Raccowrimo

Blue Boxer and Knockout Mouse fumble through the dark, the only light
the dim yellow of Derek's electric torch. Neither knows what awaits
them in the eerie darkness ahead. For these two, and other faces both
familiar and new, the future holds both...

               "...PROMISE AND TERROR!"

   EIGHTFOLD PROUDLY PRESENTS
////////////// TOM RUSSELL'S
    ////  //////  /// //////  ////// /// //////   //
// ////  //  //  ///   //    ///    ///   //     //# 21
//////  //////  ///// //    ////// ///   //      // PT.1

Beginning of August, aught-eight. JCU, the Kistler building.
   Fay always likes the summer best, and will be sorry to see it go.
She said as much to Doctor Costello. That was, of course, before
Costello was arrested the January before last, and before Fay took
over the program last fall. A real teacher (Marita had said) lives for
teaching; the summer is the worst time.[1]
   But Fay knew then and knows now that she's not really a teacher.
She's a scientist. And the summer lets her work. The summer lets her
concentrate. She doesn't have to flirt with anybody, doesn't have to
smile all the time, doesn't have to turn on the energy. She doesn't
have to be Dr. Fay. She can just be a scientist, and work on inventing
the perpetual motion machine that will win her the Nobel Prize next
year.[2]
   Then comes the knock. Fay puts down the alien tech she was working
with and pushes her wheeled chair back from the workbench. Pivoting so
that her back is to the door, Dr. Fay kicks her feet at the floor,
whizzing across the tile. She unlocks the door and lets it crack open,
still seated.
   "Mr. Mason," says Dr. Fay. "You've still got the better part of a
month before you have to see my fabulous face again."
   "Well, about that," says Derek.
   Dr. Fay waves him in. He closes the door behind him. He looks
defeated. Not a good sign. Could be a four-colour thing, though; Blue
Boxer has had tough luck ever since he started.
   "I'm probably not going to be coming back next semester."
   "What's up?"
   "No offense, Dr. Fay, but I don't really want to get into all that."
   "Well, you're gonna get into it, buster," says Dr. Fay. "Now
spill."
   He bristles a little. Maybe he thought if he came in here and
looked gloomy enough that she'd break character. Not gonna happen.
   "I don't want to get into a whole sob story or anything. But I lost
my job back in June."
   She knew about that; Trini had been hired as his replacement.
   "Not that it was bringing a whole lot of money in. Mostly, I was
paying the mortgage because I had a couple of renters. But they left,
and it's been, it's been hard trying to find suitable replacements."
   She figures his renters must've been in on his secret identity.
   "And the long and short of it is, if I'm going to keep my house,
then I need to work full-time. If I can find anything. And I can't
really do night school. I have this. I have this thing. At night.
   "Anyway. I figured it was better to tell you now, so that you have
some time to fill my AATS slot."
   Fay gives him three sympathetic nods, followed by a vigorous shake
of her head. "Yeah, no, we're not going to do that. You're keeping
your AATS slot, and you're coming back to school in the fall."
   "I would love to," says Derek. "But it's just impossible."
   "No," says Dr. Fay. She grabs his wrist with her left hand while
her right reaches into her coat pocket, producing a metal cylinder
with a red button on one end. She presses it.
   The two of them fall to the ceiling. They lie there, side-by-side,
backs against acoustical tiling, staring at the floor. "This," says
Dr. Fay. "This is impossible. And I just did it. Boo-yah! Every day I
don't just believe but do as many as six impossible things before
breakfast. And I look good doing it.
   "And impossible things," she continues, "that's what you're
going
to be doing in my AATS class next semester. That's what you're going
to do for the rest of your life. So, here's the deal. I'm going to
give you a week."
   "A week?"
   "Don't interrupt, I'm trying to be inspirational before the gravity
wears off."
   They plummet to the ground; each lands on their feet.
   "Oh well," says Dr. Fay. "Yes, a week. You have one week to come
back and tell me how you're keeping your house and coming back to
school."
   "Well, a whole week, that should be a piece of cake," snides Derek.
"What impossible thing should I do with the rest of the time?"
   "Get a girlfriend," says Dr. Fay. "Or a boyfriend. Whichever.
That'd be the hard part for you, probably."
   "Gee, thanks," says Derek.
   "Well, we can't all be blessed with my winsome charms, hmm?" She
opens the door. "One week, Derek."
