Boston Ma, Saturday afternoon, Dec 3rd 2016

“Karma, Karma, Karma chameleon,” Karma cheerfully sang as she skipped down the sidewalk. That was her favorite song because it was all about her.

Her mama walked down the sidewalk beside her, wearing one of her sneaky disguises that used magic to hide her horns and tail. Karma never liked it when Mama looked like that, because she looked so boring. She much preferred Mama’s awesome horns and tail, and she looked forward to the day when she would get her own.

“When is Missy coming home?” Karma abruptly asked. “I...uh…found…a really neat zappy wand and wanted to show her.”

Her mama looked down with an amused look and asked, “Did you happen to FIND it on someone’s work bench in the labs?”

“No,” Karma answered with her best innocent look. Mama continued staring at her until she deflated and admitted, “I found it UNDER a work bench.”

“And what did I say about that?” her mama asked her patiently.

Karma frowned thoughtfully, then brightened up and stated, “It fell off a truck.”

Mama smiled faintly, then asked, “And what did I say about playing in the labs?”

“That they’re not a playground,” Karma grudgingly admitted. “And it’s dangerous down there…”

“And?” her mama encouraged.

Karma let out a sigh of defeat. “And I shouldn’t take stuff from there because it can be super dangerous…and that it isn’t nice to take things from students.”

“Good,” Mama responded with a satisfied nod.

However, Karma couldn’t resist asking, “But what if I want it more than them?”

Mama gave her a flat look, then sighed. “You can’t take things from students unless they’re being super jerks, and then you’d better not get caught.”

“Okay,” Karma agreed with an emphatic nod. Then, she remembered the question that had started the lecture, a question that had yet to be answered. “When is Missy coming home?”

“I don’t know,” Mama answered. “But probably Christmas. You know how busy she’s been lately.” At Karma’s look of disappointment, she rolled her eyes. “I’ll invite your siblings over for dinner sometime. Not like I really need to though since they know that they’re always welcome.”

“Daddy can cook,” Karma insisted.

“What?” Mama asked wryly. “You don’t think I can cook?” Karma just gave her a flat look in response. “Okay, you’ve got me. I may be fabulously talented, but cooking isn’t one of my talents.”

“But modesty is,” Karma added with a smirk.

“Smartass,” Mama responded with a laugh.

“Better than being a dumbass,” Karma said while continuing to smirk, repeating something that she’d heard Mama say before.

Mama gave her an amused look. “You know kid, you’re karma, come to bite me on my tail…”

Karma grinned as she replied, “Nom nom nom.”

Just then, a humming sound suddenly filled the air. Karma looked around for what was causing it, then noticed that her mama had suddenly turned serious.

A couple seconds later, Karma noticed three men floating over the road. Each one was wearing a green and grey uniform, and each one had a white metal belt around their waists. The humming seemed to be coming from them.

“RUN,” Mama ordered Karma. “We need to get out of here NOW.”

The flying men threw metal balls all around, and they exploded into big clouds of smoke. They didn’t seem to be focusing on anyone in particular and were just throwing them all around the street and sidewalks. It didn’t take long before Karma could barely even see in front of them.

“This way,” Mama told her, pulling her along. “We go into the alley and slip away on the other side.”

Something exploded in the distance, making Karma jump in surprise. She couldn’t see what was causing it, but she still saw the flash of light even through the thick smoke. Then there was another one from the other side. More explosions went off, each one shaking the ground a bit and making Karma afraid.

“Keep going,” Mama told her. “Everything is going to be fine.”

But then another explosion went off, one that was a lot closer. There was a flash of light and a big ‘BOOM’, right before Karma was thrown aside and knocked away from her mama.

“MAMA!” Karma immediately called out, looking around but not being able to see anything through the smoke.

Everything was covered with thick smoke and Karma couldn’t see her mama. She couldn’t even tell which direction she’d just come from. She was about to yell out again, but then realized that she needed to be sneaky, not loud. She didn’t want those floating guys to find her.

Karma found the wall of a building and used it to guide her in a single direction. Once she was out of the smoke and safe, she’d be able to find her mama. Or her mama would find her. Either way, she needed to get safe first.

When Karma emerged from the smoke, she found an area of the street that was occupied by the men in green. There were two of them there, not floating at all. They had a big truck though and were loading people inside the back of it.

Then Karma saw someone else, someone who was obviously with those green meanies because he was wearing clothes in the same colors, but his uniform was different. It was fancier. And if Karma knew anything, this meant that he was their boss.

The man wore a green and grey uniform, one with a bit of armor build into it. He was bald and wore a high-tech lens over one of his eyes.

“Team two has nearly completed their objective,” the bald man announced. “Hurry up, team one. We need to depart in one minute.”

“Yes, Doctor Bogus,” one of the green meanies responded.

The bald man, Doctor Bogus, looked around with a grim expression. “That man,” he exclaimed, pointing to an old man who had just staggered out of the smoke. “Grab him. He has potential.”

One of the green meanies ran forward and grabbed the man that Doctor Bogus had just pointed to. They completely ignored the other people in the area, not even seeming to care that other people were staggering out of the smoke as well.

Karma looked around for a place to hide, for a route she could use to escape. She spotted a car that would be perfect to give her cover, and all she had to do was make it to the car without being seen.

“That girl,” Doctor Bogus exclaimed, pointing at her. “Grab her.”

“EEEP,” Karma exclaimed as she started to run.

One of the green meanies flew at her, so Karma changed direction and ran for the car. She thought that she could slip underneath it, where the flying guy couldn’t reach, and then she’d be able to slip out from the other side.

But before Karma could reach her destination, the green meanie threw something at her. She felt it hit her back, and the next thing she knew, wires were wrapping all around her body, including her legs. A moment later, she tripped and fell face first into the ground.

“Got you,” the green meanie said as he grabbed her and picked her up.

“LET ME GO,” Karma exclaimed, struggling as well as she could through the wires.

The green meanie picked her up and carried her to the truck, then threw her into the back with four other prisoners. Karma squirmed to get free, finding that the wire was already starting to come loose. It didn’t take long for her to get out of the wire.

