1~
A heavy fog flowed in from the warm, Californian waters, shrouding the dark shipping docks of Crystal Cove, which were now abandoned of workers in the quiet evening.
Within the rented interior of Warehouse Number Eight, one of the largest properties that served the docks, lights burned on and activity reigned.
Welders and engineers cut, probed, studied and carefully were assembling sections of steely sheet work that looked intriguingly humanoid, as though they were erecting a statue.
Safely put aside in a corner of the warehouse were two finished halves of a hollow, metal head, sculpted and painted to resemble a dark-bearded, ruddy-nosed man with an arrogant and dangerous rise to his brow.
Sections of bent arm were being fitted together in the acrid, oxyacetylene light, while plating for the massive, bare torso were being machined and shaped into its final forms.
From the elevated office's walkway, high above the din of construction, Greenman observed everything that went on with focused satisfaction.
He pictured the eminent completion of this project and gave a smirk of secret contentment. The days were ticking down with every element of his private, long-ranging plan either successfully done or nearly so.
With a eager sigh, he knew that for the first time, in a very long time, his life was truly becoming nothing short of electric.
He had known sacrifice personally. It had shaped the very path of his life. His faith acknowledged it. His gods demanded it, and they had put him upon this chaotic world to work their will...and his own.
Thinking of them made his thoughts jump to their cryptic warning of that so-called "alchemist."
They had told him that her hand would make a way for him, and according to the local paper, her seemingly proactive mystery-solving had indeed made things considerably easier for him to acquire the T.H.R.O.B.A.C. ruins.
But that same hand could close upon him, they also warned, perhaps undoing everything he had put together.
He put away such troubling notions and considered. If he was right about who this "alchemist" was, if she was, indeed, the daughter of that stubborn, inconsequential, shop-keep of a businessman, then taking her measure would be an interesting diversion before she was finally put to death.
Greenman scanned over the work area and absently saw the already completed sign leaning against a far wall. A gaudily painted affair that read, "The Rolling Boulder."
He turned his attention from that upon hearing the footsteps of a well-dressed man, who approached, stopped, and quietly held up a leather briefcase.
The aide opened the case without speaking, allowing Greenman to peruse the contents with a pleased, leisurely air.
Seated deeply inside shaped depressions in a foam inlay were five fat, beautifully cut gems of various, subtle colors, that winked and shone from the interior lights above, and glowed from within with promised, eldritch power.
Smiling, Greenman finally gave voice to his anticipations.
"Soon," he quietly said.
The afternoon sun filtered and shone the through the Spanish Mission archways and windows of Crystal Cove High, illuminating the chattering throngs of students who moved through the hallways, and to their lockers, after attending their last class of the day.
On the various bulletin boards that hung about were pinned all manner of notices, reminders and events for all and sundry to see, but to Marcie Fleach, the only missive that she focused on morosely were the large, colorful posters that commanded their own places on the school walls.
Posters that boldly announced the arrival of this year's Tri-State Olympiad of Science.
From a nearby classroom, Jason Wyatt had waddled out onto the hall, and upon seeing Marcie staring at one of the posters, approached her.
"What's wrong, Marcie?" he asked from behind her. "You've been mopey all week."
Marcie glanced in Jason's direction, but didn't turn to acknowledge him, saying, "That's what I've always like about you, Jason. Your keen observational skills."
"Really?" Jason asked, brightening to this unexpected compliment, and failing to see the sarcasm underneath.
"No," Marcie deadpanned. "Look around."
Jason did as he was asked, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary, so he shrugged in response.
"Pretty much a normal day to me," he said, "Why? What's wrong?"
Marcie couldn't believe that such a self-declared scientist would not know what event was occurring this week. With a sigh, she turned to face Jason, and leaned back by the poster to rest.
"What's wrong is that the Olympiad is here," Marcie explained, ticking off the points with her fingers. "What's wrong is that the Olympiad doesn't allow solo competitors. What's wrong is that I hadn't finished any science projects to enter said Olympiad, but that's a moot point. See point two."
Marcie wistfully lifted her head to see the image that had so long filled her mind and, it appeared, her heart.
"And what's really wrong is...I still miss Velma," she admitted.
Jason watched the drama play out subtly in her eyes, then nodded his head in understanding.
