~The Botanical Gardens ~

The people who had been carried outside cried thank yous and tears of pain almost simultaneously. Wild Lotus moved among them, checking each of them as she did for serious breaks, for lethal potential, for anything that would further endanger a life or keep them at risk. With each passing victim, she was pleased to find them bruised, battered, broken, but safe. Safe now because of the Guardians.

Meanwhile, Paladin's radar panned out in wide circles, wiping across the area, searching for other signals and readings from his team's communicator. It was almost worth some reprive that he didn't find Sniper's signal; the communicator would've survived this heat so far, so its absence meant too that Sniper wasn't present within the area. Wherever he was, if the radar was to be believed, he wasn't here.

Still, his radar registered the feintest signal. It was hard to interpret, but somewhere, Sniper's communicator was echoing, like the presence of a sound long since gone. It was hard to describe, as if there wsa a hole, an anomoly, that was pulling at Paladin's signal.

The garden continued to burn.

Shimmer's mention of paint seemed their best lead.

"Sniper's not here," Paladin said to the team. "He was here, but he's not now. In fact, he's nowhere within several dozen miles that I can tell...which isn't possible since we know he was just here a minute ago. Unless..."

"Unless he found a painted door," Wild Lotus finished the thought for him.

Iron Maiden hovered in the middle of the burning Botanical Garden. Thick smoke filled the air, making it impossible to see much more than her hand in front of her face. She'd swooped down through the shattered roof to try to find Sniper but it had been a fruitless quest. Without some idea of where in this very large (and smoke-filled space) to look, she had little hope of finding him. Shimmer had either not heard her question or was too busy dealing with the injured to answer.

Or possibly had no answer, given what Paladin had just said. If Sniper had found another painted doorway, he could be somewhere else entirely. Leah would have guessed down in a basement or sub-basement, but she had no idea how the effect worked. There was no reason the doorway couldn't lead to someplace miles away. Paladin apparently was coming to the same conclusion.

The armored Guardian had shifted his search to include the strange anomaly in concert with Sniper's GPS signal. Based on his tactical display, the anomaly was located just about at Sniper's last known coordinates. Paint...he said something about paint...

"Guardians, saddle up," Paladin called. "Hand off to the first responders and form up. We're going on a Sniper hunt."

"Copy that," Leah said. She soared upward again, the way she'd come. When she was clear of the Garden ceiling again she oriented herself on the rest of the team and flew join to rejoin them.

In truth, there was little left to be done. The paramedics were already spread out among the victims, WiLo had merely been speaking with them to keep them distracted while the firefighters moved in on what was left of the DBG. Had WiLo been anyone else, she'd have been seething with rage over the loss; because she was who she was, she simply formed a quiet, implacable determination to be the hand of Karma, when they caught up with those responsible.

"Whenever you're ready, Paladin," she said quietly. "Where are we going to start?"

Shimmer nodded her head, very much ready to go on a Sniper Hunt. "I should have established a mind link with him...I just didn't think he would disappear like that."

Paladin offered a lift to WiLo with a crook of his arm.

It was only the briefest of hesitations. No one who hadn't known her intimately would have caught it, that infinitesimal pause, flashing green eyes searching an opaque helmet for the features hidden behind. But she was already pushing her doubts aside, nodding, stepping into the crook of an armored arm that had given her access to flight so many times before.

"That one can take care of himself," she murmured, bracing herself for take-off. "But if he found more of that paint, we need to find it too."

His jets flared and he lifted into the air, moving towards the anomaly's location.

"I'm picking up a sensor anomaly at Sniper's last coordinates. Let's see if we find some wet paint."

Shimmer followed as Paladin lead the way, confident that the authorities below had the situation well in hand.

The burning building made it hard to see, but between his enhanced optics, the closeness to the front of the building – unscathed as it was, relatively speaking – and the fact that the smoke seemed to curl in to the floor, it showed itself soon enough.

An upturned can of paint. Red spread out across the floor, wide enough for a person to crawl through, if the possibility of crawling through paint into the floor were real …

The team landed in a tight group near the paint. Paladin picked up a piece of debris and tossed it into the pool of paint. Sure enough, it "fell" into the floor.

