M.A.S.K:
THE NIGHTENGALE FIELDS
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
DISCLAIMER: M.A.S.K and all related characters are trademarked by Cookie Jar Entertainment and Kenner Toys.
The bright yellow ray beamed down on him with lightning speed. He had no way of out-manuvering it. Within seconds, his iron abode Firecracker began to contort and contract, metal twisted and turned and the roof of his world came down upon him, threatening to entomb and ultimately end him.
Though Hondo Maclean was able to quickly awaken from this latest flashback to his former 'alternative occupation', the one that diverted his attention so much from his true passion. A passion he had now put firmly front and centre, putting his activities in the field long behind him.
But it was still very hard to shake it, all those near death experiences, the physical and mental wear and tear playing about with his body and mind, and rarely letting him get one decent nights sleep.
Still, he couldn't let these occurrences fowl up his mood tonight. Tonight was to be an education as well as a life experience. One way or another, he would take something from this evening.
And as he looked at the time on his clock, he figured what he would take was a proper lecture on the principle urgency of maintaining a sense of well timed commitment. He was late.
He got changed in a hurry, and it showed when he found he had put his woolly turtleneck sweater on the wrong way around. After switching it over to the right size, he tried putting on the tightest possible pair of jeans, mainly because they were still the only clean pair in his house at the moment, he could and fell down twice as he struggled to fit into a size he had largely grown out of by this phase in his aging life.
Finally, despite being less than satisfied with his look and wishing that yesterday had not seen the death kneel of his washing machine, Hondo set out on his way, exiting his house and heading to Nightstalker. As he got into the vehicle, he found a pile of notes seated to the left of him. He sighed, it was the homework from his student body. The 'land of great educational thirst had saw fit to deposit an oasis to spite the desert of life.
Hondo figured he could work on the pile when he reached his destination. "She'd understand" he thought, and set off on his way
Traffic was murder. It was so bad on the highway that Hondo contemplated converting Nightstalker into attack mode and pulverize the teeming transit in front of him, but calmer nerves prevailed and he sat it out, checking his watch with each slow step the cars took as they dealt with amateur drivers and large cargo trucks moving at a snails pace.
Finally getting into the city, Hondo pulled out his cell phone and dialled a number. The recipient sounded quite strict, but accepting of Hondo's frequent apologies for being late and the excuses he was giving. The caller even giggled when he admitted he had yet to mark his student's homework.
Finally, he reached his destination, a restaurant called "Clan Cuisine", he parked and disembarked from Nightstalker, skimming through the pages of the homework as he entered the building.
Realizing something, he fished through his pockets, praying he hadn't forgotten something vital. He hadn't. He breathed a sigh of relief.
He browsed through more of the essays. The challenge he had set for his students was to do comprehensive essays on popular novels or movies from a selection of centuries. One he had to omit pretty quickly, as he figured out just from reading it that the student hadn't really bothered watching the movie he was assigned to, and had instead tried to describe another film entirely, trying to pass it off as the one he watched.
He remembered it having one other time from the same student, and he had been fooled in that particular instance. The student was told to review Top Gun, and instead talked about Hot Shots Part Duex. Hondo could only blame himself for never seeing Top Gun and couldn't comment at the time. His class must have had a bright day brimming with laughter when he passed that student.
Still, it was, as ever, a vital lesson in underestimation, even from the most casual of types. A good MASK agent always knew when to sniff out the poison. It wasn't quite VENOM, but it was still a slithery business to pull one over a man of education.
He dialled up the phone again and asked the voice on the other end, which belonged to a woman where she was stationed, he eventually found her seated near the back of the building, a dashing looking dish with long golden hair in a red jacket with a brown sweater beneath it already tucking in to a slender cut piece of prime rib. Hondo sat down beside her and smiled warmly.
"Well, you're certainly not long for this world, I doubt my life-saving techniques could resuscitate you from the death sentence you've earned for being this tardy" joked Professor Stevens.
"Death's been on top of me, literally, enough times, it's no coincidence my best dates with lady luck have occurred during them" Hondo replied
"She's one fortunate lady" Stevens said.
"Not as fortunate as we both are" Hondo replied, "Congratulations on having your lectures approved at our school. Our student body will be eager to learn about the alternatives and dangers posed by radiation therapy on breast cancer sufferers" Hondo said.
"Thanks for the encouragement, it's a fairly recent discovery, but I'm hoping that with our new found left-breast radiotherapy advancements using deep inspiration breath holds and prone patient positioning, we can move the hearts out of the danger zone and into the more stabilised fields"
"You should have a name for the safe zones...something that makes them feel assured" Hondo explained, "Something that makes them love the idea and the person behind it"
"Don't turn this back around to flirtation Hondo" Stevens said rather strictly. Hondo nodded, understanding how much these techniques meant to her.
He couldn't have helped himself though. After all, this woman was the one who brought him back from the closest he had ever been to death's door. Lady Luck in human form, and he had been infatuated with her.
She came into his life through an investigation by MASK. She had been studying a recently crashed radioactive meteorite rock which had life-preserving properties, when the rock was stolen by agents of VENOM. She bravely evaded the poisonous terrorist group with evidence of their involvement in the theft and had fearlessly tried to outrun them in their vehicles in a jeep before they had struck a critical hit and thrown the jeep into a ravine.