“Those meanies,” Karma exclaimed, pausing to look around.

Three of the people who were in the truck with her were kids or teenagers, while there was also the old man. She quickly looked them over, then turned her attention to the back of the truck. It was a barred cage that kept them all from jumping out the back.

A moment later, the truck engine revved up. Karma gulped and ran for the lock, immediately going to work on it. She hummed cheerfully as she picked the lock, deciding that this was way easier than the locks she had to pick to get her allowance. The lock quickly popped open.

“How did you do that?” some teenage girl asked Karma with a look of surprise.

“Doesn’t matter,” the old man responded. “We have to get out of here.”

The truck started to move and everyone began jumping out of the back before it could get too fast. As soon as Karma hit the ground, she looked around for either her Mama or a place where she could hide.

Suddenly, one of the flying green meanies landed right in front of her and grabbed her shoulder. She tried to squirm away, but his grip was too strong.

“I caught one of them,” the green meanie called out.

Karma looked at the truck, which had already stopped. Then she looked around, relieved to see that everyone else had managed to escape. However, the fact that she’d been caught again afterwards made her grimace in embarrassment. If Missy found out that she got caught while some old guy got away, she’d never live it down.

“You only caught me because I let you,” Karma pouted, using the same line that she did whenever she played tag with Missy and lost.

Doctor Bogus came over and glared down at Karma with a look of annoyance. “We don’t have time to recapture the others,” he told the green meanies, “so I’ll have to make do with this one for now.”

----------

Saturday late afternoon, Dec 3rd 2016

“Are we there yet?” Karma asked in a cheerful tone.

“NO!” the green meanie snapped.

Karma was still in the back of the truck, tied up and with one of the green meanies watching over her. She had no idea how long they’d been driving, but she had found a way to amuse herself.

“You’ve asked that fifteen times already,” the green meanie exclaimed. “And it’s only been two minutes since the last time you asked.”

“How would I know?” Karma asked with her best innocent look. “I don’t have a watch.”

“Shut up,” the green meanie told her. “Not another word from you, kid.”

“You’re really grouchy,” Karma told the man. “Do you live in a garbage can?”

SHUT IT!” he ordered.

“I bet you hate Christmas too,” she continued. “Do you live on Mount Crumpit? I bet you do.”

“That’s it,” the green meanie spat out. “I’m gagging you…”

But just as he came towards her, the truck quickly slowed down. Karma looked around, her eyes narrowing a little. The she brightened up and asked, “Are we there yet?”

The green meanie yelled in rage and looked like he was about to hit her. But then the truck came to a stop and so did he. The man glared down at her for several more seconds before responding, “Yes.”

A minute later, the back door to the truck was opened up, as was the door to the cage. The green meanie hopped out, giving her a nasty glare before he started to walk away.

“Bye bye, Oscar,” Karma called out to him.

The green meanie who Karma had decided to think of as Oscar, looked at one of the other green meanies outside the truck and said, “You get her out of there. If I have to spend one more minute around that kid, I’m going to belt her.”

“She’s just a kid,” the other green meanie responded with a chuckle. “How much trouble could she be?”

Karma grinned at those words, wondering if she should take that as a challenge. She bet Mama would, and so would her big sister Missy.

“Come on out, kid,” the other green meanie said.

After climbing out of the trick, Karma looked around and saw that she was in front of a three-story building with a high wall that went all around them. There were more of the green meanies walking around and Doctor Bogus was talking to some of them.

“Get your anti-gravity belts onto the recharger,” Doctor Bogus told them. “The batteries don’t last long.”

“Yes, Doctor,” one of the green meanies responded before several of them hurried off.

“Now to see how my intern did,” Doctor Bogus said, turning his attention to a woman who emerged from another truck.

The young woman had shoulder-length, light brown hair, and wore a costume that was mostly light and dark blue, with parts of it being white. She walked towards Doctor Bogus with her blue cape fluttering in a wind that Karma couldn’t feel.

“Report, Windshear,” Doctor Bogus told the woman.

“Team two completed our task,” Windshear responded. “We acquired equipment that you tasked us with retrieving.”

“Good,” Doctor Bogus responded.

Karma just stared at Windshear with a broad grin forming on her face. “CARRIE!”

Windshear snapped around and stared at Karma with a look of stunned disbelief. “Karma? What are you…?” Then she abruptly glared at Doctor Bogus. “You kidnapped Karma? Are you insane?”

Doctor Bogus looked confused for a moment, then he glanced at Karma and scowled. “You know this…girl?”

“I used to babysit her,” Windshear admitted with clenched teeth. “Until I graduated last year.”

“Hi, Carrie,” Karma exclaimed, waving at her old babysitter, conveniently forgetting that she was supposed to be tied up. She’d gotten out of that ages ago and Oscar had been too busy complaining to even notice.

“But, do you know what you’ve done?” Windshear demanded of Doctor Bogus. “Do you know who her parents are? Her family?”

“Why would I?” Doctor Bogus snapped back. “She’s just some child I found with interesting potential. She’ll make an excellent test subject.”

Windshear ran a hand down her face and let out an exasperated sigh. “Her mother is a retired supervillain called the Imp. She’s a teacher at Whateley. Hell, I think that Lady Astarte might even be her godmother.” She gestured at Karma, trying to emphasize just how badly Doctor Bogus had messed up.

“Then it is a good thing that Lady Astarte is no longer around,” Doctor Bogus responded dismissively. “And as for the Imp… The name is familiar, but I’m not concerned about some second-rate has-been.”

Karma glared at Doctor Bogus, not happy to hear her mama being called some ‘second-rate has-been’.

“Mama is great,” Karma blurted out angrily. “She’s fabulous.”

“Do you have any idea who is going to come after HER?” Windshear tried again. “Do you have any idea of how much shit we’re both going to be in?”

“ENOUGH WITH THAT,” Doctor Bogus snapped at her, clearly losing his patience. “If her family is that connected, then she might be even more useful as a bargaining chip than as an experiment.”