"Oh. I miss her, too," he said, then decided to lighten the mood. It was the end of school for the day, after all. A good time of day, if ever there was any.
"How about we go over to Rude Pizza's. I've got some coupons, so I'll treat!" Jason offered.
Marcie berated herself inwardly. Her pining was having an immediate effect on her surroundings by bringing a friend down. She began to wonder if the saying, 'Misery loves company' could be proven and quantified into scientific terms. She certainly felt like there were grounds for further study.
"Thanks, Jason," she told him. "Sorry for being such an acid compound in the punchbowl. Tell you what. I have to check something out. Wait for me by the Clue Cruiser. I won't be long."
"Okay," Jason said, and then he left.
'I won't be long,' she thought when he was gone. 'Before I met V, I would have said, "I won't belong."
Principal Quinlan could be seen walking briskly through the thinning crowds towards Marcie, and the teen began to wonder why she was suddenly so popular today.
Marcie nodded to the woman, saying, "Congratulations, Miss Quinlan. Crystal Cove High made it to the Olympiad again this year."
The principal gave a giddy laugh. "Oh, as if you didn't know! This is so exciting, and the school owes its entry this year to hard-working students like you. What I can't understand is why you would bow out this year, Marcie? Your grades are wonderful. More than good enough to qualify. What's wrong?"
Marcie stifled another sigh upon hearing another "What's wrong?" question again.
"Velma's not here, ma'am," Marcie said.
Quinlan, remembering Dinkley's sudden absence, nodded. "Oh, that's right. You two were our dream team for quite a while. Well, how about getting someone else to partner with you. Crystal Cove High has got its share of Mensa applicants around here. How about that boy you hang out with sometimes. Jason Wyatt?"
Marcie gave a weak smile. "No thanks, Principal Quinlan. It's too late to sign up, anyway, and Jason's not my type, uh, I mean, we...don't see eye-to-eye on what kind of science projects to work on."
If Quinlan had noticed Marcie's flustering faux pas, she made no indication. Instead, she let the subject drop.
"Well, okay, Marcie," she relented. "But if you want to cheer us on, they're having the Olympiad's commencement at the convention center downtown."
Marcie managed another weak, gracious smile. No sense in bringing her down with my rain clouds, she thought.
"Thanks, Miss Quinlan," Marcie said. "I might just come. It'll give me a chance to check out the new talent, there."
"All right, Marcie. We'll see you there. Bye."
"Bye, Miss Quinlan," said Marcie, watching her principal go.
'I'm purposely going to an Olympiad,' she thought. 'that I'm already feeling depressed over.'
She shook her head slowly as she stared at the event poster again, and wondered if, deep down, she was a true glutton for punishment.
Mystery Incorporated settled deeply in the plush, leatherette seating of the booth in the Oklahoma small town cafe that they agreed meet in.
For several days now, after the end of some successful cases, one or two members would spot, just from the corner of their perception, the shape of a man standing in the far shadows of doorways, of corners, of eaves.
The shape would change slightly in the space of a few sightings, being taller in some cases, slimmer in others, but always noticed just far enough to seem innocuous. And every attempt to screw up enough courage to pursue has ended with Mystery Inc. literally chasing shadows.
The bell over the opening front door heralded the entry of Shaggy and Scooby from outside. Both sat on the outer seating of the booth, and made their report to the others.
"Did you guys see him?" Fred asked.
"Me and Scoob just finished checking around the block," Shaggy said, plucking a danish from the communal table. "No sign of that shadow man, so far."
"That's the fifth time we caught him checking up on us," Fred muttered. "I thought it was nothing until we saw him again in Colorado. Do you think we're being followed, gang?"
Daphne, following Velma's lead in cautiously glancing out the broad cafe window, answered, "It's beginning to look like it. Do you think it has anything to do with Mr. E? Someone he might've sent to keep tabs on us?"
Scooby, watching the humans ponder, chewed on the question himself, and, finding no answers forthcoming, shrugged and said, "Rry got ruthin'."
"It sounds like it's a mystery within our usual mysteries," Fred considered. "What do you think, Velma?" he asked, glancing over to the girl, who hadn't looked away from the window since Shaggy and Scooby's return.
Velma's eyes didn't dart or scan the parking lot and the surrounding street for anyone who fit her estimation of suspicious people. She had done that a while ago and found nothing to arouse that suspicion, so she spent her time now staring thoughtfully out into space.