   He nods, sullenly. She lets the door close behind him. He didn't
look particularly inspired; she knows that her shtick starts to run
awfully thin once someone's grown accustomed to it. But she also knows
Derek Mason, and Blue Boxer, and she's smart enough to know where the
two overlap. Dollar to doughnuts, he's going to do it, and Dr. Fay had
something to do with that. Not really a teacher, sure, but she has her
moments.

Derek is more than a little furious. She "gives" him a week to find a
solution? That's all he's been trying to do for the last six weeks. He
hasn't found a solution because one doesn't exist. He didn't have to
tell her he was dropping out. He was doing it as a courtesy. He
thought he owed her that much. And she damn well owed him more than
we're-on-the-ceiling-you-can-do-it.
   Okay, calm down. Knockout Mouse is in town tonight, you want to
have a good time later, can't spend all day stewing and twisting about
this. It's not Dr. Fay's fault that she's Dr. Fay. And there's no way
she can understand the nature of his problem; it's not like she knows
that he's Blue Boxer, and that that's a full-time job in and of
itself.
   He tried to make it one, at that. Darkhorse (Brian) got a
government paycheck before he retired. Derek talked to him about it at
the party.
   "Wish I could tell you it was that easy," said Brian. "But they
only put heroes with powers on the payroll. And high-profile ones at
that."
   "Hey, I just helped to save the human race. For the second time."
   "I know," said Brian. "And you're going to keep on doing it. You
got great things ahead of you, kid. Sorry I gave you a hard time
before. Chin up."
   Chin up. It's going to work itself out. You can figure it out. But
what if he can't?
   He's tried everything. He even went back to Proctor, the only tech
company hiring now that Cradle is leaving Jolt City. Dr. Fay's letter
got him an interview, but since his last position with Proctor ended
with him throwing a pair of hedge-clippers at Cooper Dilge, it didn't
get him much farther than that. His criminal past makes it hard to get
interviews anywhere else.[3]
   He even went and saw Pam yesterday. The last time he was looking
for a job, Martin had asked her about Derek working for her.
   "The answer was no last year," she reminded him. "It's still no
now. I can't afford to keep someone on the payroll who has to
skedaddle at a moment's notice. Sorry, kid."
   "I figured," said Derek. He got up to leave.
   "How is he?" asked Pam.
   "He's Martin. The way he always is. A bit moodier since, uh, since you
left."
   "Since Dani left, you mean," said Pam.
   He didn't really have an answer for that. Even if he did, even if
he had something comforting to say, he wasn't in the mood to say it,
not after she shot him down again.[4]
   Of course he knows that she's right. In order to operate as Blue
Boxer, let alone go to school, he needs a job that gives him plenty of
free-time and would let him come-and-go as need-be. Such jobs that do
fit the description don't pay squat, don't pay enough to pay the
mortgage.
   That's the fact that keeps punching him in the face. He can't keep
the house and be the Boxer both. Martin warned him of that before. But
he wanted to prove Martin wrong. Martin couldn't have done it; Martin
had to squat in abandoned hideouts and church basements. But Martin's
way couldn't be the only way; there had to be a middleground between
heroes who were independently wealthy and heroes who were homeless.
Last year, Derek said he'd find that middle. A year later, it's
obvious he won't.
   He won't be homeless: probably Roy would let him stay. Not
something he's particularly looking forward to, but something he'll
have to do. He'll keep on being the Boxer, but he's going to lose his
father's house.
   Of course, there's nothing special about that. People all across
the city, all across the country, are losing their houses, their
fathers' houses, their livelihoods. Everything seems to be falling
apart. Another depression just around the corner. Lean times ahead, so
why should he be immune?
   Pretty soon he'll miss a payment on the mortgage, and then another,
and then they'll kick him out. They'll put a lockbox on the door and
the only people going in and out will be contractors and inspectors
protecting the bank's investment. Now that the housing bubble's
popped, the only industry that's going to be on the upswing is
property preservation.
   Derek stops. He stops moving, stops thinking, just plain stops. For
two seconds he doesn't do a thing. And then it all starts up again.
He's running home, his mind is racing forward, a thousand things at
once are coming together. Barely an hour after he left Dr. Fay, he has
the answer. She was right; this was the easy part. He's going to need
the rest of the week to find that girlfriend.

Derek spends the afternoon doing research and whipping up a proposal.
By the time Martin comes home, he's ready.
   "Martin, I have a brilliant idea."
   "Can it wait until tonight?" says Martin. "I have to go right back
out again."
   "I won't be here tonight," says Derek. "I'm going on patrol
with
Knockout Mouse."
   "Is that what you kids call it these days?"
   "She's just a friend," says Derek. He smirks. "Mostly."