Windshear glared at Doctor Bogus but didn’t bother arguing again. Instead, she looked at Karma and gave an apologetic look.

“Since you have so much experience with this child,” Doctor Bogus mocked, “you can take her to a cell and watch over her.” His eyes narrowed and he rubbed his chin for a moment, “While I figure out the ransom.”

With that, Doctor Bogus turned around and went into the building, leaving Karma alone with her former babysitter and a half dozen green meanies.

“Come on, Karma,” Windshear…Carrie said with a resigned sigh. “It looks like we’re going to have a sleepover.”

“YAY,” Karma exclaimed, clapping her hands excitedly.

“Yeah, yay,” Carrie agreed with a roll of her eyes. “Just like old times…except that now your mom is going to kill me.”

----------

Saturday late afternoon, Dec 3rd 2016

“I’m sorry about this,” Carrie apologized to Karma. “Unfortunately, I have a binding contract with Doctor Bogus, so I’m stuck working for him for another couple months.”

Karma nodded as they walked down the hallway. She looked around, trying to remember which way they had come.

Carrie let out a long sigh. “If I’d known that he was into kidnapping kids, I never would have signed up with him.”

“Why did he take me?” Karma asked. “That was really mean.”

“He is a villain,” Carrie pointed out wryly. “Most villains aren’t nice.”

“Mama is nice,” Karma protested defiantly.

Carrie laughed at that. “Your mom is a bit of an exception, but she can be pretty mean too when she has reason.” She paused at that with a worried look on her face. “And unfortunately, Doctor Bogus just gave her a good one.”

“Then why would that mean jerk catch me?” Karma demanded. “And those other people?”

Carrie was silent for several long seconds as she considered this. “Doctor Bogus has a devise that can see untapped potential in people. Basically, he can see when someone is a mutant who hasn’t manifested yet.”

“Like me,” Karma said excitedly, liking this confirmation that she would one day have powers like the rest of her family. “I can’t wait.”

“Um…yeah,” Carrie responded with a worried look at Karma and a visible shutter. “Anyway, our recent raids were mostly to pick up a few supplies. I wasn’t expecting Bogus to pick up a few people at the same time.”

When they came to a stop a few seconds later, Karma asked, “So, what now? Hide and seek? Tag?” Her eyes began to gleam with a manic glee.

Carrie took an instinctive step back as she remembered playing some of those games with Karma, whether she wanted to or not. “Not right now,” she quickly responded. She pointed to a room beside them. “This is your room for now, and you’ll stay here until I can get your mom to come pick you up.”

Karma rolled her eyes. “But I wanna do something fun.”

“Not right now,” Carrie told her. “I have things I need to do. Maybe later.”

“Fine,” Karma grumbled before reluctantly going into the room.

Carrie quickly closed the door to the cell and locked it, letting out a sigh of relief as she did so. “That wasn’t too hard.” Then she paused with a bad feeling. “That might have been too easy. And where Karma is concerned, easy is suspicious.”

When nothing unexpected happened immediately, Carrie let out a sigh and hurried away from the cell. She made her way through the building and stepped out one of the side doors. Once outside, she pulled out her cell phone and made a call.

“Ms. Imp,” Carrie said into the phone. “This is Carrie Lawton. Windshear. Karma is here with me, and I’m keeping her safe.”

“Oh, good,” the Imp’s voice came from the other end. She sounded cheerful and completely unconcerned about the fact that her daughter had been kidnapped by a supervillain. “That’s great news.”

“It is?” Carrie asked in surprise.

“Sure it is,” the Imp responded. “You know how hard it is finding a sitter on short notice, much less one with experience handling Karma. You know better than most that she can be a bit of a handful.”

“Um, yes I do,” Carrie responded uncertainly. This conversation was NOT going the way she’d expected. “But I don’t think you get it… Doctor Bogus is holding Karma for ransom…”

“I’ll tell you what,” the Imp continued in a cheerful tone, not reacting at all to what Carrie had just told her. “I’ll leave Karma with you overnight. Double…no…triple your old pay. I’ll pick her up tomorrow.”

Carrie’s eyes widened at that. “BUT…” The phone was already dead.

For several long seconds, Carrie just stood there, staring down at her phone with a feeling of growing dread. “I am in so much trouble.”

----------

The Imp crouched down on the roof of a building, using a pair of binoculars to stare into a walled off compound. At the moment, one of her former students was within her sights.

“Nice seeing you again, Carrie,” the Imp mused, having just gotten off the phone with the girl.

Then she shifted position and looked down at a small gadget that she had, one with a glowing arrow that pointed straight at the building. The Imp adjusted the monitor, nodded faintly to herself, then put it away.

“More parents should LoJack their kids,” Imp muttered to herself. “It really saves a lot of time and effort.”

A few seconds later, she picked up her phone and dialed a number. “Honey,” she greeted her husband with a cheerful grin. “You’ll never believe who I ran into. Carrie. Karma’s old sitter. Well, to make a long story short, she’s agreed to look after Karma, so why don’t the two of us go out for a nice romantic dinner tonight?”

----------

Saturday early evening, Dec 3rd 2016

“Bored, bored, bored,” Karma repeated as she walked around the small room, looking into every corner for the tenth time. Nothing had changed, so she continued repeating that single word, changing her tone and emphasis each time.

Then Karma stopped and stared at the large metal door, letting out a long, exasperated sigh. Carrie had locked her up and then left, and hadn’t come back yet. Karma was more than tired of waiting.

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” Karma sang in her deepest voice. “Nobody knows the sorrow…”

She paused, annoyed that there wasn’t anyone to actually sing too. That took all the fun out of it.

After a few more seconds, Karma began to grin. Maybe Carrie had started playing hide and seek without even telling her that they were playing. Missy did that sometimes.

“Okay,” Karma exclaimed as she reached into the fanny pack that she called her ‘bag of tricks’.

A moment later, she pulled out a small round metal ball. This was a lock picking devise that she’d ‘borrowed’ from her Mama. There were no locks to pick on this door, which meant that she had to cheat. She liked cheating.

