Darkness was all around. Dark, inky, creepy, there-must-monsters-out-to-get-me blackness. After a time, bright little colored flashes of light broke the darkness and began shooting out from nowhere. I marveled at them. I paused mid-marvel. This is distressingly familiar.

Oh wait, I know! This is exactly what happened on the last episode of That Secret Agent Show I saw. The one were Maurice is revealed not to know how to do the sacred penguin dance and he's forced to feed his sister to the vicious and rare sabre toothed chinchillas that live only in South Acirema and are only seen when sacrificing innocent dandelions to various gods on rainy afternoons! Drat but those chinchillas are adorable. If it wasn't for that tendency of theirs to gnaw their owners' hand off within the first hour of their captivity I'd have owned one long ago.

But back to the darkness… I knew that the little flashes of light were flashing around because my eyes were closed (and being squeezed a little more than was necessary). I knew that to stop it I'd have to open my eyes. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for that yet.

A hard and potentially evil object slapped my cheek.

"Zero!!"

Camry's voice was on the edge of panic. I recognized this. And in recognizing it I concluded that my senses were indeed functioning even if I couldn't feel the pain in my cheek that I was pretty sure was supposed to be there. My best guess was that it was overshadowed by the party the much larger and more agonizing pain had decided to throw in my head. There was one good thing about this. At least I knew I wasn't dead. But supposing death was preferable… Nevermind, I don't do philosophy.

I opened my eyes hoping that I wasn't going to find another hamster on my chest.

A refreshingly familiar pair of green eyes stared back at me. "Zero!

You're awake!"

I waited. "And?"

He made a face. "And in need of some tic tacs."

"Nice to see you too." I poked him. "Nice to see you alive and well and breathing without mentioning the not so niceness of your breath and where the cri are we?" I glanced around. Six cheerful windows greeted me with six cheerful beams of sunlight all pointing at the same spot. It happened to be the very spot I was sprawled on.

"This is the north tower." Camry explained. "This is where you're supposed to meet him, isn't it?" He dug in a pocket and withdrew a slightly damp, incredibly wrinkled piece of paper caked in a fine layer of mud. "My memo got a little, er, ravaged. Was it supposed to be the south tower?"

"Nope. It's the north." I looked down at his watch. "But he won't be here for another ten minutes."

"Which leaves me plenty of time to make my exit." he said. He presented me with the most endearing lopsided grin I'd ever witnessed as he crossed the floor to one of the windows.

I glanced around. "How are you leaving, exactly?" I'd noticed no way in or out of the tower.

"Same way we got in." He sat on the windowsill and leaned out so far I feared he'd go over the edge. That is, until he did actually go over the edge. Then I didn't have to fear it anymore cause it already happened. I was surprised, surprise does factor into this after all, when he swung back into view. This distracted me momentarily but I still managed to see what he wanted me to see. No, I don't mean his nicely toned abs (though I can't say they made for a bad view), I mean the knotted rope hanging down the side of the tower that dear rebel boy was scaling. I was gonna have to ask him how he managed to climb up it while hanging on to my unconscious form.

While I contemplated this, Mr. Bad Man showed up. He leapt through the window looking more than one kind of dashing and skidded to a halt.

"You're all right!" he cried.

I smiled brilliantly, which is hard to do when your headache switches from maraca to bass drum intensity.

"You'll be happy to know that your side is currently winning." he went on. "Your big dumb guy has an enthralled audience gathered around him on the portico. They're learning about herbal wraps."

"What about the rest?"

"Well, after your rebel boy cut all my men down to size and rescued you he launched a very entertaining campaign against my cleaning crew. They don't dust well enough, apparently, and don't get deep into corners. Anyway, after that he brought you up here."

I rolled my eyes. "Sounds about right."

"Your princess did a wonderful job of acting helpless. She was eventually rescued by your mysterious one who, by that time, had everyone in a thirty-foot radius enraptured. I haven't seen your guide but they don't generally get involved so that's no surprise."

"You forgot about Kia."

"Kia? Ah, he's the hero guy, isn't he? Well, there's always got to be one casualty, hasn't there?"

"He's dead?!"

Mr. Bad Man shook his head hurriedly. "Oh no, no, no! He stubbed his big toe when you started glowing. He's been with my physician since the beginning of the battle."

I was feeling a pathetic excuse for relief. I shook it off and got to my feet.

"Shall we begin then?"

"Ladies first." he replied gallantly.