   "Can your brilliant idea wait until tomorrow?" He looks at Derek;
the kid is beaming. "Okay, you got two minutes. Tell me your brilliant
idea."
   "We're going to start a business."
   "Oh, are we."
   "A contracting company. Mostly working for PNP companies to secure
and preserve foreclosed homes. A little bit of carpentry, little bit
of roofing, plumbing, yard work, cleaning mold, exterminating pests."
   "Do you know how to do any of that?"
   Derek chaffs a bit. "What I don't know, I can learn. We can learn."
   "Yeah, I'm not yet sold on this 'we' business."
   "I take it then that you have concrete and carefully-considered
plans for what you're going to do after the Green Knight retires?
Long-term planning of course being your forte."
   Now it's Martin's turn to chaff. "Go ahead."
   "These companies, they give you an assignment, and then you have a
few days to get it done in most cases. So we don't have to absolutely
be here at absolutely this time. We have some wiggle room for when
duty calls. Doing it on my own, being the Boxer and going to school,
even cutting my classes down, I wouldn't be able to handle the volume
necessary to pay all the bills.  But with two of us, we'd be able to
keep a roof over our heads and food on the table."
   The kid's lying; he could make it work on his own, even with
school. Derek's not asking him for help because he actually needs it.
He's doing it to try and help Martin.
   It takes him aback. It's true, he wasn't really sure what he was
going to do when he hangs up the Green Knight's mantle. Maybe live
with Roy. Maybe go wandering off, disappearing in the rain. He figured
that he'd leave Derek on his own; more than that, he figured that
Derek was eager to be left on his own. And maybe as far as the Boxer
is concerned, that's true. It never occurred to him that Derek would
spend more than a moment thinking about what Martin would do after.
It's a kindness he wasn't expecting, especially given how snarly he's
been since he lost his hand.
   "Okay," he says, "I'm in."
   "Yeah?"
   "Yeah," says Martin. "But we'll talk more about it later. I gotta
reservation at a restaurant."
   "Hot date?"
   Martin winces a bit, then recovers. "No. There's a guy that eats
there four times a week, I think he might be part of Vito's circle.
The Green Knight's had no luck finding Pocket Vito. I figure Martin
Rock might have a better chance."
   "Do you want me on-hand?" says Derek.
   "Nah," says Martin. "Not tonight, at any rate. Crowded restaurant,
respectable business, shouldn't be any fireworks to speak of."

Martin orders the cheapest thing on the menu with sun-dried tomatoes
in it. He's a sucker for sun-dried tomatoes. Then he asks his waitress
to send their cheapest bottle of wine to Frankie Salad.
   She hesitates. "I'm not sure if I know anyone by that name, sir."
   He points across the room with the only prime finger he has left.
"That's Frankie Salad."
   "Oh, Mr. Salvatore," she says. "I thought you said Salad."
   "I did," says Martin. "You bring him a bottle of wine, and tell him
it's from me, and that it's for Frankie Salad."
   "I. I don't think he'd like me calling him that, since his name is
Mr. Salvatore. His name isn't even Frank."
   "You won't get in any trouble," Martin says. "You're not the
one
calling him that. I am. When you give it to him, tell him it's from
me, point at me, and you tell him that no matter how many times you
told me otherwise, I insist on calling him Frankie Salad."
   He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a twenty dollar bill. If
this operation doesn't pan out, Derek's not going to be happy about
Martin dipping into the savings jar. "For your trouble."
   She takes a deep breath, nods, and heads back to the kitchen.
Martin keeps watch over the doorway. It's going to piss him off,
calling him Frankie Salad. The nickname started along with a rumor
that he was homosexual. He didn't so much deny the rumor as those who
spread it met with accidents. When Martin unsuccessfully tried to take
him down for those murders ten years ago, working as the mask with no
name, he found no evidence one way or the other about his sexual
preference. He found ample evidence however, not surprising for a
mafioso, that he was racist. Salvatore won't so much as talk to a
black man, let alone listen to one, unless he was good and pissed off.
The man has a temper, but knows better than to unleash it with an
audience. Martin knows what he's doing. He thinks.
   Now the waitress is talking to Salvatore, still a well-built and
hulking man; her body language is apologetic and defensive. Then,
suddenly, she points rather frantically at Martin. Martin waves, a
little cheeky.
   Salvatore gives a single wave back, his facial expression
unchanging. Abruptly, he stands up from his table. It takes the
waitress by surprise and she back-peddles as well as she can in heels.
Salvatore doesn't pay her any mind; he walks to Martin's table and
hovers over him.
   "Please, sit down," says Martin.
