1~

"I have it under good authority that Marcie Fleach is still among the living," Greenman told Quest while visiting him in the office he was using in another secret facility. "I am truly surprised."

"No more than I," Benton admitted with a sigh, putting down his paperwork "Even though Crystal Cove is hardly what I would call a proving ground for my prototype, I, at least, expected for it to be returned for physical analysis. It was completely lost according to the tech team's reports. Meaning she was very lucky, or very resourceful."

Greenman gave a dispassionate shrug, but it was colored with a secret concern. She was just a slip of a girl, and couldn't possibly be that great a threat to his plans, but Marcie was starting to prove the gods' caution with every encounter. Could she actually undo...everything? For country? For the world? For a father's love?

Greenman bowed his head slightly. Even he could understand that, but now wasn't the time for the past.

"In any event," Benton said, bringing Greenman back into the present. "I doubt that you came here just to complain about a botched hit."

"True, enough. How goes progress on the T.H.R.O.B.A.C.? Is it viable?"

"It's coming along," Benton said, simply. "My other tech teams are acquainting themselves well to the Sundial technology, and it should up and running soon."

"Excellent. Keep me apprised on the work. Remember, the sooner it's completed, the sooner you can use it, yourself."

'Use it, myself...and keep it all to myself,' Quest thought, while he gave his guest an empty smile.

Greenman turned to leave the man's office, and reached the doorway, when a touch of curiosity struck him, and he asked, "By the way, what ever happened to the tech team you sent me to maintain the Questoid, after their report?"

"I had them fired, of course," Quest said. Greenman's eyes followed Benton's gesture to a table on the far side of the office displaying five brass funeral urns.

"Would you like to see their resumes?" Quest asked, innocently.

There was a bar, an establishment, in Gatorsburg, that had a reputation among its clientele. Although most businesses were, to a greater, or lesser extent, alligator-based, or themed, this place set itself apart decades ago, by catering to one specific customer base.

Named The Dirty Test Tube, it was the region's most well-known watering hole for scientists and mad scientists, alike.

Scholars, learned men, and degree-carriers, most of a disreputable stripe, and some, not so, would leave their morals and immorality at the door, to enjoy drinks and unwind from either trying to save, or improve the world, or conquering, and/or destroying it. At least, in theory, that was the idea.

In practice, good scientists might band together to enforce order, whenever a darker member of their number would harass, or attempt a non-consensual experiment on someone.

When that happened, the bar would very quickly demonstrate the principle of chaos theory in action. Physics collided with disagreements in scientific methodology, and political or moral ideology. In short, weird science met knuckle-dusting.

At this particular moment, the patrons were behaving themselves, and were respectful, if not watchful, of each other, but they all knew that a mad scientist bar brawl was just a bombastic insult away.

The front door opened, releasing strong afternoon sunshine into the otherwise dimly-lit cantina, outlining the silhouette of a stranger.

The shadow that fell across the floor was indicative of a typical customer, unkempt hair, glasses, thin body, however, as was ever the case, not everything was as it seemed.

Marcie Fleach had never entered a bar before. She knew, before she ever set foot in one, that she would be carded, and told to leave, besides, she never had a reason to go into one, until now.

She had to admit, however, as she took a tentative step into this strange world of science and adult recreation, that as bars went, it wasn't half bad.

The decor was made in the 60's idea of the future, lighting, white tables, colored, padded chairs and booths, all constructed in the style of the late Atomic Age. Years of neglect and the odd financial hiccup, however, had dulled everything within with failing electrical systems, dirt, stains from spilled drinks, and cracked leather padding.

The only place where color still truly lent itself was behind the bar counter, where a great bubbling, shiny, chromatic display of interconnected chemistry glassware stood, covering the entire backwall. It flowed, filled, mixed, channeled, percolated, chilled, warmed and stored the establishment's drinks.

The teen walked in, eyeing the patrons, and trying not to stare at them. She had seen enough movies that had bar scenes in them to know that sort of thing was usually frowned upon. She also knew that she was being watched, herself.

The bartender, a heavy set man clad in a stained lab coat, a monocle, and a graying handlebar mustache, noticed her and sized her up, before she even reached the counter.

Teenager-therefore illegal to serve alcohol to. Stranger-since he made it his business, if not hobby, to remember and recognize his customers, and hadn't seen her before. And science buff-since she couldn't have just wandered in here without knowing who frequented the place. The odds wouldn't support it.

"What can I do for you?" he asked. "You understand that I can't serve you, here."

"That's alright," Marcie told him. "I'm just looking for information."

The bartender gave a rumbling chuckle, looking out onto the drinking area. "That's all we traffic in, it seems. Info, data, ideas. If you can't get answers, here, you're not trying hard enough. Now, how can I help you?"

