“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” Jake Hedron demanded. “Why can’t you? You are the only Femme who can handle mass teleportation!”

“Not anymore,” Lisa said, almost whispering. “I have to rely on my own energy now. I’m no more able to do repetitive teleportation than any of the others. My body will starve just like theirs do!”

“Why?” Jake cried. “What happened? And why now? We need you more than ever to get the Phoenix loaded. You were fine a week ago when you created the San Luis Trench.”

“It’s gone! Okay?” Lisa yelled, tired of being interrogated. “I ran out of power! I used it all up!”

Jake sat down and slumped into his chair. “Alright, I see,” he sighed. “Sit down, Lisa. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Lisa perched on the edge of the leather-bound chair in front of Jake’s desk. Jake thought she looked like a frightened bird ready to take flight.

“Have you tried to get it back?” Jake asked. “Your power, I mean. Will it regenerate?”

“I don’t want it back,” Lisa said, her voice quiet, but firm. “It’s always been there, threatening to escape. Until it was gone, I didn’t realize how it affected me.”

“Alright,” Jake replied. “When did it happen?”

“About a month ago,” Lisa said, deciding not to lie to him.

“A month?” Jake asked, raising his eyebrows. “How did you create those trenches, then? And what did you use to power up the Phoenix?”

“All you have to do to create a nuclear energy source is teleport one solid object inside another. That’s how I… that’s how… ‘Beth’… destroyed Albuquerque. That’s how I made those trenches. I just took pieces of sandstone and teleported them underground. Big boom. That magical sphere of everlasting energy that powers my Mind Ship is just two rocks – one inside the other. Simple, huh?”

“Your ‘Mind Ship’?” Jake asked, picking out the other oddity in the turn of her words.

“Well, yeah,” Lisa said. “We created it using the nuclear power in my mind and just teleported the image from my mind into orbit. What would you call it?”

“That ship is made out of mental energy?” Jake asked, half-rising from his chair and reaching for the panic button. “It’s not real?”

“No, of course not! I mean – it’s real! It’s solid!” Lisa exclaimed, trying to keep up with his questions. “We used rocks and sand and stuff that we teleported off the desert floor. Then I just melted everything and we formed the molten mess into shape. Then we teleported it all back out as a single object. It took weeks. You must have noticed! I near starved to death, even with my nuclear power source!”

“I did notice. I was really awed,” the chairman replied, then changed the subject. “Why did you hide the fact that you were limited in the amount of energy available for other duties besides blowing things up?”

“I… um, I thought you might, uh, think less of me now, you know?” Lisa muttered, not looking at him. “My phoenix power is gone. I’m just a normal Femme now.”

“The Femme Fatales are a lot of things,” Jake replied, smiling at her, “but they are not normal.”

Lisa sighed, another lame argument turned to dust in her mouth.

“How do you propose to backup the others, now?” Jake asked.

“Isn’t Tabatha still the regular backup?” she asked. “I did the heavy moving…”

Jake looked at her, letting Lisa answer in her own time.

“I can still time-walk,” she said, finally. “Instead of protecting Tanya with my shield, I can always go back and teleport her out of danger when she gets killed.”

“That’s another thing,” Jake said. “You do good work in bringing everyone back alive, but why do you always let Tanya get butchered before you rescue her? Don’t you like her?”

“Yeah! I love her!” Lisa exclaimed. “That’s why I always let her die. She likes being killed! Then, afterwards, I, um… Should I be telling you this?”

“Yes, most definitely!” Jake informed her.

“Well, I give her the images of her being killed, along with her thoughts and the emotions she radiated at that time. Then she goes home and, um… Well, she uses it for, uh, erotic stimulation.”

“God!” Jake laughed. “I knew it!”

“Tabatha does it, too,” Lisa suggested, not sure how her boss would take her accusing his wife of weird sexual practices.

“I know,” he replied. “She’s told me. All you Femmes seem to have a morbid death wish. I’m surprised we haven’t lost the lot of you.”

“You won’t lose anyone if I can help it,” Lisa assured him. “Am I still on duty?”

“Yes, of course you are,” Jake assured her. “Who else is there?”

Lisa left the Chairman’s office and sought out her mother. Béla didn’t seemed surprised when Lisa popped in beside her.

“Hi, sweetie, ready to go?” Béla asked her.

They were going to pull a raid on the three Confederate armies that were closing in around them – not to kill or disable anyone – but for their supplies. An army travels on its stomach. No food, no army.

“Not really,” Lisa said, and sat down, looking depressed.

Image of Lisa releasing her pent-up nuclear energy into the sky, freeing her mind once and for all from the terrible power struggle she’d fought inside herself for as long as she’d been Lisa, which was about forty-five years.

‘Wow!’ Béla thought back at her.