Men in Matt Trakker's employ were nearby and fished her out and, after looking over her findings, Matt put the team into action, not factoring in one thing, the over eagerness of his son Scott Trakker, who was determined to help out and had stowed away in Firecracker.
Hondo's own vehicle.
The rotten luck of it all was almost of a far too delicious taste.
On reflection, the mission was a constant series of miscommunications and blunders on behalf of his own team. In an attempt to evade Rhino, Scott was thrown from Firecracker, Miles Mayhem released a missile from his vehicle Switchblade, the missile was intercepted by Brad on his Condor motorcycle, and the blast that dismantled the missile caused chunks to rein down on Hondo, who had darted over to Scott and used his own body to protect him from the deadly barrage of shrapnel which pierced Hondo's skin and left him close to death.
MASK had to prioritise, the meteor had been split into three components, each one letting off a devastating surge of radiation that took life rather than granted it. VENOM had labelled it 'The Deahstone'.
The only means to save Hondo was to retrieve all three pieces and put them together again. A task that was made easier by an eagerly redemptive Scott delivering the last piece than any sense of consistency from Matt. The very leader of the group. Despite their best efforts, this was not one of the team's better days from any critical standpoint.
When the time came to reunify the meteorite and save Hondo's life. Stevens was there. She asked Matt if Hondo being hurt had anything to do with her, Matt said it didn't matter. All they were concerned with was salvaging a very lousy series of events. Stevens expertly performed the operation and Hondo was returned to the conscious world, after which the meteor ran out of energy and died.
Hondo would learn over the next few months just how painful this loss was for Stevens, and why she was so eager to make the meteor the crux of her techniques. Her own husband had been diagnosed with cancer just a few months prior to this mission, and that the diagnosis labelled his condition as terminal.
Hondo kept in touch with Stevens in between his adventuring, eager to learn of her and her husband's progress. Ultimately, the news got bleaker and bleaker, culminating in her losing the man she loved.
Hondo felt a good deal of survivor's guilt long afterwards, and it affected how he went about his daily activities as a teacher and as a MASK agent. He felt all the mistakes he made on missions were due to this hanging over his head.
What if Matt had not been as selfish as to want him spared to ease the consciences of himself and his own son?
Why didn't Stevens say anything about her husband?
If he knew something about that prior to embarking on the mission, he'd have told Matt straight not to consider him and to convince Stevens to save her husband once the meteorite pieces were recovered. His rationale was that he was a cog in a big wheel that could easily be replaced
So much indecision, so many good intentions paving the road to hell, and all seemingly for nothing as the meteorite was rendered useless afterwards.
Well, almost nothing. He had been given a second chance. And he relished it. And he wanted to share that chance with someone.
Timing, however, was everything.
And so he and Stevens continued to keep in touch, and as time healed their wounds, and as they steadily learned to get by every day with their choices that had brought them together on that most memorable mission, they had found they had a strong connection, a longing for learning, and an eagerness to educate. To ensure that, while one technique was lost, new possibilities could take it's place, all that was needed was the right platform to convey that to the next generation, and thus Stevens inquired into Hondo's place of work and ultimately proposed a course of action that would give her a means of informing the keen minds of tomorrow.
Hondo couldn't be more prouder of her
"With the Active Breathing Coordinator, which monitors lung volumes, patients breathe through a mouthpiece connected to the ABC, the operator then closes a valve around the allocated volume and creates a breath hold. Radiation would be deposited during those holds, allowing the paitent to take in the treatments more comfortably. It's an assuring procedure as well as a fine form of preservation. I can't wait to get people excited and informed about this" Stevens continued
"You know how beautiful you are when you go all textbook like this?" Hondo remarked. Stevens blushed, and put one hand on his.
"Well, It helps when you have someone teaching you all about the book of life...how as each page turns, you learn to move along with it" she said, "Thankyou for being there these past few years, I owe this whole class I'm about to teach to you. When my husband died, I thought life would cease to be anything resembling precious, but you've shown me that the gift of existence just keeps on giving rather than take"
"Then let's celebrate the gift by granting your class a name, same as those safe zones in the body while we're at it. My class is nicknamed the Kalahari, yours can be...the nightingale fields"
"Why that?" Stevens asked
"Because I guarantee you, like Florence Nightingale's patients did with her, anyone coming into your class and learning first hand of your passion in conveying your life-saving lessons will fall as madly in love with the notion of preserving life, and with you, as madly as I did with you"
"Hondo, you're doing it again" Stevens said, before leaning over and kissing him on the right side of his cheek, "Save the personal passions for after dinner, I'm eager to discuss the class and I noticed you haven't eaten yet" Stevens observed. Hondo proposed he take a bit of her prime rib.
"Absolutely, there's one extra little thing I'm saving for after a full stomach" he replied.
"A full on boast about your own job?" she joked
Hondo felt the small diamond ring hidden away in his pocket and gave out a cheeky and all knowing expression.
"A debt stone" he said slyly.
THE END