   "I prefer to stand. What's the idea?"
   "I got business to discuss."
   Salvatore affords himself what passes for a smile: it uses only
half his upper lip and appears to be a cause of great strain. "I ain't
never doing business with no mulignan, so we ain't got nothing to
discuss."
   "Vito might think otherwise."
   "Who, Vito Corleone? You watch too many movies when you should be
watching your mouth. My name is Antonio Salvatore. My friends call me
Tony. Strangers, Mr. Salvatore. You, you don't call me anything,
because you don't ever speak to me again, and you don't ever come in
here again, ever."
   "I'm talking about Vito," says Martin. "Y'know, the short
man."
   "I'm done here." He turns to walk away.
   "C'mon," says Martin, kicking the volume way up. "C'mon,
Frankie Salad!"
   Salvatore whirls around, grabbing Martin's collar with his enormous
fist. His eyes blazing, his mouth frothing: "Who do you think you
are?"
   "Martin Rock."
   It takes two seconds and some change for the rage and the blood to
drain completely from his face. Quivering, he releases Martin's shirt.
   "I want to see the short man," says Martin. "Tell him that for me."
   Salvatore nods and heads back to his table, his shoulders slumped.
   And that was another reason to get him good and angry. Anger clouds
logic. It makes someone more susceptible to sudden irrational fears,
and that let Martin capitalize more fully on the reputation he built
for himself in Earbox.[5]

The patrol has been uneventful. Bethany's glad for that. It's not
getting any easier for her, this four-colour stuff; every time she's
terrified. Terrified of punching someone too hard with her Singularity
Gauntlet, terrified of doing the wrong thing and someone getting hurt,
terrified of being so terrified she can't move or think. The others
don't have this problem. They're professionals. She's fooled people
into thinking she knows what she's doing, but one day they'll find out
the truth. Maybe that terrifies her most of all.
   At any rate, Blue Boxer is a bit upset that tonight's team-up was a
bust, but Bethany is relieved. Right now, they're taking a break,
enjoying some White Castles on a rooftop. Well, enjoying isn't the
word that Bethany would use.
   "You know," she says, "those are going to go right through you in an
hour."
   Blue Boxer turns towards her, nods, and grins. "Helps me maintain
my girlish figure."
   He's staring at her now. She wouldn't say that she's used to
getting stared at, but she knew it came with the territory. Slap on a
skintight union and you're inviting people to lech and gawk, and that
goes double when you saddle yourself with a moniker like Knockout
Mouse. And though Blue Boxer is certainly taking what he must think
are discreet glances at her goods, mostly he's just staring at her
face.  They all stare at her face now. Trying to catch a glimpse of
the ugly dead patch on her left cheek where the Fiddleback touched
her.[6]
   It mostly stays hidden behind her new hairstyle (unfortunately
having half her face covered in hair seriously diminishes her depth
perception) but they still look for it, they still stare. He still
stares.
   "I wish you wouldn't stare at my face," she says.
   "Pardon?"
   She must've been talking too low again.  It flusters her, and her
voice quavers, but it's still loud enough this time. "I wish you
wouldn't stare at my face."
   "It's a nice face," says the Boxer. "It's gorgeous."
   Bethany hates that word. It just makes her think of her cheek.
"Maybe," she begins a little spitefully, "maybe in profile."
   He scoots closer to her. With his gloved hand, he reaches for the
big swoop of hair hanging over her face. She bats his hand aside. He
reaches again, tucking the long silky black threads behind her ear. He
looks at her face: at her lush mouth, at her cheeks both scarred and
smoothed, at the dark purple velvet of her domino, and at last into
her eyes. He doesn't speak; everything that he needs to say is in his
glance.
   She breaks the silence with a smile. "You're going to try to kiss
me again, aren't you?"
   "Like the little green man said, do or do not." He does.
   An explosion!!!
   "That happened last time, too," says Blue Boxer.
   "Maybe you shouldn't kiss me a third time."
   "Your loss." Big grin. "C'mon, let's go check it out."
   They hurry down the fire escape. Two electric unicycles wait for
them in the alley below. Bethany had been hesitant earlier in the
evening when Blue Boxer told her she'd be borrowing the Green Knight's
unicycle.
   "Are you sure he's okay with me using it?" she had said.
   "He doesn't use it much anymore," said Blue Boxer. "Didn't use
it
that much in the first place. And since you said on the phone you
haven't been able to teleport since the Fiddleback..."
   "No, no, you're right, it makes sense." Bethany said it quickly and
quietly, ending any discussion of her "powers" before it started.