Karma stuck the devise to the door and it activated, making the computer unlock the door for her. The metal ball went dead after this since it could only be used once.

“Ready or not, here I come,” Karma announced as she stepped out of the room.

She saw one of the green meanies walking down the hallway so she immediately ducked back into the room, waiting until it was clear before she came out again. Then she slipped down the hallway, looking for Carrie…or at least something interesting.

“Sneak, sneak, sneak,” Karma said as she snuck around the building, peeking into one room after another.

Whenever one of the green meanies came past, she made sure to hide really well. This was fun. She was both hiding and seeking at the same time, which made the game even more exciting.

Then Karma found a room that immediately caught her full attention. Her eyes widened as she looked inside and saw all the toys. It was just like the labs back home, with lots of neat stuff everywhere.

“Cool,” Karma whispered as she looked around.

One wall as almost entirely covered with fancy looking ray guns. She had absolutely no idea what any of them did, but she was sure it would be fun to find out. But before she could go grab one, she noticed all the belts that the flying green meanies had been wearing. They were all sitting on a table with cables plugged into them.

And then, she saw a big metal surfboard with rockets on it, leaning up against a wall. THAT looked like it would be fun to play with.

Karma danced around with excitement, unable to decide what she wanted to play with first. She ran to the surfboard knocked it over onto the floor, then she hopped on top of it. However, she couldn’t figure out how to make the rockets turn on.

“Come on,” Karma complained as she kicked one of the rockets.

Suddenly, the rocket turned on and the whole surfboard shot forward, knocking her off of it. The board slammed into a workbench that had bottles of green liquid on it, and all the bottles suddenly went flying. They hit the walls and floors, shattering and splashing the green liquid everywhere.

“AGH,” Karma exclaimed as a few drops of the liquid splashed onto her face. “I’ve been slimed…”

Karma wiped the slime off her face, then glared at the surfboard in annoyance. That had been exciting and kind of fun, but it had made WAY too much noise. The green meanies had probably heard it and they’d come to see what made all that noise.

“Awww,” Karma groaned in disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to stay and play with all the other neat suff. “That stinks.”

However, Karma didn’t want to just run off and leave everything behind. There was no reason that she couldn’t take a couple things with her, as long as she was fast enough. With that in mind, Karma looked around the room and grinned excitedly.

----------

Saturday evening, Dec 3rd 2016

Carrie could hear the music playing down the hall, a piano melody from some classic composer that sounded familiar, though she had no idea which one. Mozart? Beethoven? It was all the same to her.

Seconds later, Carrie stepped into the large open room where Doctor Bogus was playing the piano. He always played in that room because he liked the acoustics.

Doctor Bogus saw her standing there, though he didn’t acknowledge her presence just yet. She waited patiently for him to finally do so. Eventually, he stopped playing and looked at her.

“Windshear,” he said. He stared at her for a moment, then asked, “Are here to complain about my taking biological resources again? Or are you only going to complain about that girl you know?”

“Neither,” Carrie answered, knowing that Doctor Bogus wouldn’t listen anyway. “Though I do wonder why you bother. Taking people has to draw a LOT of attention from the heroes, and motivate them a lot more.”

“Bah, heroes,” Doctor Bogus spat out with a vehemence that surprised Carrie. “Hypocrites. Every last one of them.”

Her first instinct was to take a step back, but she’d learned a long time ago that she shouldn’t show weakness in front heroes, villains, and little kids. They would always take advantage of it.

“My uncle was a so-called hero,” Doctor Bogus confided in her bitterly. “At least I have never experimented on my own family.” He paused at that and shook his head, muttering more to himself, “What he did to my sister…”

Carrie didn’t know what to say to this revelation. Doctor Bogus wasn’t usually one to share personal details, so this was a new experience for her.

But before Carrie could decide on a response, one of the soldiers came hurrying into the room. “Doctor,” the man called out.

“What is it?” Doctor Bogus snapped at the man.

The soldier came to an abrupt halt, then he hesitated for a moment before revealing, “Someone got into the armory.”

“Someone?” Doctor Bogus demanded.

“Karma,” Carrie said in exasperation. She’d hoped that the cell would keep Karma both safe and contained. She should have known better.

“The girl?” Doctor Bogus asked skeptically.

“I locked her in the cell,” Carrie quickly assured him. “But…”

“But?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing.

Carrie hesitated for a moment, suddenly feeling sympathy for the soldier who’d done the same thing mere seconds earlier. “Karma has been picking locks since before she could walk. If there is any kid in the world who can slip out of a cell, it’s her.”

Doctor Bogus stared at her for several long seconds, looking surprised and then impressed. “The child might be worth more for the experiment than for ransom after all…”

“What did she take from the armory?” Carrie asked the soldier, almost afraid of the answer.

“The armory was mostly trashed,” the soldier told her. “The only things we really noticed missing were all of the tear gas grenades.”

“The tear gas?” Doctor Bogus asked in surprise. “Why would a child want something like that?”

But just then, Carrie noticed smoke starting to pour from air vents on the ceiling. Her eyes widened in sudden realization.

“Of course,” she muttered with a face-palm. “The old stink bomb in the ventilation system routine.”

The soldier began to cough and gag before any of the visible gas actually reached him. Doctor Bogus began to do the same, though Carrie created a wind to blow the corrupted air away from her. She waited a few long seconds to let the doctor get a good dose, and then she blew it away from him as well.

While Carrie was focusing on this, she almost missed the fact that someone was walking through a thick cloud of the tear gas. The figure was…small. Karma emerged from the cloud, wearing a gas mask that she must have found in the armory.

“I FOUND YOU,” Karma exclaimed excitedly, pointing at Carrie. “Now it’s your turn to find me.” And with that, Karma turned and ran back into the thick fog of tear gas, vanishing from sight.

“Karma,” Carrie snarled, remembering why she’d always hated watching Karma.

She called forth the wind and blew the cloud of tear gas away, but there was no sign of Karma. The girl had already slipped out of the room and escaped.

