Disclaimer: I own everybody in this chapter except for Darby McGill, who is owned by Drew Marigold, a familiar face to those of you who have read School's Out.

Without further ado:

Total Apocalypse

"We bring in the fans."

-+-+

She blinked. And blinked again. Then she squinted, rubbed her eyes, and blinked for a third time. The grayness in front of her didn't disappear. She reached out one hand; the grayness was solid. It was in fact a wall of metal. Stiff with shock, she turned around to see a sparse conference room, and five other people who looked as dumbstruck as she did.

"Um…are we dead?" asked a petite redhead who was obviously still in her pajamas. "Because this isn't my room."

"It's not my office," said a well-dressed business man who was in his late twenties and was favoring a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. "Maybe we've been abducted by aliens."

"That is the biggest load of laundry I've ever heard," another girl broke in, plopping herself down in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs. "I say we're being held prisoner."

"What are you talking about?" a freckle-faced young man asked. "Why don't we just try the door and have a look at where we are?"

She spoke up for the first time. "How about some names first?" The five other people exchanged looks with each other.

"Our real names?" Freckle-face asked. "Or our pennames?"

"Who says we all have pennames?" Businessman demanded a trifle sharply. "Do I look like I have time to write?" The other five, however, were considering.

"Do you all have a penname?" Redhead asked. "Is that why we're all here?"

A tall, willowy blonde suddenly popped in, her fluted glass of champagne still in her hand. "What on earth--?" she gasped, spinning around and taking in all the faces around her.

"We don't know that we're on Earth anymore," Businessman said sourly, "so don't get your hopes up."

"Door's locked," someone else reported, an older, balding man dressed in green plaid pants who looked like he'd been snatched off a golf course. "Whoever's brought us all here, they don't want us getting out."

A few more people arrive, and the general noise level rose until Redhead climbed up on the conference table and stomped her bare feet loudly until the nine other people shut up. "Okay, here's the deal. We're all stuck here, we're all locked in, and we all have a mess of theories about what happened. But if we're going to do anything, we need to get organized. Now, who here has a penname?" Redhead raised her hand, and she followed suit. Even Businessman grudgingly lifted his hand and gave a half-hearted wave.

"All right," Redhead continued. "That's good. Since we don't know what circumstances we're here under, it might not be good to give out our real names. So, my name is Twinkiegal330, but you can call me Twink for short."

The tall blonde in her black evening dress had downed the rest of her champagne, and she spoke up quickly. "My misnomer is Wonkywizard, but I can go by Wonky, eef you prefer." Her slight French accent deepened and she swirled her empty glass nervously.

"Hi everyone, my name is OrangeSith, Star Wars junkie extraordinaire," Freckle-face said. "Sith for short, if you'd like. Nice to meet you."

"Hamster Dancer," Businessman said quickly, his face purpling slightly at the muted guffaws that went around the room. "HD."

She went next, to squelch the titters. "Masked Lorcan, call me Lor. Let's speed this up, we need a way out of here before the kidnappers show up."

A petite brunette with a fat braid hanging to her waist shrugged as she looked around. "Darby McGill."

"Kade," said the girl lounging in the chair.

The golfer shifted on his feet. "PurpleAntsAteMyPants. Ants is easier to remember and less of a mouthful, I think."

OrangeSith sprang forward. "Dude, you wrote that column on defining sci-fi from fantasy for dummies! Very cool!"

Twinkiegal cleared her throat and nodded to the last two people. "Make it quick."

"Psychadelio, Psych." A dark-blond man bobbed his head at nothing in particular. "Groovy."

"Chalupa," a sassy-looking Latina said crisply. "Call me Lupa. Let's get a plan working."

"Already there," Sith said. "There are air vents. A natural oversight, but it's in every single book, isn't it? We can push the table over here and—"

"Er, slight problem," Psychadelio broke in. "Table's bolted down, dude."

"Well, the chairs aren't," Chalupa snapped. "Honestly, use your brain. We can build a miniature pyramid of chairs to get up there."

Ants held up his hands in a silencing gesture. "Hey, hey! A little less advice from all parties, all right? First of all, does anybody here have a pocket knife or anything we can use to unscrew the cover?"

"Ah!" Wonkywizard spoke up. "I have just zee thing." Without hesitation, she plunged one hand down the front of her evening gown and came up with a Swiss Army Knife. "My papa would never allow me to leave zee house without it, and now it is habeet, you vould say."

"I don't even want to know…" HD muttered. "Psych and Sith, let's get these chairs over there." Through a concerted effort on the part of the stronger authors, a slightly precarious tower of hard chairs was constructed, and Wonky was allowed to ascend. Hamster Dancer and Psychadelio stayed close in case the chairs decided to wobble.

Wonkywizard carefully worked at the screws, handing them down one by one to HD. With a crow of victory, she lifted the vent free and passed it down as well, brushing a fine layer of dust from her evening dress. She then proceeded to stand up on the uppermost chair, her head and shoulders disappearing into the ceiling. "Eet's very dusty een here," she said, her voice echoing metallically down to the others. "But here we go." With that, the rest of her disappeared, stiletto heels and all.

"All right, who's the most agile?" Ants asked. "The last person should be able to climb the chairs without help and kick the chairs over. Any takers?"