   It must be on his mind though, because now, as they climb on the
electric unicycles again and speed towards the direction of the
explosion, Blue Boxer says, "About your teleporting?"
   "Hmm?"
   "Have you had someone look into it?"
   "Um, not really. I mean, I'm working on it myself." That's mostly
true. Bethany is the only person who knows the Wrinkle Belt exists,
and the only one who understands how it works. But she destroyed its
power-cell when she pushed the belt past its limits, and the substance
was not from Earth. Various substitutes have been for naught. It's a
lost cause.
   "Well, maybe you should ask your FCL to hook you up with some
assistance," offers Blue Boxer.
   That's the last thing she should do. If she admits to the FCL that
her powers were based on alien tech, both the belt and the Singularity
Gauntlet would be confiscated under Fitzwalter. "Yeah, maybe."
   There must be an edge in her voice, because he gets defensive. "I'm
not trying to tell you what to do. I just, well, your powers come
from..." He tiptoes. "From your genetic code being altered, right?"
   "From when I was experimented on," she lies.
   "So there could be something going on. With your DNA. With your health."
   He's concerned. Maybe a little too concerned, considering this is
only team-up/date/hang-out/whatever number four, but it's still enough
to make her feel guilty about lying. (But it is after all only number
four, so she's not about to spill the garbanzos.)
   "We're here," he says.
   'Here' is a Cradle research laboratory. Its staff was laid off a
month ago. The same thing's been happening with other Cradle labs. The
rumors are that Cradle Industries is leaving Jolt City after nearly
forty years of employing thirty percent of its residents and owning
sixty percent of its land. Bethany read about it in The Week. Most are
blaming it on the reclusive and paranoid Anders Cradle.[7]
   There's a dusty, oval-shaped hole in the side of the building,
eight feet tall. No fire. Blue Boxer points to the rubble fanned out
on the grass in a wedge shape. "Awfully small blast radius. Clean,
regular-shaped hole. This is a controlled explosion. A wall breach."
   "Which means they blasted their way inside, not out." Bethany steps
through the hole. "Careful, there's broken glass." She fans her torch
along the wall, and lights upon an automatic defibrillator.
   The Boxer follows her inside. "The glass from the door was
shattered by the blast."
   "I know," says Bethany.
   "I was showing off," whines Blue Boxer. "I never get to show off."
   "Ssh," says Bethany. "Show off later. We need to be sneaky. You're
not very sneaky."
   "Au contraire." He pulls out his scrambler. Soon, an invisible
sound proof bubble surrounds them.
   They peek down a ridiculously long hallway. There are labs branch
off on either side, all wood doors without windows. Blue Boxer adjusts
his torch to its low-light setting and goes out first, slowing panning
the torch along the floor.
   "Hey, look down there," says Blue Boxer. He turns off his torch.
Eight doors down, on the left, there's the slightest slice of light
beneath the frame.
   In less than a minute, they're at the door. There's no keyhole to
peep through, and the door bottom betrays only the sliver of light
from the other side. Blue Boxer pulls some kind of doodad out of his
action bag and places it between his ear and the door, but appears
dissatisfied with the result.
   "So," Bethany whispers, and this time he hears her, "how do we do
this? Soft," she points to the knob with all of her left fingers and
gives it an imaginary twist, "or hard?" She grinds her right fist into
her left palm.
   Blue Boxer chews it over for a moment, and then reaches into his
bag, producing two pairs of goggles. He hands her a pair of goggles
and slaps a pair over the goggles built into his mask.
   "You look ridiculous," she says.
   "But practical," says Blue Boxer. "You punch the door down, and I
throw in a couple of these babies." Two light grenades rest in his
palm. "They'll be blind for two minutes, while my ridiculous goggles
let us see. Two minutes is enough time for us to handle anything,
right?"
   Bethany nods. She clenches her fist and increases the density of
the Singularity Gauntlet. She likes this. Likes punching inanimate
things- doors, walls. Has it down to a science. An art. She doesn't
have to worry about bones and sinew and blood vessels. She hopes
there's robots on the other side; she doesn't have to worry about them
either. Our Father who art in Heaven, let there be robots, amen.
   She punches the door. It breaks into several large chunks and flies
into the room, followed by the two light grenades. There is a flash,
but not the blinding or lasting one that was promised. It is instead
as brief and effective as a camera bulb.
   Okay, so this isn't great, but they've still got the element of
surprise, and Bethany only counts three in this tiny room, all
standing over an open hatch. They're dressed in black uniforms with
red highlights, red belts, red goggles. Full head masks too, with a
little red symbol like a reverse rain drop stretching up the forehead
with a long straight tail terminating at the nosepiece of the goggles.
