"That's her."

"Who, the one with the glasses?"

"Yeah."

"…are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Yes. Jenna, go over there."

With an overly dramatic sigh, Jenna St. Johns flipped her fiery red hair over her shoulder and got to her feet. She pushed her huge black sunglasses up onto her head and scowled at the blonde who was still sitting at the edge of the swimming pool. "She sure doesn't look like it to me, but if you say she's the one…"

"I do. Get going before she leaves."

The girl in question was a small, somewhat mousy looking brunette named Michael Madison. She was sitting alone at a small table by the pool, minding her own business, when her view of the water was suddenly blocked by a busty and unbelievably attractive redhead. Michael stared dumbly at her, wondering what on earth this girl could want as she stood there with a bit of a forced smile on her face.

"Hi," Jenna finally said. "Is this seat taken?"

Michael gulped. "Uh, no. No, you can… you can have it."

With an airy laugh, Jenna took the invitation she had forced upon the stranger and sat down, tossing her long, gently curled hair behind her shoulders as she did so. Her dark blue eyes lit up with delight as she noticed the cup of ice cream sitting on the table in front of Michael. "Ahh, that looks refreshing. Not a cone person, huh?"

"N-no, not really," Michael answered, starting to get paranoid. What was this really hot girl doing here talking to her? Was this some kind of dare, or joke?

"Mm, no, and you don't like toppings, either, huh? You don't like nuts?"

"No."

Jenna smiled, showing off two rows of perfect teeth. It was a knowing smile, making Michael even more uncomfortable than she would have imagined possible, like the girl was looking straight into her soul. "My name is Jenna, by the way. Jenna St. Johns." She stuck out a carefully manicured hand.

"Michael Madison," came the quiet reply.

At hearing this, Jenna's eyes widened again, this time joined in surprise by her gaping mouth. "The Michael Madison?! You don't say! I've heard a lot about you."

Now this was downright alarming. "You have?"

"Yes! Yes, um, you live next-door to the father of a friend of mine, and he—her father, I mean—finds your family absolutely fascinating. Says you've got quite the arsenal in your garage, is that right?"

Slightly more relaxed, Michael finally smiled a bit. "Yes, well, I mean my dad's really into hunting."

"So you must have an appreciation for guns, am I right?" Jenna asked, stretching and flexing her arms behind her head.

Michael's smile faded as she clenched her teeth shut to keep in any drool. "Yeah, you could say that."

Jenna glanced at someone standing a few feet behind Michael. "Perfect."

Michael couldn't exactly remember what happened next, and with good reason: she had been unconscious. As soon as Jenna had purred the word "perfect," the girl behind the young innocent had come up and, under the guise of putting her arm on Michael's shoulder in a familiar manner, actually tweaked a muscle in the girl's neck that rendered her immediately unconscious. Laughing something like "I can't believe she was drunk enough to pass out this early in the day!", Jenna helped the knocker-outer to carry Michael over to the parking lot, where the blonde who had first instructed Jenna stood waiting by a silver mini-van.

"Dylan, you want to give us a hand here?" Jenna panted.

"No," Dylan replied coolly, arms folded as she watched Jenna and their friend straggling along with Michael between them. "I got the door open for you, and that's about all I'm doing." She almost laughed at the sight. "Geez, Taylor, you went and turned her into a total deadweight."

Taylor blew some hair out of her face as she and Jenna finally succeeded in getting Michael into the minivan. "Well, yeah. That's usually what happens when you zap someone of her consciousness." She clambered up into the van next to Michael's comatose body while Jenna got into the front next to Dylan. As they pulled out of the pool parking lot, Taylor got a better look at their victim. "Wow, she looks like a kid. Are you sure she's the right one?"

"Yes," Dylan replied gruffly. "But we'll find out for sure back at the lab if you two still have your doubts."

Taylor moved to put a seatbelt on Michael, then grinned to herself and thought better of it. When Dylan made a particularly sharp turn, Michael fell right into Taylor's lap. "Ooh, look at that! She just couldn't keep herself off me, could she? Shoot, you guys. This girl is a little cutie."

"Hey," Jenna said, turning around in her seat to stare down Taylor. "No fair. I have dibs. I saw her first."

