A fist flailed from nowhere and smashed him high on the right cheek, hard enough to make an icy area of numbness for a moment and then--hell's own pain. From that moment his heart was in it. While the woman, shoved aside, lay on the ground panting, he waded into the man. After the first few blows it was no longer a fight but first-degree assault. He battered the man to the ground and stood over him grimly, his chest heaving. "You want any more?" he croaked. The man mumbled something. It could have been "no." He looked around for the woman; she was reeling down the street, one arm propping her against the wall. A couple came scurrying past, stared at her and gave her a wide berth. He hastened after her. "Can I help you?" he asked. She said sluggishly, "Went to see if my sister was--no. Jus' go away. Thanks, and everything. But leave me alone. Please." He backed off and watched her slowly make her way down the street. She turned a corner and he crossed the street to see. She painfully climbed the steps of a frame house with a porch, went inside and the great adventure was over. Except for the damnable aching of his cheekbone. In Hollywood, he thought sourly, it would have been just the beginning. The boy and the girl meet cute and you take it from there. In real life you save them from rape and they don't want to have anything to do with you. She was probably embarrassed, horribly so, and wanted no part of anybody who had seen her with her dress torn, about to be violated. As he walked he constructed a face-saving fantasy about another maiden who might be less preoccupied and more grateful, but it was uphill work. His cheek was very bad, and it occurred to him that it might be more than a bruise; people did get fractures there. Also he seemed to have broken a knuckle. The hero business didn't pay very well. He turned around and headed back for the school. Maybe he could find a doctor there to take a look at his face; he was by then almost sure he could feel bones grating when he worked his jaw. * * * * * It was a panel truck, like any other panel truck you might see except for the name on the side and the thirty-meter whip antenna sticking up from the roof. It parked out in front of the schoolhouse and Mickey Groff stepped outside to see what was going on. _Federal Broadcasting System Mobile Unit Four_, he read. One of the men in the front seat wore headphones, was talking into a hand microphone. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Hell of a fat audience they'll have to listen to them now, thought Groff. It didn't occur to him that all over the country listeners were staying up past their bedtimes for just such eyewitness, on-the-spot accounts as this. Chief Brayer came out and said, "You still here? Get some sleep."