Only the muzzle is visible, and visibly human. No robots. Damn.
   They have guns but they're still holstered for about two more
seconds. Bethany rushes in and swings her fist towards the nearest
goon. Something feels wrong in her arm: using too much power, gonna
crack his face clean open. She rapidly dials it down before impact,
but of course that overdoes it. The punch is barely felt, like she
clobbered him with a feather.
   "My turn." He pulls out his gun.
   Bethany knees him in the groin. No need to dial that down.
   The mook falls back
   and down
   down
   the hatch. He lands with a definite thrunk. No time to worry about
him now. Still got two others to take care of. One is cowering in the
corner. The other is to her left.
   She turns. The goon doesn't seem to notice her. He has his gun out
and pointed to the floor, and on the floor, flat-on-his-back, is Blue
Boxer. It's been fifteen seconds, tops. How the hell did he manage to
get knocked out already?
   Well, she'll just have to save him. Again. She leaps towards the
goon. Startled, he pivots towards her, pointing his pistol. Before he
can fire, Bethany brings her right hand down on the weapon with a
satisfying kacrack. It sputters to the ground, twisted up on itself.
   Now she leaps at him again, pressing her forearm against his chest,
knocking him against the wall. He grimaces, his lips clenched.
Something cracks inside his mouth. His eyes flash with defiance, then
his whole body goes limp as a noodle. Bethany backs off and the body
slumps twitching to the floor.
   Clang-clang-clang behind her. She turns. The third has descended
the metal ladder. No doubt there's more below. She hates to give the
little rat any kind of head start, but she can't leave Blue Boxer here
alone and out cold.
   A couple shakes jerks him awake. Immediately he cradles his own
head with one hand. "Ugh. What happened?"
   "I think that guy took you out with one punch." By now the goon's
stopped twitching.
   "And what happened to him?"
   "You tell me. I hardly touched him."
   He checks for a pulse. "Dead."
   "He cracked something in his mouth..."
   Blue Boxer carefully pries the mouth open. "Hollow tooth."
   "With a poison pill inside?" says Bethany. "I didn't know people
really did that."
   "Who the hell would?" says Blue Boxer. "Who are we dealing with
here?"
   "There's at least two more down the rabbit hole if you want to find
out."
   "Sure. Ladies first."
   "Gee, thanks. Not like they have guns or anything."
   "Hey, you're the one with superpowers. All I got are gadgets." He
scoops up the light grenades. "And half the time they don't even
work."
   She doesn't know what to say to that. So she just picks up the
dimly-glowing amber lantern the goons brought with them and begins her
descent. It's a good twenty feet to the bottom. The man she knocked
down the hatch is there, still and rumpled and dead.
   Blue Boxer examines the body. "Poison again."
   But was the poison to avoid capture, or to end his pain? Would he
have died from his injuries anyway? She has to be more careful. She
doesn't want to hurt anyone. Maybe she should tell Rosenberg the truth
about her "powers". Maybe they can find someone who knows what they're
doing, give them the tech.
   POK-Pok-pok-pk. Someone running, the sound getting fainter with
every step, before fading away completely- someone running away.
Bethany swings her lantern and Blue Boxer his torch, but neither
catches a glimpse. Silently, they press forward towards the sound.
   Stretching out before them is a metal walkway, three horizontal
bars on either side serving as a safety railing. The walkway leads
forward for nine or ten yards where it comes to a four-way
intersection. Each path stretches another ten yards, then comes to
another intersection, then another, and another. They spend a minute
wandering somewhat aimlessly, trying and failing to find its limit.
   "Whoa," says Blue Boxer.
   "Whoa?"
   "Whoa." Blue Boxer holds his torch over the railing. The light
stretches out through the empty darkness but does not find a bottom.
   "Yeah, that's definitely a whoa." They stand there for a moment,
unsure of how to proceed. Bethany pans the lantern about. "There's
another ladder over here."
   "With another hatch?"
   "I think so. Yes. It's open."
   "The three of them were waiting for somebody who had gone down the
first hatch. If we assume competence, there's a reason he..."
   "Or she."
   "There's a reason he or she went down here, and a reason they chose
that hatch and not this one." He snaps his fingers. "How far are we
from the first hatch?"
   Bethany counts. "Four sections, I think."
   "Let's assume it's about thirty feet per length. So, a hundred and
twenty feet or thereabouts. And how big was the room?"
   "I don't know. Ten-by-ten, maybe bigger."