Marcie checked around her immediate surroundings, making sure she wasn't eavesdropped on, though, she figured, considering the clientele, the room was probably bugged.

"I'm looking for someone named Lab Rat. I heard that she lives in Gatorsburg, and I'm trying to contact her."

Whatever happened in Gatorsburg before she arrived, Marcie had no clue as to the power of that name as a trigger. When one patron heard the name, she gasped and, by reflex, said it out loud, causing a chain reaction of raised voices in the bar, some praising Lab Rat, others cursing her.

"What do you want to know about that rat?" asked a bald man with a black goatee, elfin ears, a buttoned up lab coat, and a sneer so pronounced, Marcie could see it in the dark.

She nodded to herself. 'Yep, definitely a mad scientist type,' she thought.

"I take it from the tone of your voice that you don't think to highly of my moth-" Marcie had to stop herself from saying 'mother' to the person who sounded like Lab Rat was not only on his top-ten hit list, but any known relations would probably be, as well.

Luckily, the bald man didn't seem to notice the near faux-pas. "Yeah! She found out I was stealing animal DNA, and she had me reported to the authorities. Do you know how hard it was to find rhino and cheetah genes?"

"You should have gone through proper channels, Deeds," another scientist chimed in. "You're always doing that. Not respecting the law to further your experiments and schemes."

"That's it!" Deeds yelled, while standing from his chair in challenge. "I had it with you goody-goody types. It's bad enough that I have to drink with you, but I have to listen to your sanctimonious drivel, too? The gloves come off!"

He glanced malevolently at Marcie. "I have to thank you, kid. It was getting a tad boring in here, today."

"Thanks, I think," Marcie muttered, wondering what this man's problem was.

"I noticed that you tried to stop yourself from saying that Lab Rat was your mother," Deeds continued. "But you're too late. If I can't get to her, then, I guess you're the next best thing."

Marcie reached into her wool jacket, and issued a warning. "Listen, I just want to find my mother. I didn't come here to start a fight, but I will defend myself."

That brought a wider smile to the disturbed man's sneer. "Good! Oh, by the way, how do you do? J. Dastardly Deeds, at your disservice," he introduced himself. "Now, see-"

"Hey, I once knew a guy named Dastardly," Marcie said, cutting him off, on purpose.

"Don't you ever interrupt me again!" Deeds screamed, before clearing his throat to continue. "Now, see the fruits of what your meddlesome mother tried to stop!" He stepped back from his table, knocking it over, as he ripped open his lab coat.

From within it, Marcie could see another suit, metallic and sporting a blinking chest plate with tubes connected to pleated grey shoulder joints. The chest plate was broad and fitted with a large knob in its center, and an small LED screen above it. Surrounding the knob were the small, stylized pictures of a snake, a rhino, and a cheetah.

Patrons scattered, giving Deeds a wide berth, while Marcie's mind raced with what to get from her jacket.

Deeds twisted the knob to the snake setting, and, to Marcie's amazement, something wondrous occurred. Although the man stood on his two feet, his outward features, his skin, eyes, and teeth, became decidedly reptilian. Even the scalp of his head grew out into a cobra-like hood, which flared with venomous intent.

"Behold!" Deeds hissed with dark pride. "My Zzzoo Sssuit! Not to be confused with a Zzzoot Sssuit, even though I made an obviousss pun on the name."

"Obviously," said Marcie, before she dodged a venom-slavered bite from the snake-man by diving behind Deeds' overturned table.

"Ssstand ssstill, little one," said Deeds, gripping the edges of the table and tossing it away, exposing her. "I don't want to wassste my venom trying to dissspatch you!"

"Let me help with that," Marcie said, flippantly, casting an Insta-Ice capsule into Deeds' technological chest plate.

"Huh?" was all Deeds had time to say before he was engulfed in a top-heavy block of ice. Slamming onto the floor, he shivered helplessly, while Marcie stood up to admire her handiwork.

"It's a good thing you turned into a reptile first, cold temperatures would make you too sluggish to fight me. Your Zoo Suit is a remarkable piece of genetic engineering," she complimented him. "Unfortunately, it was both made by, and fell into, the wrong handsss."

"I w-wouldn't worry about that in...about...thirty sssecondsss," Deeds said with a sibilant chuckle.

It was then that Marcie remembered the LED screen over the animal selector knob. It displayed one minute after the selection was made.

"Each change lasts one minute, then?" she asked.

"Yesss, and imagine what I'll change into next, sssmarty-pantsss!" Deeds said, as the clock ran down to ten seconds, then five, and then his body convulsed as his human DNA reasserted its dominance throughout him, the cobra essence, retreating.

Clumsily, he sat up, and then slowly, awkwardly, stood up to face her. Marcie stuck her hand inside her jacket again, but found that she didn't have to use it, as Deeds suddenly turned from her, and ran into a far wall, shattering the restraining ice into slushy blocks.