In the time it took to span three states, their little road trip was becoming more and more intriguing with each new glimpse of this "shadow man," and she refused to believe that it had nothing to do with vulnerable Mystery Inc. being out on the road.
She considered Daphne's guess on the identity of the man's employer, as opposed to the man himself. Logically, it was a good place to start. It could be completely plausible that this mystery man was, indeed, a minion of Professor Harlan Ellison's.
Hadn't Ricky Owens, the first Mr. E, sent spies like Ed Machine, and even Marcie into their midst?
Ellison's own identity and past proved to be as cloaked as any shadow, at least until his recent confession of them. However, experience was forcing Velma not to dismiss her inquisitive feelings based on that admission alone, as she had at first blush, before leaving her home. His motivations and his seeming interest with her and her friends could be just as labyrinthine, just as inscrutable...and just as dark as the Evil Entity's.
Velma gave a quiet sigh. Thoughts were tumbling in her head like mis-matched socks in a dryer. Half-seen shadow man observations across three states, and unfinished investigations from their most recent case, not to mention, now troubling thoughts of possibly being lead around by the collective nose by a man whom she, admittedly, knew less than this universe's Marcie Fleach during one of her occasional and awkward web chats.
It felt too soon on her part to weigh in on a decision, but the gang needed the feedback.
"We are being followed, guys," she finally said. "But I'll have to get back to you on whether or not Mr. E has anything to do with it."
Marcie calmly wondered if it was too late to sneak out and meet Jason at Rude Pizza, as she stood in the middle of the convention center ballroom, like an island of awkward boredom in a sea of educational networking and bittersweet memories.
Looking around, she saw, past the folding chairs for the invited guests and the open space in the room, seemingly set aside for the event's mass schmoozing, the three large round tables, representing the three competing states of California, Washington, and Nevada, set up in front of the overlooking stage, that would seat the three teams of two science Olympiads, their parents, and their school's principal.
Off to one side of the ballroom was a long caterer's table, to which Marcie headed towards.
The commencement toast that both celebrated and kicked off the Olympiad was always an elaborate affair, crowded with proud, young entrants, even prouder parents, principals, the event's officials, and photographers and reporters from such magazines as The Geekly Weekly and The Nerd is the Word. Marcie could see that none of its pomp was missing, now.
Yet, every team she glanced at reminded her of those halcyon days of she and Velma. She simply couldn't help it. The raw hunger of scientific competition, the natural high of scholastic honor heaped upon their clever brows, even if they hadn't won anything, yet. It all felt so painfully familiar.
But it was more than even that. It was the memory of that wonderful, electric intimacy that told her that it was just Velma and her against the world. That feeling was all hers.
But Marcie found that the sudden nostalgia didn't reenergize her, as she hoped. It, instead, did the opposite. She felt like some retired, old athlete masochistically trying to recapture her youth by coming here to, as she had said earlier, "check out the new talent."
Marcie shook her head glumly, as she leaned against the table while it was being attended by a muscular specimen of the catering staff, and looked absently at a column of stacked cups nearby. She even sounded old.
As the groups of eager attendees met in tight, gregarious orbits, chatted, and then broke away, pleasantly, to form new clusters of social interaction, a well-dressed, brunette girl separated from the convivial herd, and approached an oblivious Marcie.
"Marcie? Marcie Fleet?" the girl gushed. "It's been awhile!"
Marcie awoke from her funk to acknowledge her, quizzically. "Fleach, actually. Who are you?"
The girl spoke, gesturing to herself. "You don't recognize me, Marcie? I'm Sara. Sara Avanti. Golden Dunes High, Nevada?"
Marcie dismissed her morose nostalgia and ran names and faces through her memories of past Olympiads. Finally a connection was established.
"Oh, yeah!" Marcie brightened with remembrance. "You competed four years ago when the Olympiad was held there. Sorry about what Team Washington's project did to your principal."
Sara shrugged in understanding. "I guess that's why they call it a freak accident."
"I see that he made this year," Marcie commented, nodding to where she could see him. "How's he doing, by the way?"
"Oh, he's fine," said Sara. "He's totally used to the cyborg prosthetics by now. Anyway, I just came over to see how you were doing. Where's your partner in crime? Velma?"
Marcie stiffened a little. She hadn't expected for anyone at the toast to come and ask her where her partner was. She wasn't entirely sure herself, most days.