“What the hell was THAT?” Doctor Bogus demanded, glaring at Carrie with red teary eyes.

“Hide and seek,” Carrie answered with a weary sigh. “And I’m it.”

----------

Saturday night, Dec 3rd 2016

Carrie scowled as she walked down the hallway, two soldiers following close behind. It had been over an hour since the tear gas incident, and everyone was still grumpy about it.

More than half the building had been hit with that gas, and most of Doctor Bogus’ soldiers. Even now when most of it had cleared away, there was still residue in the air, enough to irritate people’s eyes and sinuses. The only reason that Carrie and the soldiers with her weren’t still wearing gas masks, was because her aerokinesis filtered the toxins from the air around them.

“I can’t believe we haven’t found that brat yet,” one of the soldiers complained.

“She’s used to playing hide and seek with people who can turn invisible,” Carrie pointed out grimly. “And who have other powers.”

“This is a pretty big place,” the second soldier offered. “Lots of places to hide.”

“I can’t believe you used to babysit the brat,” the first one told her. “Did you at least get hazard pay?”

Carrie hesitated for a moment before admitting, “Yes.”

“She’s just a kid,” the second soldier said. “I mean, she’s probably scared. I know I would be.”

“Karma can be…frustrating,” Carrie told them with a wry smile. “But the real problem is who might come after her.” She paused and looked back and forth between both soldiers. “If her family and their friends come after her…” Then she shook her head. “And even worse… Her mom is a teacher at Whateley Academy, so the school might decide to make an example.”

The two men shared a worried look before simultaneously muttering, “Oh shit.”

Carrie nodded. “It’s better for everyone if Karma can be returned home safely, as quickly as possible.”

Then Carrie let out a long sigh. She’d locked Karma in that cell in the hopes of keeping Karma in a safe place until her mother could come for her. She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing is ever easy when Karma is involved.

“I never should have signed a magical contract,” Carrie grumbled under her breath. Of course, the pay and benefits were amazing, but they weren’t worth the fallout that was likely to come from this. “That really was a bogus decision.”

Just then, Carrie saw Karma appear in an intersection up ahead. Soldier one raised his weapon to open fire so Carrie immediately blasted him with a burst of air. The man went flying down the hall until he slammed into a wall with a painful grunt.

“Oops,” Carrie said flatly. “You got in the way of my attack.”

Soldier two hurried over to help the other man back to his feet. “You heard her,” he hissed at the downed man. “We need to get that kid home alive or we’re all in deep shit.”

“She went down this way,” Carrie pointed out, continuing down the hall. “Karma,” she called out. “I’m tired of playing. You win. Let’s go get some cookies to celebrate.”

There was no response, though Carrie hadn’t expected there to be one. She’d used that trick to catch Karma once before, and Karma was smart enough to not fall for it again.

A loud noise abruptly came from one of the side rooms. It sounded like something falling over.

“OVER THERE,” soldier two exclaimed.

Both soldiers ran into the room. “WAIT,” Carrie exclaimed, going in after them.

There was nothing inside. It was a storage room with no sign of Karma.

A moment later, the heavy door suddenly swung shut and locked behind them. Carrie just stood there, staring at the door with a sense of overwhelming deja-vu, wondering if it was possible to have PTSD from babysitting.

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Saturday night, Dec 3rd 2016

“Karma, Karma, Karma chameleon,” Karma sang as she slipped through the hallway. “I come and go. I come and gooooo.”

She heard one of the green meanies coming and abruptly stopped and slipped into one of the rooms off to the side. The man looked REALLY grumpy, which wasn’t surprising. Karma had been having fun with the green meanies and wondered if he was one of the ones that got all the gross smoke from the air vents, or if he was one of the ones who she’d thrown itching powder at when he’d gotten too close to her hiding place.

Karma had been having a lot of fun, and not just by teasing the green meanies. This whole place was really big, with lots of great hiding spots, and lots of really neat stuff.

Once the green meanie was gone, Karma let out a really loud yawn. It was WAY past her bedtime, and she was more than a little tired, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself.

She waited a few seconds, making sure that Carrie wasn’t in the hallway. Carrie could be sneaky with her powers. She could actually feel people with her air, so she always knew when Mama or Missy were invisible nearby. She could even feel people in the next room over, so Karma knew that she’d have to be careful around her old babysitter.

A moment later, Karma turned around and looked around the room she was in. It was a kitchen. A really big kitchen. Her eyes widened as she realized that she might be able to find something tasty to eat.

“Carrie said they have cookies,” Karma mused with excitement. “I hope she wasn’t lying.”

Karma looked around and quickly found a few snacks, which she immediately helped herself to. And while she was looking, she also found a few other things that might be useful. She giggled as she loaded them into a duffel bag that she’d found, along with some snacks for later.

Then, Karma took one last look around the kitchen, trying to see if there was anything she might have missed. It was at this point that she spotted it. The fire alarm on the ceiling above the stove. Her eyes widened as a mischievous grin formed on her face.

Karma had already found a lighter that had been sitting on the counter next to the stove, so it didn’t take her long to start a small fire in the sink. All she needed were some paper towels, some greasy rags, and a couple other things, and boom… Fire.

“I hope Mama doesn’t yell at me for playing with fire,” Karma muttered with a pout. “But Mama isn’t here right now…”

Then with a giggle, Karma hurried out of the kitchen, then paused by the doorway to pour a bottle of cooking oil onto the floor. Once the bottle was completely empty, she hurried down the hallway just as fast as she could. It was just in time too because the fire alarm finally started going off.

Once she was far enough away, she found a good hiding place and waited. A couple of green meanies came running towards the kitchen, but as soon as they hit the oil that was all over the floor, they all fell down and went sliding.

Karma clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly and giving herself away. Then, she took the opportunity to slip away to one of the other hiding places that she’d found earlier. It was time for her to take a nap.

----------

Sunday morning, Dec 4th 2016

Carrie let out a loud yawn as she looked at Doctor Bogus. He had a large cup of coffee in his hand and looked every bit as tired as she felt. At the same time, she couldn’t help but feeling a certain glee and a temptation to say ‘I told you so’.

