, and asked those. She gave clear, easy responses, pretty steady for a little girl, he thought, especially after what she’d been through. But there ought to be something the other stations hadn’t asked. He could only think of one thing, as he knelt beside her, holding the Channel 5 microphone in front of her. “Melissa, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“An Amazon,” she replied, and smiled serenely and with full confidence, “Just like Hippolyta.”

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