   "We'll go with that." He closes his eyes for a moment. Then he
opens them. "There were eight more doors before the end of the
hallway. That's eighty feet. Maybe more if the room was bigger. That'd
be shy of three lengths. That puts us on the other side of the wall."
   "So, none of those other eight rooms had ladders. None of them had
hatches. Whatever's up there, there's no way to get up there from
up-top. So first you climb down."
   "Then up," says Blue Boxer. "Research facility, top secret stuff
maybe, it makes sense. Not so much the execution, the bottomless pit
and precarious metal walkways, but in principle, sure."
   "Well, I read that Anders is crazy."
   "No, not Anders," says Blue Boxer, somewhat cryptically. "Something
like this, this would've been his dad's idea. I'll go first this
time." He turns off his torch and slides it into a pocket on his
action bag. Then he climbs the ladder.
   Cautiously, he pops his head through the hatch. The coast must be
clear, because the rest of him disappears up top. Bethany follows. She
hands Blue Boxer the clunky lantern, which he immediately switches
off, then allows him to help her out of the hatch.
   They're in a little nook that opens up to a much larger room.
They're not alone here: faint amber light and muffled voices leak from
the room proper. They scurry darkly (shadow-clad and bellies-low) then
press their backs into the wall. They become still, and they watch,
and they think.
   She becomes aware of the room. Of its bigness, for one thing. It is
long and it is wide, dwarfing their cramped little nook. It's also
below them; the nook is situated some fifteen feet off the ground. She
notes the guard rail that separates nook from room, and then the
ladder that joins them. In the room sits a lantern identical to the
one she... appropriated. Its light is strained and pinkly. There's
someone standing by the lantern, muttering to himself. No, talking to
someone. On the phone? A comm-system?
   They'll need to get down into the room. Blue Boxer is already on
it. He pulls some sort of long microphone looking gadget from his bag.
With his left hand, he points the mike into one of the dark corners of
the room below them, far from the mook with the lantern. He hands
Bethany a wire coming out of the mike. She holds it still. He places
his right hand next to it, and then gives his fingers a loud and
deliberate snap.
   The sound doesn't come from their nook, though; it comes from the
far corner to which he points the microphone. And the mook, like a
good mook should, takes his lantern and ventures forth to investigate.
   Blue Boxer switches off his gadget, wrapping the cord around it in
a hurry before jamming it back into his bag. He then hands Bethany the
scrambler. "You go down the ladder first, then throw this back up to
me. I'd go down, but I don't want to chance throwing it to you,
because I throw like a girl."
   "Yeah, you might want to rephrase that, buddy." But down she goes,
the clang-clang-clang silenced by the scrambler's sound-proof bubble.
She tosses the scrambler up. The Boxer catches it clumsily, then
follows her down the stairs.
   Quickly they rush to another corner, again hugging the darkness,
again needing a moment to orient themselves. Very big room, with some
huge hulking things that they can't quite make out without their
torches, and they're not about to turn those on.
   Pink-and-strained lantern and its mook are heading back to their
post, stopping just below the ladder. The mook whispers something that
sounds like, I must be hearing things, which is such a mook thing to
say. Now that she can get a closer look at him, Bethany recognizes him
as the mook who rabbitted. So there's still at least one more,
probably somewhere in this vast room, which confirms the
talking-on-a-comm-system hypothesis. And which means both (all?) of
them are aware of the two four-colours hot on their trail. She says as
much to the Boxer, then adds that they're going to have to be very
careful and stealthy since the mooks will be expecting them to be
skulking about.
   Almost immediately after she's said this, Blue Boxer erupts into an
absolutely terrible fart. With the scrambler's bubble still active,
there's little chance of the mook hearing it. There's also little
chance that Bethany will still be breathing in two seconds. The magic
of White Castle.
   The mook's nose bounces up and down his face. Great. He smelt it.
How couldn't he, though? It is without exaggeration one of the rankest
things Bethany has ever smelt.
   The mook touches an ear. "Hey, did you, did you, uh, pass gas? I
didn't think so. They must be here."
   He's walking towards the cloud of methane, his gun out, the faint
tendrils of his lantern stretching nearer and nearer.
   Bethany and Blue Boxer make a dash for it, hugging the wall. That's
when all the lights blaze on, an intense and would-be blinding white
glow, if it wasn't for the ridiculous goggles they're still wearing.
   Well, no use for stealth now. She runs at the mook, her gauntlet
powering up. She won't have to use it. Won't have to worry about the
punch. If she has him figured the way she has him figured, then
   Yes. He drops his gun and screams, hands up in the air, running
backwards and away. Bethany runs up to the gun and kicks it away.
