Teaser ~~~~

"Jim!"

James West glanced over to see his partner Artemus Gordon gesturing toward the stairs of the warehouse. Someone was up there - someone with a rifle. A gunshot echoed through the crate-filled room, and a bullet splintered some wood out of one of the crates just as Jim dived behind it. Peering out, Jim aimed his revolver at the rifleman and fired.

The rifleman tipped forward, knocking loose a railing from the stairs as he fell. Jim waved Artie onward and the two agents, crouching, made their separate ways amongst the crates to the inner door. As they joined up together again, Jim asked, "Is this where you saw Alexei go?"

Artie nodded as he pulled off his fake beard and nose, stowing them in a pocket. "Right. And as far as I could tell, he had the ledger with him."

"Perfect," said Jim. He worked loose the heel of one boot, then the other, taking the hidden items from within. He reattached each heel with a sharp rap of his palm, then assembled the parts he'd extracted into an elegant little bomb. Once he had it ready, he struck a match and lit the fuse, then glanced at Artie and said, "One…"

Artie mouthed with him "Two… three!" Jim hurled the bomb at the door and the agents hit the floor on the far side of some crates. The bomb glued itself to the door and sat there smoldering for a second, then burst into a magnificent explosion of red and golden gases, reducing the door to smithereens.

The bits of wood that had once been door rained down within an impressively large perimeter. Then a man came stumbling through the doorway, coughing, choking, the smoke from the explosion enveloping him. Clutching a large ledger to his chest, he squinted as he tried to get his bearings in the midst of the cloud. A hand grabbed him and stripped the ledger from him, tossing the book to Artie. "End of the road, Alexei Velikov," said James West as he pulled the man's hands behind him. "You're under arrest."

Velikov struggled, getting a hand free and shoving West away. He ran toward Artie, wrestling him for the ledger. Jim charged after Velikov and tackled him.

The ledger went spinning out of everyone's grasp. "I've got Alexei!" said Artie. He sat on the man's back and set about cuffing him, giving him terse orders in Mother Russian.

Jim went after the ledger. The book had come to rest at the edge of a large dark pit. As Jim reached down the scoop up the book, the thought came to him that entirely too many of the lairs of the criminals he and Artie dealt with had pits in them for inexplicable reasons. And just as he thought that, someone snatched the book from his hand and gave him a shove. "Do svidaniya, Mr West!"

Jim hit the bottom of the pit. Rolling over, he looked up to see Alexei's brother Valery grinning down at him. With a cheery wave, Valery reached over and flipped a switch. There was a grind of gears clashing, and one of the walls of the pit began to move toward the agent. "This is where we crush the old metal down into little blocks, Mr West!" Valery called over the mechanical noise. "Oh, and this…" The Russian now grabbed a metal part and wrenched it out of the switch. "…is the essential element to turning the crusher back off." He flung the part away somewhere behind him into the darkness. Waving once more, he smirked at the captive and said, "Enjoy the experience, Mr West!"

Valery vanished from West's sight, but a moment later the trapped agent heard a bam! and saw a cloud of magenta smoke swirling up to the ceiling. Seconds later a familiar face was peering down at him. "Jim! Valery's out. I used some knock-out gas on him." Artie's eyes were roaming swiftly over the machinery, seeing how it was put together and what the various parts did. "All right, I got it, Jim," he called down.

"No, I've got it," Jim replied. He had already pulled what looked like a large handle from inside his jacket and was now attaching it to the moving wall as high up as he could reach. The handle stuck fast and Jim used it to pull himself up, then balanced on it as he stretched up, trying to get a secure grip on the top of the wall.

At that moment a noise filled the warehouse, a piercing electronic whine. Jim nearly lost his hold on the wall at the shock of hearing that particular sound. This was not the first time in his life he had heard it, and he had never expected to hear the like again.