He slipped in the water that was made and crashed to floor again, however, this time, he was ready.

He stood up, and with a confident twist of the knob, his skin began to harden into thick, organic plates, his body swelled in size and muscle mass, just as his eyes shank and he squinted in the dim light, the bridge of his already bird-like nose began to grow vertically, strengthening and elongating into a pointed mountain of keratin. His Rhino Mode was achieved.

With a bellow that shook the walls of the bar, Deeds focused on Marcie's general direction, and charged, hoping to gore her before the one minute mark.

Marcie ran to the side, and the bartender seeing the charge, did likewise, allowing the Deeds-rhino to plow into the face of the counter, his horn penetrating a good five inches inside.

Keeping abreast of the time, he struggled to hurry out of the jam he put himself in. He only had one more selection, the cheetah. Once that was used, the suit was expended, until he could return home and get more stored animal genes.

Deeds' horn finally loosened, and he backed up in a run. Only seconds remained.

Marcie decided that answers would not be forthcoming, here, so, she jogged over to the front door. Opening it, she was momentarily blinded by the sunlight, hearing the sound of a bus approaching on its assigned route through the bar's neighborhood.

Coming from a place where ideas were welcomed, Marcie suddenly had an idea. She stood in the doorway and turned to face the irate Deeds.

"You're running out of time, Deeds," Marcie taunted. "What are you going to turn into next? A rat? An eel? A cockroach? Or a chicken?"

Deeds snorted in rage, but she stood her ground, glancing out into the street. The bus was coming in fast.

Deeds dug his feet against the floor, and flew at the teen girl with a reckless speed that belied his bulk, putting everything he had into what he hoped was a charge to end all charges, one that didn't just impale her, but ripped her asunder.

Timing it well enough, Marcie stepped aside, letting the sunlight her body was blocking flash full in Deeds' eyes. Between the sudden blindness and his momentum, he couldn't stop in time, finally colliding and getting T-boned by the oncoming bus, bouncing off its broad face, to roll, painfully, meters down the street.

A crowd began to form in front of the bar consisting of bar patrons, a bus driver, and his passengers, concerned about the thing that decided to run headlong into a municipal vehicle. Only Marcie, summoned by a grateful bartender, returned into the bar.

"Hey, I want to thank you for getting rid of Deeds for me," said the bartender. "Even for a mad scientist, he's a bad egg."

"No problem," she said to him. "Rhinos are strong and fast, but they have poor eyesight."

"Listen, now that I know that you're looking for your mother, I just want to tell you that she's one of the good ones," he admitted to her. "Lab Rat's done a lot more than just stop Deeds, on occasion. She sometimes help good scientists clear their names whenever a mad would get jealous and try to besmirch it. Even mine."

He gestured to a portrait on the backwall that displayed a proudly smiling, heavy-set scientist sporting a monocle and a less graying handlebar mustache.

Marcie understood the weight of the admission and asked again. "Do you know where she is? Her real name is Anna Fleach."

The bartender's eyes lit with surprise and recognition. "Anna's the Lab Rat? Wow! Okay, Anna's been seen around here, she's a bit of a regular, but, as far a being a scientist goes, I hear that she's strictly freelance. Works for the highest bidder, or best reputation." he said, thoughtfully.

The way the bartender was telling it, Marcie couldn't help but imagine her mother as some sort of no-nonsense, scientific merc-for-hire. No lab too big.

"If she wanted to," the bartender said, absently. "She could be working for Quest."

The name sparked a roller-coaster ride of dread and hope in Marcie. A possibly strong lead to her mother's whereabouts, but it pointed to a once-respected man who tried to kill her. She decided that she would just have to watch her step. "Quest Industries? Where is that?"

The bartender shrugged. "I can't help you with that, I'm afraid. Ever since Dr. Quest got in bad with the scientific community, he's become something of an underground legend, running his company through a hundred different dummy companies, and his experiments, in the shadows. Rumor has it that he's got a secret lab somewhere around here, and that he's working on something *big with some benefactor from out of town."

'Greenman,' she thought, grimly. "Thank you for your help, sir. I really appreciate it."

"Hey, don't mention it!" he called out, as she jogged out the front door, and continued her search.

Outside, she looked down the street to where Deeds would have landed, but the street was clear of him.

"Where's that guy who was hit by the bus?" she asked a bystander.

"Fiddled with something on his chest, then he high-tailed it out of here, like the devil, himself, was after him," the bystander answered.

"Cheetah Mode," Marcie figured. Then, she left the crowd, going back around the corner to where her car was parked. There was much to think and do, yet.

As members of the local scientific community started gradually returning to The Dirty Test Tube, the bartender, wiping the top of his now perforated counter, shook his head, and chuckled.

"Like mother, like daughter," he said to himself.