“You didn’t sleep either?” Carrie asked.

Doctor Bogus scowled and glared at her. “How could anyone sleep with the fire alarms going off every hour? And the fire suppression system kicking off each and every time…” He shook his head. “That damn junior fire bug.”

“Karma is a handful,” Carrie agreed, keeping her voice even.

“And four of my soldiers have been injured from her antics,” Doctor Bogus continued. “Oil on the floor. Tripwires on the stairs.”

Carrie just nodded at that, not bothering to list the merely annoying pranks that Karma had pulled. As it was, nearly every one of the doctor’s soldiers was in a bad mood.

“I’ve tried sending my ransom demands to her mother,” Doctor Bogus said with a deep scowl. “But I haven’t had any response. If I do get ahold of her, I’ll probably give her a discount on the ransom just to get rid of that brat sooner.”

“If this keeps up,” Carrie muttered under her breath, “you’ll end up paying the Imp to take Karma back.”

“I’ve decided to take one of your earlier warnings a little more seriously,” Doctor Bogus abruptly said, giving Carrie a flat look. “You warned that this brat’s family might be coming for her, so I’ve decided that we need to be prepared for the possibility.”

“You’re giving Karma back?” Carrie asked, a little confused since Doctor Bogus had just been talking about the ransom.

“Bah,” he spat out. “No. I need to get something from all this trouble.”

Then he handed Carrie a vial of green liquid. She accepted the vial, scowling as she did so. “Is this…?”

“The power enhancer that I’ve been working on,” Doctor Bogus told her. “Drink this and it will double the strength of your powers for up to an hour. If heroes…or villains attack, you’ll need the boost.”

“Understood,” Carrie responded, hoping that she didn’t need the devisor drug.

“Ironically,” Doctor Bogus mused, “this is the very reason that brat is here in the first place.”

“Your…human resources,” Carrie said, carefully keeping the disgust off her face.

“I need to test this on latent mutants,” Doctor Bogus. “On ones whose powers have not yet manifested.” His eyes narrowed a little and he added, “It was something not too dissimilar to this that broke my sister’s mind.”

Carrie gave him a flat look. “And you wanted to do the same thing to other people? To kids?”

Doctor Bogus simply turned and started to walk away, comment, “But I don’t know any of them, nor do I care about them. Scientific progress must continue. My uncle had that right at least.”

“So, his only mistake was using a family member?” Carrie asked with a deep scowl.

Doctor Bogus didn’t answer, not did he need to.

Carrie shook her head, then looked around, hoping she could find Karma soon. “If Bogus finds her before I do…” She shuddered at the thought, knowing that she couldn’t let that happen.

----------

Sunday morning, Dec 4th 2016

“Sneak, sneak, sneak,” Karma whispered as she crawled through the ventilation shaft.

It was one of the really large ventilation shafts, not one of the tiny ones that she couldn’t fit it. Still, it was small enough that most grown-ups would never be able fit inside it, which made it safer for her to sneak through. It still smelled funny because of that stinky gas that she’d set off in there earlier, but that was fine since it didn’t make her eyes itch anymore.

Karma looked down through one of the vents to watch the hallway below. Several of the green meanies were walking past, and they were cursing with naughty language that should get their mouths washed out with soap. She couldn’t help but giggling at that, wondering if she could tell their moms on them.

She reached into her bag of tricks and pulled out the small container that held the tiny bit of itching powder she had left. She looked down through the vent, knowing that she’d have to time it right before she dropped it on them.

Just then, Karma heard Carrie’s voice. “Doctor Bogus wants us to be ready for unwanted visitors.”

“Is he expecting trouble, Windshear?” one of the green meanies asked.

“He kidnapped trouble and brought it into his home,” Carrie responded flatly. “The only question is when the other shoe is going to drop.”

Carrie suddenly froze and looked up, straight at Karma. Her eyes narrowed, though she quickly looked back down at the green meanies.

“I’m sure that wherever Karma is hiding,” Carrie said carefully, “she’s going to stay there and not get into any more trouble until her parents can come pick her up.”

“Is that likely?” one of the green meanies asked.

Carrie snorted. “I can always hope.”

With that, Carrie glared up at the air vent one more time before she left with the green meanies. Karma waited where she was, not moving and barely even daring to breath. Once she was sure that they were gone, she continued moving through the vent.

Karma made her way to one of the storage rooms that she’d found and carefully climbed out of the ventilation ducts, being careful not to make any noise. Mama had always told her that the best way to get caught while going through air ducts was to make too much noise in them.

A second later, Karma suddenly felt a hand close around her shoulder as someone exclaimed, “Gotcha.”

“EEEP,” Karma exclaimed and struggled to get away, only to get yanked back. She snapped around and saw that the person who’d grabbed hold of her was Oscar, the same grouch who’d been watching over her in that truck. “LET. ME. GO.”

“I came in here to grab a spare uniform,” Oscar said with a satisfied smirk, “and I catch me a brat instead.”

“Let me go,” Karma demanded again, kicking the green meanie in the shin.

“I don’t think so,” Oscar told her. “Now, come along. You’ve got an appointment with the doctor.”

“No way,” Karma protested. “I eat an apple every day so I can keep the doctors away…”

Oscar ignored her, though he didn’t remove his hand from her upper arm. “Come on, kid…”

Karma continued to struggle, loudly calling out, “HELP. HELP. I’m being oppressed.”

Her yelling drew attention, but not from anyone she wanted to see. Seconds later, two more of the green meanies showed up and had her completely surrounded. At this point, Karma realized that she couldn’t just slip away from Oscar anymore.

Oscar led Karma down the hallway, not letting go of her arm the entire time. The two other green meanies remained close, making sure that she didn’t have any chances to get away.

Karma could hear music playing ahead of them, which told her exactly where they were going. She was quickly proven right when they stepped into the big room with a piano in the middle of it. Doctor Bogus was at the piano, playing.

“Doctor,” Oscar called out. “We caught the kid.”