The mechanism moving the wall locked up abruptly. At the edge of the pit above, Artie tucked something into a pocket and said, "Told you I had it." He waited patiently while Jim continued his climb out of the pit.

Once he was out and standing by Artie, Jim inquired, "The Velikov brothers?" Artie gestured toward Alexei, belly-down on the floor struggling against the pair of manacles binding his wrists, and then toward Valery, peacefully sleeping off the knock-out gas. The ledger, Jim saw, was on the floor near the inert Valery. Covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, Jim retrieved the book. Then he and Artie collected the brothers who were the final two members of an extortion gang and hauled them off to hand them and the ledger over to the sheriff.

"All right," said Jim as they came out of the sheriff's office and headed down a side street to return to the train. "Let's see it."

"See what?" said Artie innocently.

"There's only one thing I know of, Artie, that makes a sound quite like what I heard in the warehouse just now. You have a sonic screwdriver."

With a slow proud grin, Artie reached inside his jacket and produced a slender rod roughly nine inches long. It was made of brass, with little appendages here and there, the tip of it a faceted piece of amber. Giving a bob of his eyebrows, Artie pointed it at a bit of newspaper the breeze was sweeping past them.

The electronic whine filled the air once more. The newspaper obligingly burst into flame.

"Well?" said Artie. "What do you think?" He gave the sonic screwdriver a toss into the air, caught it, then passed it over to Jim. As his partner examined the marvelous device, Artie added smugly, "And you said it couldn't be done!"

"I said you couldn't make this using the technology of our time," said Jim. "However - you cheated!" He poked a finger at Artie with a teasing gleam in his eye.

"Cheated! I most certainly did not cheat!" Artie snatched back the device and stowed it in his pocket. "In what way, James, did I cheat? Hmm?"

"Simple, Artie. You opened that pocket watch."

"Yeah? And so what if I did? How is that cheating?"

"An ordinary man of this time and place could never have made a sonic screwdriver out of everyday materials. But once you opened that watch, you ceased to be an ordinary man. You became a Time Lord. I wouldn't put any technological feat past a Time Lord."

"Shh!" Artie glanced around. The side street they were walking along seemed deserted, but… "C'mon, Jim, someone might overhear you," he hissed.

"No one's going to overhear me, and they wouldn't know what I was talking about if they did," said Jim. "Don't worry so much." He paused, then added, "So when do I get my own sonic screwdriver?"

"When do you… Who says you do?" Artie challenged.

Jim only laughed and held out his hand. Artie laughed too, then reached into one of the many secret pockets of his jacket and produced a sleek and elegant device, its burnished surface of an amazing color that looked sometimes blue, sometimes green. "Here you go, James my boy," said Artie. "Wear it in good health."

"I'll do that," said Jim. He tucked the slim item into an inside pocket of his own jacket.

"Of course, I'll have to show you all the settings," Artie went on as they reached the corner and stepped out onto the sidewalk of a busy street. Artie was on the inside of the turn, still looking toward Jim, and so he didn't see what was ahead of him. What he did see was the way Jim's eyes flicked to something beyond the corner.

Artie began to turn to see what Jim was looking at, but he didn't quite complete that turn. Just as Jim called a warning of "Artie! Watch out!", Artie smacked right into someone. He had a sudden impression of lace and frills and reached out quickly, trying to avoid bowling over what was plainly a woman. And then she was in his arms as he strove to steady the two of them, with Jim grabbing them as well in an effort to keep his partner and the woman upright.

"I'm so sorry!" Artie said automatically. "I should have been watching where I was going. Are you all right, miss?" And now, as he apologized, he at last took a good look at the woman.

Lovely woman - gorgeous woman! Svelte and graceful, with elegantly coifed brunette hair and enormous warm brown eyes. As those eyes looked up into his, immediately a smile of pure delight suffused the woman's charming features. "Artemus!" she cried joyfully.

And Artie? Artie nearly lost his balance all over again.

"Lily? Lily Fortune!"