"No, I saw her first," Dylan said. "So I have dibs."

Jenna and Taylor raised their eyebrows. "Ha, ha!" laughed Taylor. "And here I was thinking you didn't even like girls. She's your type, huh?"

"Let me finish. I have dibs, which means neither of you do. I saw her first and I know she's right for the group. Jenna, I don't care if you're the ringleader of this gang. You shouldn't take advantage of that by hitting on every new recruit we get."

That quieted the lot of them until they reached the lab, a.k.a. Taylor's basement. This time, Dylan jumped out of the driver's seat and took hold of Michael herself, carrying her like a fireman down the steps towards the basement of Taylor's parents' house. Her two cohorts followed in an embarrassed silence, still marveling at how someone as normal looking as Dylan could be so freakishly strong. She set Michael down in a large purple chair, then carefully went about tying some straps around her wrists and ankles. One nod at Taylor later and Michael started to wake up. Jenna hit a switch that plunged the room into darkness, save for one spotlight that fell upon Michael and Dylan.

"She's coming to," Dylan muttered, shaking off her jacket. This left her in a bright red T-shirt, black cut-off gloves, a red baseball cap, and rolled-up jeans.

Michael's light blue eyes blinked slowly open, and she jumped, startled. Then she realized she was strapped to a chair in a dark room, where the only thing she could see was a smirking blonde girl in front of her. "You!" she gasped. And one got the impression that if her wrists hadn't been tied down, she would've slapped a hand to her mouth in horror.

Raising her eyebrows, Dylan gently asked, "Do you know who I am?"

"I…no, no I don't."

Dylan hunched down into a squatting position so that Michael was looking down at her. "Don't be scared. We aren't going to hurt you."

"Then why've you tied me to this chair?"

"So you won't run away when we ask you some things."

"What things?"

With a small sigh, Dylan tipped up the visor of her hat. "True or false: your name is Michael Madison, daughter of Randy and Christine Madison? Just say yes or no."

"Y-yes."

"Your family has just moved to this town, maybe two months ago, on account of your father's business, and he also happens to own more weapons than anyone else in the town combined. Does this sound like a fair assessment?"

"Um, probably. I mean, yes."

"You turned eighteen in August, and you'll be starting your senior year of high school at Linden High next week, where your best subjects will probably be history and maybe art. Or shop, if you decide to take it."

"Yeah..."

"All right. Now lastly… yes or no: you're a lesbian."

Michael snapped suddenly to a new attention. "No!"

"Don't play games with me, Michael."

"I'm—I'm not!" Even as she was fiercely denying it, Michael couldn't help but wonder why this question was what had gotten her most riled up. How did this girl know so much about her? Where were they, and what was going to happen? Would she ever be free from this chair? And yet none of that had seemed to concern her as much as the fact that this complete stranger had nailed her fear…

Dylan sighed again and stood up. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way, Ms. Madison. You can own up to your sexuality, or we can find several ways of tempting you into the giving us the answer we know is true."

"W-we?"

Suddenly, Taylor and Jenna walked into the small spotlight of visibility and Dylan walked calmly behind them, retreating into the darkness. Michael sat there in pure shock as Taylor (whose short hair initially caused Michael to mistake her for a boy) started grinding Jenna, who was still in a two-piece bathing suit. Roving her hands down Jenna's mostly-nude body, Taylor kissed her neck as the redhead reached up tugged at her short brown hair.

"Be honest," Jenna murmured. "How much is this turning you on?"

Michael just gaped at them speechlessly, and felt a small tremor of relief when Dylan came between them, muttering "for Pete's sakes, calm down, Jenna." But the relief quickly departed when Michael realized that the blonde was holding some kind of gun and was now aiming it directly at her forehead.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt," Dylan said very matter-of-factly.

"Not physically, anyway," Taylor chuckled.

A blue beam shot straight at Michael's head, and she winced, but it was true that she felt nothing. The three girls gathered around the gun and seemed to be studying a small screen that was attached to the top. In unison they looked back at Michael; Jenna and Taylor were grinning from ear to ear while Dylan seemed completely unmoved. "Told you," was all she said.

