He opened the door quickly, moving across the room. He didn't even glance at his life-sized statue of Bill Eager as he flopped onto his chair and promptly put his head into his hands. Katon was clearly not happy.

"Em," he said, after a while; his voice was muffled. "Em, I think I've done something stupid."

The large parrot, perched behind him like always, cocked her head.

"Em, the buddies are all going to hate me now because I overreacted. They're all going to think I'm a jerk."

The parrot fluttered her wings and landed on Katon's desk. She was a scarlet macaw, and a beautiful one at that.

"Em, it was one of the new girls, Wilhelmina... she fell into a trance. I remembered what Matcab said; he was at her tryout and he said he hadn't seen as much raw potential from someone in a long time. I... I freaked out a bit."

Em looked at Katon, as worried as a parrot could show. "Katon, I-" she started, in a voice that was hauntingly human.

"Em, do you know what they're doing? Matcab told me earlier... they're going to send two of the buddies after him. It's suicide; there's no way they can get it back. Matcab doesn't want them to go, but he does think Wilhelmina could do it if she was trained a bit, but blackleader and Oz are afraid of what he could do if he had enough listeners and-"

"Katon-"

"They're all going to blame me for this but I'm not really a mean guy and-"

"Katon!"

"Ow, what!" Katon sat up straight, clutching his newly-bitten finger.

"Katon, stop blaming yourself. What happened to me wasn't your fault."

"But it _was_ my fault, Em, if I just concentrated a bit-"

"Katon. Nothing was known about trances at the time; Even if there was, neither of us could've done anything. Besides," she said, flying onto the back edge of his chair, "I rather like it as a parrot. I don't mind staying like this for a while longer."

Katon looked up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact with the bird at his side. "I know, Magic Cake Woman, but I can't help it... I mean, I definitely overreacted; even if she did end up doing something, she couldn't hurt us because of the-"

"Katon, no matter what you did, it was the right thing; it probably taught her not to lose herself in her abilities."

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts, Katon. You haven't done anything wrong."

Katon sighed and changed the subject. "You know, Em, one of new buddies, Ranger, we think he's been hit with the same thing; he says he doesn't know why, but he's a hedgehog. You should talk to him."

"You know, I probably should." Magic Cake Woman the macaw nuzzled Katon's cheek.

Wilhelmina sat outside of a door labeled 'DJ Beta'. She did not know quite why he called Ranger and herself out of training if they were just going to sit here. Ranger looked quite uneasy; he stared at the ground, swinging legs that couldn't touch the ground. For an idle moment, she wondered how exactly Ranger had gotten here; though people who weren't human existed and she, like the rest of #radioPSI, knew that all people were humans to begin with, it had only just dawned on her that something must have caused him to turn into a three-foot tall blue hedgehog.

She was just about to say something when the door opened. Blackleader stood there. "Oh, good," he said, "come in."

She and Ranger sat in two chairs in front of Blackleader's desk; Blackleader gathered his thoughts. "Where do I start... oh yes. You four Buddies were not the only ones evaluated; there were two more as well. One, we believed, was a shoe-in into our ranks. His name was Captain Bozo. We had seen him before and he had excellent potential; we were very surprised when he applied to become a Buddy. However, when we returned to his home to evaluate him, he was gone, our headset missing with him. All evidence we could find is that he had taken a zeppelin north to our neighboring country of Gameware.

"Your mission is to return the headset to us at any cost. We have learned that Bozo is currently hiding out in the border town known as #ultrasecret. We are unsure as to what he intends to do with his headset; but as you must know by now, headsets can be used for great and terrible things. We cannot risk him attempting to do something horrible."

Wilhelmina glanced at Ranger; he seemed uneasy and she didn't quite understand why. After all, the DJs obviously thought they were able to do this mission.

Blackleader continued. "We would have let this slip, if he hadn't decided to flaunt his abilities to everyone."

Wilhelmina suddenly remembered last night, with the drum roll from the man behind her. That must've been this Captain Bozo... something seemed off with this memory and what Blackleader was telling her, but she could not place what.

Blackleader finished up. "Take it easy for the rest of today; I can't send you back to your lessons as I am sure by now that Katon has already wrapped them um. Tomorrow, at dawn, you will be leaving for #ultrasecret."

Wilhelmina nodded and stood up.

---

She was sitting next to Ranger, eating food in the cafeteria. Grand though it was, it was still a cafeteria in spirit. There was very little conversation between the two. The other Buddies and DJs were spread around the area, talking and laughing.

"Wil," Ranger said, in a low voice. Wilhelmina snapped to attention. "Wil, I don't think this... I don't want to go through with-"

He became silent suddenly. Wilhelmina looked behind her; there was a large parrot of some sort perched on the back of her chair. "Hello," it said. The voice was female and sounded exactly like that of a human's; it did not sound as if she were a parrot at all. "You must be Ranger," she continued. She sounded as if she would be smiling, if beaks had facial muscles.

"I am Ranger," the hedgehog replied, setting down his fork.

"I am Magic Cake Woman," the parrot said. "I've heard much about you from Katon."

Wilhelmina looked down at her plate. It was empty; she had no reason to stay. Politely, she stood up. "I'm going to leave you two to talk."

Ranger and Magic Cake Woman both glanced at her; Ranger nodded. Wilhelmina disposed of her plate and headed into the elevator, tapping the button for the fourty-seventh floor.

She had nothing to do and she might as well head to bed early; after all, tomorrow would likely be quite eventful. Once she headed into her room, she went about her nightly routine before finally laying down to sleep.

Just as she began to doze off, a voice echoed through her thoughts that woke her back up immediately.

"This is DJ Eggstreme and I welcome you to Ultrasecret Radio."