"Well, that would be none of the men," Masked Lorcan said. "I've got long legs and a pretty good sense of balance. I can brace the base while all you guys get up there and also go last."

Chalupa nodded. "I'll help her. Psych, HD, Sith, and Ants go next. Then you, Darby, Kade, and Twinkie. Sound good?"

There was a general murmur of assent, and she and Chalupa moved to relieve the men of their positions as one by one they followed Wonky. The chairs wobbled a little, but nobody fell and in a matter of minutes only women were left in the room.

"Okay Darby," Twink encouraged. "Let's get out of here."

Darby took an involuntary step backwards, her blue eyes wide, face pale. "I...c-can't," she stammered, gaze fixed on the vent as if it would jump down and bite her.

There was a brief moment of surprised silence. Chalupa found her voice rather quickly and said sharply, "What do you mean, you can't? Just get up there, or it'll be all our hides on the line!"

"Lupa, shut up!" Twink said quickly. "She's probably claustrophobic. Right?" she asked.

Dragging her eyes off the hole in the ceiling, she nodded quickly at Twink, "I don't even do elevators. I'm sorry..." her voice trailed off as she glanced involuntarily at the grate and shuddered. "Go ahead. I'll just...stay here," she finished lamely, backing up again.

There was muted bumping from above, and Sith's face appeared in the hole. "It isn't cramped up here at all, it's actually quite wide, Darby. Come on, nothing bad will happen."

Chalupa couldn't restrain her impatience. "All right, you stay here with her, I'm going up. Twink, Kade, follow me." And she was gone without a word, causing Sith to pull his head out of sight.

Looking more frustrated with herself than the rest of the group put together, Darby nodded to Twink again, wrapping her arms around her stomach, "Go ahead, I'll be okay."

"We're not leaving anybody here when we don't know what will happen." Ants had taken Chalupa's place near the hole. "If we can move around up here, then there's got to be a lot of room."

Darby gave Ants a dry look. "We don't know staying here isn't the safest option, either, do we? How do we know leaving is our best idea? No, thanks. I'll stay here," she concluded firmly.

"Right, that's it," the silent Kade suddenly snapped. Without warning she threw a right hook that caught Darby in the jaw, snapping her head to the side. Masked Lorcan caught her as she fell. "Tie her up, we'll have the guys pull her up there and we can slide her to wherever we're going."

"Yeah, where exactly is that?" Lor asked as she stripped off her long-sleeved shirt followed by her jeans. "Let's make a rope. C'mon girls, off with those clothes, you'll get them back in a few."

"Whoa, averting eyes up here," Ants called down. "Need anything from us?"

"Yeah, a hand!" Twink said, knotting the legs of her pajama bottoms around Darby. "And any spare clothes you can come up with!"

There was a mixture of clangs, bumps and thumps from on high. There were a few muttered words and the distinct sound of HD's voice: "This is an Armani suit!"

It was Psychadelio who answered him, "Nobody cares about your duds. Either pitch in or I'll knock you out like Kade did to Darby."

"Incoming," Chalupa called down before letting the armful of clothes they'd gathered fall. Between the three of them, Twink, Kade, and Lor had gotten Darby tied up in a form of sling with a bit of rope left over. They quickly knotted the new garments together and Twink climbed up the chairs to hand Ants the end of the rope.

"Okay, haul away!" Kade and Lor stood on opposite sides of Darby to make sure someone was there to catch her if their knots didn't hold. Slowly, slowly the people up above pulled, and Darby rose up into the air. With a little maneuvering, she was up and into the ventilation system without so much as stirring.

"Twink, follow and make sure that if she comes around, she can't get past you," Lor said. "Kade, after you."

"Don't we get our clothes back first?" Twink demanded.

"No, we've got no time. Listen!" Kade interrupted. They could hear loud footsteps approaching the door. In a flash, Twink was out of sight, and Kade was right behind her. Lor swiftly followed, but the chairs beneath her tilted dangerously before giving way. She missed grabbing the edge of the hole by inches, falling among the upturned chair legs hard.

"Quick, grab!" The clothes-rope tumbled down in front of her eyes, and Lor caught it before it hit the ground. Then her head was snapped back with the force of five people yanking on the other end. She had liftoff without even realizing it and narrowly missed banging her head on the ceiling as she shot through the hole seconds before the door clicked open below.

"The vent," Kade whispered, passing it to her. As silently as possible Lor slipped it back into place, using someone's donated hairtie to hold it. And then they all held their breaths.

A muffled moan broke the silence as Darby's brain remembered what consciousness felt like.

"Oh, keep her quiet," Twink begged from behind Lor. Kade was closest, and clapped her hand over Darby's mouth. They heard voices below, but none dared to press their ear to the vent as the voices grew nearer.

What with the pain radiating through her head and neck, the dark, suffocating gray of the interior, the inability to move and the hand over her mouth, Darby's brain was trying to figure out what to panic about first. It chose the pain and called on her hand to massage her temple. Unfortunately, as the tied hands obeyed and moved upwards, her elbows bumped the edge of the air shaft. Her eyes widened as memory returned in a flood. Vent. She was in the vent. Air, there wasn't nearly enough air and there was a hand on her face, stealing her air! Reflexes took over and, in an age-old defense move, she bit the offending hand.