   Flit. There's a tiny, trickling bullet hole in the mook's head. He
drops flat on his back.
   Bethany whirls around, and in a moment she becomes aware of, (1)
that the big bulky things in the vast room were some kind of tanks,
(2) that atop one of these tanks stands a woman garbed like the mooks,
(3) that the she-mook holds a rifle in her hand, and has just killed
the cowardly mook, (4) and that the rifle is now pointed at Bethany.
And it occurs to Bethany that she doesn't much care for that.
   Almost without thinking about it, she brings her gauntlet down with
incredible speed and mass on the concrete floor. The floor cracks, the
tanks jump in the air like crumbs shaken from a blanket. The she-mook
is thrown in the air, her rifle knocked from her hands, but with a
deft flip she lands on her feet and then, impossibly, catches the
rifle.
   "Whoa," says Blue Boxer.
   "I'm appreciating all your help with this team up, by the way,"
says Bethany. Then, to the she-mook: "Drop the rifle."
   "No," says the woman. "I don't think I will." She puts the
barrel
in her mouth.
   "Now wait a minute," says Bethany.
   "The fever is rising!"
   The lights go black, and there is the sound of the rifle going off.
With torches blazing, our heroes rush to the spot.
   She's dead.

They run through the story three times for the police. Bethany is a
nervous wreck each time as she gets to the part about the goon who
fell down the hatch. Afterwards, when they're alone, Blue Boxer asks
her what's wrong and she tells him.
   "I wouldn't worry about that," he says. "I looked in his mouth.
Broken tooth, poison capsule, just like the other guy."
   "What if they look deeper?" she says. "What if he died from the
fall and it broke accidentally, or if he was in too much pain?"
   "Honestly? Not to be cynical, but I don't think they'll look all
that hard. If it was me, everyone's least favorite screw-up? They'd
bend over backwards to find some way it was my fault. But you? Popular
new four-colour, shy girl with curves, stopped the Fiddleback and
avenged Gray Squirrel?"
   Red Squirrel, Bethany corrects him in her head.
   "Even if you weren't in the clear, which you are," continues Blue
Boxer, "I think you don't have anything to worry about."
   "Not to be cynical?" air quotes Bethany. "That's the very
definition. And you're missing the point. It's not whether or not they
think I did wrong. It's whether or not I did wrong. What if I killed
him? What if I can't control the, my power?" She almost said 'the
gauntlet'.
   Blue Boxer is silent for a moment. "I don't have powers, so I can't
tell you that I know what it's like. But you did pretty awesomely with
the floor and the tanks. And the door."
   "So I just have to populate my rogues gallery with inanimate
objects, then I'm fine," says Bethany darkly. "And all I managed to do
was bust open a door and ruin a concrete floor. We don't know what
they were after or if we stopped them. Four people are dead."
   "But none of those deaths are your fault," he stresses, like if he
says it again and again it'll start to sink in. God, men can be so
patronizing sometimes.
   "That's not good enough," she says finally.
   "Hey," he says. "You saved me, didn't you? I would've gotten
killed
in there if it wasn't for you. Killed by a mook. That's gotta be ten
times worse than running into a telephone pole."
   "You didn't do so bad yourself," she says. "Well, you did; I
don't
know how you hit the floor so fast. But it sure helped having your
scrambler and your reverse-microphone."
   "Ventrilowand," says Blue Boxer. "TM, patent pending."
   He smiles, and she smiles, and her smile fades, and his smile
fades. Finally, she says, "I guess maybe I'd just feel better if we
had something to show for it."
   "When I stopped the Gorgon," he begins (he likes to tell the story
about the time he stopped the Gorgon), "I didn't have anything to show
for it other than that the entire human race wasn't dead. It's hard to
say, look-it this disaster I averted. I figure a buncha mooks busting
in to a secret laboratory with a buncha experimental tanks might've
ended up with some good people dead. But that didn't happen. Because,
us. That's a win in my book, even if no one ever hears about it."[8]
   He still isn't getting it. She's not upset about not having
something to show other people. It's more personal than that. But hard
to explain. Knotty. And as is usually the case with the things that
matter, Bethany doesn't much feel like trying to get it across. "I
guess you're right," she says. "Well, I better start heading home. If
you hear anything about this, need any help or anything..."
   "Sure, I'll have Trimmer's office contact your people in
Chicagoland."
   "Good night," she says. She gives him a friendly kiss on his
union-covered cheek.

(TO BE CONTINUED IN JOLT CITY # 21, PART TWO)