"Okay...I'll go first," he said to the others. "Maiden, you're next, then Shimmer, then WiLo. We'll regroup on the other side."

It was almost reflex, he'd done it so often in his lifetime at just such moments. Paladin extended his hand out for the others to pile on. "Ready?"

"Ready," Leah said.

Paladin stepped close to the pool of crimson on the floor. The flickering light from the flames cast fanciful jumping reflections along the pool's smooth surface. With a prayer for luck he sidestepped into it and let himself fall. His armored form sank into the paint and then was gone.

When her turn came, Leah drifted out over the spill of red paint and then dropped through it. She wondered where she'd end up.

Shimmer stayed close to Iron Maiden and followed her through the unnerving red paint. She had a great deal of reservations concerning where they might end up and even if they would all end up at the same spot.

To WiLo, this seemed to be the very height (or was it the depth?) of folly. She of course could step into a tree and end up in Singapore if she wished, but she knew where she'd be ending up when she started. This... not so much. With a sigh and a prayer to Devi for a fool's protection, she waited a measured beat after Shimmer disappeared then stepped into the red puddle.

~ The Subway Line ~

There were the faintest traces of footprints leading across the deck of the subway. They weren't all that warm, but the temperature did make them stand out. It simply didn't match with the ambient air here, which made it almost sizzle up to life against Sniper's vision enhancements. They lead up the stairs, and out to the streetside above.

Outside, the city was unfamiliar, different, and yet familiar. Television and movies had popularized it enough that, between the huge neon signs, the massive thrum of traffic all around, the populous undaunted by the end of the day, Sniper recognized it. Madison Square Garden blinked in massive red lights to his side.

New York. He'd travelled how far in an instant?

Up here, it was impossible to continue tracking those he sought. The crowds were shoulder to shoulder, rubbing and bumping against one another, bustling about like ants, crashing to and fro. Somewhere in this throng, this roiling mass, were two people. Needles in a haystack. He could follow no trail up here.

He turned one way, then the next. Desperation. A waste. They were lost.

Sniper's muscles tensed with instant frustration as his adrenaline surge hit a brick wall. "Yebatsya," he swore, clenching his fists. He wanted to punch something.

People filed past him as if he wasn't there. He returned the favor and angrily refused to move out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. Scowling, he keyed his comm. **Sniper to Control...**

Nothing but static. He should have figured New York was a bit out of range. The Americans probably had a saying for this kind of situation. FUBAR, maybe.

He had a thought, then. His stubborn insistence against failure. It was a flaw. He looked up at the towers of downtown New York and scowled. Wasting too much time already, he quickly swapped attachments for the hook, aimed, and took off.

A second later, the Russian perched on the edge of a building and scanned the crowd for those familiar painters suits.

Too many people. Far too many people. Finding the painters was impossible, it seemed. Every time he saw a man and woman, it wasn’t them. Every time he saw painters suits, it wasn’t them. It seemed impossible to pick them out of this lot. New York did what it did best; it gave them a place to vanish. With their critical few minutes head start, who knew where they’d be.

"Damnit," he swore again, this time in English. He stood there on the sharp precipice looking down over the crowds. It was foolish, really. They could be anywhere. They could be any *one*.

Several thoughts passed through him as watched. Why New York? Sure it could be simply to escape: the crowds provided them the perfect cover. But was it just that? If so, they might be painting their way back to Colorado even now and he was no closer to them. But how could he get further, really? But if not, if there was any other reason to be in the big apple -- something this city provided them -- *that* could be particularly interesting to know. The next question was; where to start looking?

He wondered about the car. He could run the plates, but they were local to Aspen. Even if he had a lead there (assuming already that it wasn't simply stolen) that would take him back home.

And then came the paint -- the red, perfect puddle that was their portal. Was it the paint or the painters that made that trick possible? Or someone else entirely? He decided that the painters themselves were likely about as useful to this operation as their car. But maybe there was something the paint itself could tell him.

He scowled, struck with so many questions and his frustration continued to rise. The Russian dropped from the edge of the building, back into the ceaseless river of people like a stone that caused no splash, and headed back to the subway.