I met Mags a few years ago in Brooklyn, at a mall on Flatbush Avenue. I'd been working part-time as a security person while I paid my way through culinary-ninja school. She could fly, she could fight, and the Gaze of the Guilt was her special super-power. Mags could reduce a hardened criminal to a state of blubbering regret, and then destroy him without mercy.

On this sunny morning we sat in a diner near St. Mark's Place, on a street of squashed little shops stuffed with black leather clothing, in a neighborhood soaked with the smells of curry, fried rice, pizza, sushi, scrambled eggs, and coffee. Outside, tattooed terrestrials sucked on cigarettes, and searched for new shards of metal to stick through their latest skin-holes. Inside, Mags put down her tea and spoke.

She said, "Okay, here's the situation... There's a disgruntled butler named Jonathan who works for the Barrister of Incomparable Commerce. This butler got his job two years ago through my friend Jenna's employment agency. Jenna told me he's recently contacted her about getting a new job—there's something sinister going on in the Barrister's house, and he doesn't want to be involved. Apparently, the Barrister has teamed up with another rotten guy named the Dark Overlord of the Overgrown, and together they'll launch an evil plot to destroy our society."

I snarled. "Why are there so many rotten guys in this world?"

She smiled. "I don't know. A lot of you are just born that way."

Ha—true. And the rest of us learn it from the others.

I laughed. "What are they gonna do? When are they gonna strike?"

"I don't have too many details yet, and that's why I need you to go undercover at the Barrister's house and find out what's going on. You can go in as a cook. Jenna can set it up."

"Every time I work for Jenna I get fired."

"That's because every time you work for Jenna you do something stupid."

"Stupid? Was it stupid to put that dork's face through a fax machine?"

"Yes. That was stupid."

"Okay, well, was it stupid to shove that asshole's hand in the paper shredder?"

She stared at me. "Do I need to keep answering these questions?"

"Right—I see your point, and I'll take the job. By the way, Mags, you look really great this morning."

She looked away. "Thanks."

"Do you want to come back to my place?"

She frowned. "Ron, I'm thrilled about the way your oversized penis is easily engorged with blood, but right now we need to think about humanity."

"Humanity," I said with a sneer, "what has humanity done for me? Aside from providing all these people to hate?"

"Humanity has done a lot for you. Think about all the great Italian food. Think about polio vaccines and sewage treatment facilities."

I looked through the window at the city beyond. "Okay, count me in. You know I love eggplant parmigiana."

"Good. You can start in a few days."