Doctor Bogus immediately stood up and looked Karma over, scowling deeply. “You’re so small for causing such trouble.”

“And you’re too old to be such a meanie,” Karma protested.

“Old?” Doctor Bogus asked in surprise. “I’m only thirty-eight.”

“REALLY old,” Karma insisted firmly.

“She had this with her,” Oscar said, holding up her duffel bag and then emptying the contents out onto the floor.

Karma watched as the granola bars, bags of chips and bottles of water fell onto the floor, along with the lighter and nearly empty bottle of cooking oil. And then, there was the gas mask and the neat floaty belt that she’d found earlier.

“An anti-gravity belt,” Oscar said. “Probably swiped it from the armory.”

“The kid has sticky fingers,” one of the other green meanies said.

“I washed my hands,” Karma protested defiantly.

Doctor Bogus came over and glared down at Karma with a menacing scowl. “You have cost me far too much, girl,” he stated dramatically. “You’ll pay for it with interest.”

Karma glared back up at him, already reaching into her bag of tricks, which Oscar had completely overlooked. When Doctor Bogus reached out to grab her, she pulled out a foot long metal wand and smacked his hand. There was a burst of sparks and the doctor leaped back with a yelp of pain.

“A stun gun?” Doctor Bogus exclaimed.

“Looks more like a mini cattle prod,” Oscar offered.

The villain leapt at her with a look of anger, so Karma ducked down, snatched up the floaty belt from the floor, and ran. Green meanies started coming after her, making it hard to reach the door.

“Oh no,” Karma exclaimed, climbing on top of the piano and then frantically waving her zappy wand around to warn them all to stay back. “I’ve got a zappy wand and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Karma looked around in worry, seeing that she was completely surrounded on all sides. She couldn’t get past them very easily. Then, she pushed the power button on the floaty belt, thinking that maybe she could fly over the green meanies. However, a moment later, one of them tried grabbing her and she had to jump back, dropping the belt onto the piano.

Suddenly, the whole piano began to lift up off the ground while Karma was still standing on top of it. She gasped as she floated up above the green meanies. Her eyes went to the ceiling, which had seemed REALLY high up a few seconds ago, but which was now getting a lot closer.

“KARMA!” Carrie yelled from one of the doors.

Karma looked down at her old babysitter and grinned, suddenly knowing exactly how she was going to get down. She was going to get down the same way that she’d gotten off the roof of her apartment building that one time.

“GERONIMO,” Karma exclaimed as she took a running leap off the piano. “Wheeee.”

The wind beneath Karma suddenly began swirling around, slowing her fall until she landed on the ground as easily as if she’d hopped off the foot stool. She knew that Carrie would catch her, just like she had before. And best of all, she’d landed right on the other side of the green meanies.

“Exit,” Karma exclaimed triumphantly. “Stage left.”

Karma ran for one of the doors while Carrie called out, “STOP!” She giggled, knowing that Carrie wasn’t really trying to stop her. If she had been, Karma would have been blown over by a blast of wind, or she would have run into a wall of air.

Seconds later, Karma was running through the hallway with green meanies chasing after her. She desperately looked around for a place to hide, knowing that all the good ones would take too long to get into with those guys so close.

When one of the green meanies grabbed her, Karma slapped him with her zappy wind. There was a burst of sparks as the wand exploded in her hand and the green meanie screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Karma scrambled back, only to watch as two of the other green meanies who’d been chasing her tripped over their friend.

More green meanies appeared, emerging from an intersection. Karma squealed in surprise, then began running again.

“I wish I still had that oil,” she complained.

Karma frantically reached into her bag of tricks, but it was nearly empty now. All that was left were her lockpicks and… With a grin, she threw a stink bomb right at a group of green meanies.

“Neener, neener, neener,” she called out while they all stopped and began to cough and gag.

One of the green meanies avoided the cloud of stink and continued coming at her. However, just as he was about to reach her, he slipped and fell flat onto his face.

Karma blew a raspberry at the man, then ran off with a giggle. Now, maybe she could get back to one of her hiding places. However, that hope was quickly dashed as more green meanies blocked her path, forcing her to change direction and run down another hallway.

A minute later, Karma emerged back into the big room where she’d ridden the piano. Doctor Bogus and Carrie were both still there, along with a couple of green meanies.

“Uh on,” Karma groaned, realizing that she’d made a mistake. “I must have took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”

“Karma,” Carrie started to say, only to pause and look around. Her eyes went to the corner of the room and she gulped before turning her attention back to Doctor Bogus. “Doctor…”

“I have had enough of this brat,” Doctor Bogus snarled.

“DOCTOR,” Carrie snapped, getting his attention. “You know that our contract means that I can’t act against you. With that in mind, you NEED to stop this NOW. Forget about her. Go on vacation to Karedonia and forget any of this ever happened.”

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Doctor Bogus snarled furiously. “ARE YOU BETRAYING ME?”

“I can’t,” Carrie started to argue.

“Enough of this,” Doctor Bogus snarled, suddenly reaching for the ray gun that was holstered on his belt.

Carrie started to get between him and Karma, but her feet seemed to freeze in place. A look of panic passed over her face.

“You JERK!” Karma exclaimed, glaring defiantly at the villain.

Doctor Bogus drew the gun, but before he could even point it at Karma, a piano suddenly dropped from the ceiling and crashed down on his head. In an instant, he was completely smashed into the ground with the shattered ruins of the piano exploding outward from the impact.

“That’s one way to bring the house down,” a familiar voice said.

Karma snapped around, her eyes going wide and a grin spreading across her face. “MAMA!”

Her mama stood there, right where Carrie had been looking a minute earlier. Mama had a couple of her throwing spikes in her hands, looking like she had just been about to throw them. Then, Mama grinned at her and lowered the weapons.

“Hey, baby,” Mama said with a grin, right before Karma ran straight for her and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. “Did you enjoy your sleepover with Carrie?”

“It was a lot of fun,” Karma admitted with a grin. “I got to play hide and seek, and prank those green meanies, and stay up as late as I wanted…”

“That does sound like fun,” Mama agreed.