Noting Michael's wildly confused expression, Taylor waved the weapon and said, "Gaydar gun. Saves us a lot of time when it comes to getting people to fess up."

"Who are you people?!" Michael gasped.

"Just a moment," Jenna whispered as Dylan moved to untie their hostage. She stood directly over Michael, hands on either arm of the chair, simply leering at the girl. "As I told you, my name is Jenna St. Johns. I'm the ringleader of this little gang. We don't really have a name, per se…"

"We're kind of like the poor man's Charlie's Angels," Taylor joked.

Jenna nodded. "We go around righting wrongs, restoring justice, and helping the underdog. As a unit we've never committed a crime or done anything illegal."

"Right. Unless you count speeding," Taylor cut in.

"Okay, well yeah, we might, you know, do things here and there, but …the point is, we don't live in a black and white world. Sometimes the ends justifies the means. This is a super-exclusive group, and we always do extensive back-up checks on members before inviting them to join up. Or Dylan does, anyway. We need a weapons expert, and all signs point to that person being you. There aren't really any qualifications besides you being extremely knowledgeable in the field we chose you for." Jenna laughed quietly. "As for personal preferences, we just like to choose lesbians in particular. It's sort of a tradition in our weird little family."

"But I'm not a—a lesbian, I'm not," Michael insisted.

Dylan shoved Jenna out of the way and looked calmly into Michael's frightened eyes. "I'm sorry if we snatched you right out of the closet. No one's going to make you say or do anything about your orientation." She absent-mindedly pushed some strands of hair away from Michael's forehead, failing to notice that her mere touch seemed liable to cause their captive to faint. "It's not anyone's place to take that choice away from you." Sounding a bit exasperated, she went on: "Clearly this is a big deal for you, because you've barely commented on the fact that we kidnapped you, tied you up, and have asked you to join our elite crime-fighting unit. But this continues to send you into a frenzy."

There was something odd about Dylan. Though she didn't smile or speak in a solicitous tone, she had a comforting quality that soothed Michael as if by magic. Her breathing had come down to a regular state from its hyperventilating nervousness, and she was looking at Dylan as if she were an old friend.

Still with a stoic expression in place, Dylan went on: "It's okay. But should you decide to be associated with us, anyone who knows about us will assume that you are a lesbian. Granted, that's a relatively small part of the population. Very few people are actually aware of our existence, however. Definitely none of the kids at your high school. Lastly, this is a—"

"Dylan," Jenna said crossly, her arms folded. Michael frowned when Dylan averted her eyes and stepped out of the way. Jenna was definitely the one in charge here, which she re-emphasized by clearing her throat needlessly and picking up where Dylan had left off. "We won't try to paint a rosy picture. I'd never say our lives are really at stake, just our reputations. Well… okay, no, depending on who we go up against, our lives can be at stake. But listen up: this rag-tag group of lesbos has been around since the 1970s, and we haven't lost a single girl yet. Not one! In over forty years!"

To say that this was all incredibly overwhelming would be a huge understatement, but Michael was doing her best to digest everything. "So… so what exactly is it that you do, then?"

"We track down potentially dangerous people and take them out before they can do any real harm," Dylan replied promptly.

"When you say 'take them out,' do you mean…"

"We don't kill them if it can be avoided. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it can. But since we're such a secret organization, it's usually easier for us to find criminals than it is for police, who tend to be less subtle. So we basically send the baddies to jail, and everyone's happy."

"And…why do you we all have to be lesbians?" Michael asked.

"Like I said," Jenna laughed. "Just preference."

There was silence for almost a full minute until Dylan broke it by saying, "You don't have to decide right now. We'll let you sleep on it first. But we will need an answer by the weekend. If you say no, there'll be no hard feelings."

"Right. But if you do say no, and you tell anyone about us, we have ways of shutting you up," Taylor said, and Michael wasn't sure of the extent to which the girl was kidding around.

"I think she's got the point," Jenna said, brushing some of her bangs distractedly. "All right, Dylan, go ahead and take her home."