"Oh, she...uh, couldn't make it this year," Marcie stammered slightly, but failed to hide the disappointment in her face. "She was called away. That why I decided not to enter this year."
Sara gave a sympathetic nod, then said. "That's a shame, Marcie. Well, silver lining! I guess now the rest of the states will have a fighting chance."
Marcie couldn't help but notice the nature of Sara's commiseration. It sounded as forced, as it was backhanded.
"Everybody had a fighting chance, back then, Sara," Marcie defended herself. "They still do. Velma and I were just-"
"Better?" Sara finished, the trace of an edge on the word.
Marcie gave a confused, yet wary glance at Sara. She wasn't so depressed as to miss an attack when it was issued, and Marcie was starting to feel more than a little put upon.
"I was going to say "lucky," that we had the opportunity to represent our state and school," Marcie explained, evenly. "Just like everyone else."
"But you and Velma won just about every Olympiad in recent years," Sara countered, her veneer of civility starting to wane. "Unlike everybody else."
Marcie gave a deep sigh of bored disgust. She was in no mood for a fight. "Are you sure you didn't come over here to tell me you're jealous, Sara? Because that's what it looks like from where I'm standing."
Sara, now conscious of her catty mood, returned to her civility with a smile that was both tight and unconvincing.
"I'm not jealous of anything, Marcie. I was just saying that with you and Velma out of the picture, now, things will be a little more...even...for the rest of us."
Marcie looked a little more confused. "Rest of us? From what I read, you're not even entered in the Olympiad this year. So, what's with the third degree?"
"My cousin's in the Olympiad, now, and we're gunning for the gold, this year," Sara said, irately crossing her arms. "I'm just making sure that everybody knows that. Don't want another blow-out from Crystal Cove, y'know?"
Now it was Marcie's turn to cross arms in irritation.
"Well, I'm sorry that you felt we were given such an unfair advantage, Sara," Marcie said, surly. "I guess if my mother married the CEO of AvantTech Systems, I'd expect things to come easier, too."
Sara stiffened. "What? What are you saying? That I went to my folks to get in? That I didn't work hard to get my entry into that Olympiad?"
Marcie just rolled her eyes at Sara. Bad enough that she came to this toast to begin with. Personally, there was nothing here for her. But now to be in the middle of a pissing contest with some bitter opponent who challenged her in what seemed like a hundred years ago, was beyond the pale.
The ballroom doors beckoned her, and she eagerly prepared to leave, but decided to fire one more debilitating salvo before disengaging.
"Your original science project on telecommunication was two soup cans and some string," Marcie said, dismissively. "proving conclusively that, at least, you've got nepotism down to a science." She then turned on her heel and departed from the girl.
From a group of chatting adults, Sara's mother approached her daughter, prompted not from hearing the exchange, but from reading the mutually negative body language of the two girls from a distance.
"Who was that, dear?" she asked Sara.
"Marcie Fleach," Sara sniffed.
"One of the winners of the last Olympiad? I heard that she's not competing, this year. Where's the other one? Vanna...Dinkle?"
Velma Dinkley, Mom," Sara corrected with a sigh. Her mother was terrible with names. "and she's a no-show."
"Oh," her mother said. "Is that's why Fleach isn't competing this time? The poor dear looked upset."
I guess so, Mom," Sara said, watching Marcie stomp past the closing ballroom doors, with a darkly, contented smile. "It's a shame how some people behave when they can't get their own way."
The sound of the Olympiad's host clearing his throat into the microphone of the podium on stage, caused everyone present to stop their present conversations and walk over to the caterers' table. It was time.
A small-statured caterer hefted a clear, ornate punchbowl filled with red, aromatic fruit juice onto the center of the table, and removed the plastic wrap from over its mouth.
Cups were separated from their stacks, filled with punch, and then passed out carefully to the thirsty guests. The host, from his position on stage, next to his podium, was offered a cup.
When all were offered a cup, the host raised his, in salute.
"To all of these worthy students who have earned the honor of competing in this year's Tri-state Olympiad of Science," he enunciated. "We wish you sharp, quick minds and long-lasting curiosity. Long live knowledge!"
With a earnest repeat of "Long live knowledge," from all in attendance, the guests raised their disposable glasses, heartily, and drank their fill.