Then her Mama turned and looked at Doctor Bogus, or what was left of him. He was groaning and twitching, proving that he was still alive, though he was not in good shape.

“Instant pancake,” she mused as she hugged Karma back. “Well, he was only a second away from being Swiss cheese.” Then she chuckled. “A falling piano. Classic.”

“How… How long have you been here?” Carrie asked.

Mama didn’t answer. Instead, she looked around at the green meanies who were still standing around watching. She raised a hand that still held one of her throwing spikes, and they each backed up. A few seconds later, each and every one of them turned and ran out of the room.

“Bye bye, Oscar,” Karma waved as he left.

Karma looked at the ruined piano, feeling a little bad. That had been a nice piano. However, she didn’t feel bad about Doctor Bogus at all. He’d been a total meanie.

Then, she moved closer, stepped around a large chunk of wood, and picked up the white floaty belt. “Ah,” she groaned in disappointment. “It broke…” She held the now ruined belt up to her Mama for inspection.

“That’s too bad,” her mama agreed. “It looked like it would have been fun to play with.”

“Those things don’t have great battery life,” Carrie offered, looking up at the ceiling and then down at Doctor Bogus and the piano. “you’re lucky the battery ran out when it did. And that Doctor Bugus happened to be standing underneath it.”

Karma pushed the button on the side and a couple sparks came from a crack in the side. She pushed it again but nothing happened.

“I still work for Doctor Bogus,” Carrie said as she stepped between Mama and the doctor. “I need to get him to a hospital immediately.” She stared at Mama as if daring her to interfere.

“I understand completely,” Mama told Carrie. “I’ll deposit your babysitting fee in your usual account.”

“Thank you,” Carrie responded with a sigh. “It’s not like you gave me any choice.”

Mama just smiled at that and took Karma’s hand, then began leading them towards the exit.

“I can’t wait to tell Missy about this,” Karma exclaimed. “And maybe Daddy…”

“Um…let’s not tell Daddy everything,” Mama told her. “You know that he doesn’t need to know all the little details.” Then she chuckled to herself and muttered, “A piano. Classic.”

----------

The Village, Wednesday evening, Dec 7th 2016

The Imp stood outside, staring up at the stars. Her husband Ryan stood by her side, leaning on his cane.

“You just don’t get a view like that in Manhattan,” she admitted.

“No, you don’t,” Ryan agreed.

After another minute, she looked at her husband and smiled. “Well, we’d better get back inside. We’ve left Karma alone for ten minutes, so there’s no telling what she’s gotten up to.”

Ryan laughed at that. “She’s probably still playing with that devisor belt she found.” He shook his head. “I am a little concerned about letting her play with a devise like that, even a broken one.”

“I already had it looked at,” Imp assured him. “It is completely and totally busted. Now, it’s just a fancy looking paper weight.”

The two of them went into their apartment and abruptly stopped in the doorway. The first thing that the Imp noticed were the footprints going up the wall. Those weren’t hers. For one thing, she was careful not to leave footprints on her own walls, and for another, they were far too small.

Then, her eyes followed the footsteps up to where Karma was sitting upside down on the ceiling. The ‘floaty belt’ that she’d kept as a souvenir from her little adventure was wrapped around her waist.

Imp and Ryan stared at their daughter for a moment, then they looked at each other and simultaneously exclaimed, “She’s YOUR daughter.”

----------

Whateley Academy, Friday afternoon, Dec 9th 2016

Karma stepped into the waiting room, sucking on the lollypop that the doctor had given her for being such a good patient during those tests. Some of the tests had been kind of fun and exciting, but other ones…

She looked up at the two doctors who were still with her. She didn’t remember their names, but one had a big bushy mustache and the other one had thick glasses, so she just thought of them as Mustache and Glasses.

Mustache currently had a bloody nose, the start of a black eye, and char marks all over his lab coat. Even part of his mustache had been a little burned, and it smelled absolutely horrible.

Mama and her daddy were in the waiting room, and they both stood up as soon as Karma and the doctors had emerged from the back rooms. They both looked at her, and then at the doctors.

“We’ve completed Karma’s power testing,” Glasses said, looking a little nervous. He glanced at Mustache. “She has definitely manifested, and we can confirm her powers.”

“Let me guess,” Mama said with a wry smile and a swish of her tail. “Devisor?”

“She did repair that anti-gravity belt,” Daddy said with a nod.

“Devisor two,” Glasses said. “She couldn’t make any devises of her own, but she’s able use and modify other people’s devises.”

“And repair them,” Mustache said. “But she is still young, so that may change over time.”

“And…,” Glasses said, glancing to Mustache and then giving Karma a nervous look.

“And?” Mama asked with a raised eyebrow.

“And she’s a mangler,” Glasses blurted out.

Daddy stared at Karma and gulped. “Mangler?”

“Mangler three,” Mustache said with a deep scowl. “Defensive.”

Mama gave Karma a curious look. “What do you mean by defensive?”

Glasses and Mustache looked at each other for several seconds before Glasses explained, “It only seems to kick in defensively. When someone is trying to hurt her.”

“The more aggressive the attempt,” Mustache said with a grimace, “the worse their luck becomes.”

Mama stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Interesting. And your…condition?”

“Testing for danger sense and regeneration,” Glasses quickly explained. “And trying to narrow down her power.”

“Defensive mangler,” Mama mused. “That would explain the piano.”

“Piano?” Daddy asked with a suspicious look. “What piano?”

“WAIT,” Mama suddenly exclaimed, her eyes going wide with excitement. “She can used other people’s devises…and she gives her enemies bad luck?”

Glasses nodded. “That is accurate.”

“She has the combined powers of BOTH coyote and roadrunner,” Mama said with a broad grin. She grabbed Karma in a firm hug and exclaimed, “I’ve never been prouder.”

“I’ve never been more scared,” Daddy muttered.

Glasses and Mustache shared a worried look, then Glasses nervously adjusted his glasses. “I’d better tell the headmaster so he can warn the staff.”

The End