Dylan silently complied. She bent over to untie the straps that bound Michael's wrists, and as she did this, Michael became acutely aware of the fact that this was the closest anyone had ever gotten to her. As Dylan carefully undid the small ropes, Michael could just barely feel her breath getting exhaled onto her arm. A thousand dirty thoughts flew through her mind as Dylan hunched down to undo the ropes at Michael's ankles, her head positioned extremely closely to Michael's crotch area. But then she stood up and invited Michael to do the same.

"Oh," Dylan muttered. "Guess I probably should've introduced myself. My name's Dylan Packer." She did not extend a hand to shake, merely nodding at the tall black girl standing by Jenna. "And that's Taylor West."

Michael dimly registered this, but was mostly thinking about how surprised she was that Dylan wasn't taller. They were about the same height, but something about her commanding presence had made Michael think she would be taller… anyway, she followed Dylan up a dark, narrow staircase and was nearly blinded by daylight when the small door opened leading them back outside. They got into gorgeous red Camaro, and as soon as Michael shut the door, Dylan held out a blindfold to her.

"Just a formality, if you please."

Michael took it and put it on, not taking it off until Dylan gave her the go-ahead about five minutes later. She was still unfamiliar enough with the town to have no idea where they were, and it had just struck her that she wouldn't know how to tell Dylan to get to her house.

As if reading her thoughts, Dylan said, "Don't worry. You're my dad's next-door-neighbor, so I know where I'm going." There followed a long silence, during which Michael stared bleakly out the window. This was a dream, it had to be. So just go along with it. Take advantage of the craziness when Dylan says, "If you have any questions, feel free to ask."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"Do you have a job? Besides, um…fighting crime…?"

"Usually. I float around a lot, depending on where I feel I need to be. Close to a case, I mean. Or a suspect."

"Right…" Michael wanted to ask more, but even though she still believed this had to be a dream, she was too shy to ask…. When did you know you were gay? Have you come out? Do you have a girlfriend? What about Jenna and Taylor? Did they kidnap you to ask you to join up with this group? Do you ever smile? If I don't want to join up with your unit, will I still be allowed to live next to your father? Did you go to college? Have you ever been shot at?

She was taken out of her reverie when the car stopped suddenly and Dylan said, "Well, here you are, kid."

"Thanks…uh, are you getting out?" she asked, looking at the house next door to hers.

Dylan followed her gaze. "No. I'll be around on Saturday, though, and finally introduce myself to your family. Hopefully you'll have an answer by then."

Michael slowly nodded and was about to open the door to get out when one more question occurred to her. "Okay, just one thing. Jenna said she's your, like, ringleader or whatever it is. So she's in charge, right? Shouldn't she be the one who checks up on stuff like this?"

That was the closest she'd get to seeing Dylan smile; the inquiry had put a small smirk on her face. "Look, the only reason I'm doing this is because Jenna's a slut and Taylor's not much better. They both think you're cute, and chances are that if either of them had been the one to drive you home, you'd have been hit on more than you can probably handle. And Jenna definitely would've tried assaulting you."

"You're…not joking, are you?"

"Nope. Just another thing to consider when you think about joining up. You've just got to stand your ground with Jenna, and she'll back off. Although to be honest, I'm pretty sure I'm the only PMCA—"

"What?"

"Poor Man's Charlie's Angel… I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's been in the group with Jenna who's never slept with her. And I guess I didn't use the right word before—she would never assault anyone, she's just rather forceful. Anyway, if that's it, you'd better go home and I'd better get back to Taylor's."

Nodding again to herself, Michael got out of the car and waved, but Dylan acted like she didn't see it and drove off. It was only then that Michael realized she was still in a bathing suit and a towel had been wrapped around her waist. The pool felt as if it had been weeks ago, not this morning. She walked up to her front porch and stood there for a minute, trying to collect herself before she went inside. She had no idea what time it was, how long she'd been gone; her parents might be worried. What would she tell them?

Hey, mom and dad! Yeah, been a long day. I was just minding my own business when this super hot… I mean, when this girl came up to me at the pool and then knocked me out and I woke up in her top-secret lab with two of her friends. They want me to join an elite crime-fighting unit comprised only of lesbians, so guess what? I'm a… yeah. Also two of them think I'm really cute… Michael put her hand on the doorknob and stared down the road where Dylan's car had disappeared. The third one, I don't know.