More Darkness

8

The Dark Mystery of Doctor Bellum

Uneasy, Drake went back to the labs. His pass card worked on the metal door as well and he was inside. He took a second glance at his card, wondering how many doors his current access level could actually open.

A cloud of purple smoke surrounded him, catching him by surprise.

"Can you fire a gun?"

"No, I c-." He coughed. "Psychology and tactical planning are the real weapons."
"I see." Sara smiled at him through the dissipating smoke and gave a shrug, "So you don't want the gas gun?"

Well, of course he did! Drake raised an eyebrow.

"What did you do to me earlier? With the blinding light, and me waking up an entire hour of my life missing?"
"We were mainly scanning for conjunctive misnomers and chemical deficiencies. Life does like throwing bowls of lemons around."

She started walking off.

Drake clenched his teeth, looking desperately at what she was walking away from. "Uh, gas gun?" He pointed to it.
"You can't read braille?"
"It's just pattern recognition." Drake discounted tempestuously, "How hard can it be?"

He was inclined to follow her regardless and found himself staring at a new Darkwing Duck outfit. "Oo, nice; styling back a bit."
"This isn't about fashion... although..."
"It's totally about 'fashion', Doctor Bellum." He chuckled. "Heard my fanboy requests, huh?"
"The chief difficulty is getting a balance between tanking, and maneuverability. The way you did the obstacle course-."
"That wasn't even three hours ago!" He exclaimed, narrowing an eye. "You're a little too good."
"Why, thank you. Anyway, as I was saying, you have some bullet protection in the skivvy, but only for glancing shots." She pulled the costume off the display. "If someone's shooting at you, get out of the way and don't. Ever... Oh, no, that's no way to talk. Ahem. Before you go into a situation, always check the sniper positions."
Drake nodded, "Sensible and in character."

She handed him the new costume.
"A little heavier than I was expecting."
"So long as you can still dodge in it."

He considered it, "How does it fold?"
"You'd rather fold it up than put it on?"
"I'm going on a holiday, so as excited as I definitely am, if I can't carry it on me discreetly that'll put a real crimp in my day. Every day."
"There's a steel frame in the cape, here." She folded it down.
Drake watched in astonishment.

"You just turned my costume into an umbrella!"

"You're welcome." She held it out to him.

"Uh," Drake felt tense, fearful. "That's really weird, Doctor Bellum. People lose, and not to mention, pilfer... umbrellas all the ti-"
She held out her other hand.
Drake pulled his phone out from behind him. "And then you put a tracker signal into it?" What am I? A bat?
"You already have four chips on your person." She put the app in.
"You make a lot of good points." He back-peddled immediately.

"What's the washing instructions?"
"You can only put it in the washing machine once..."
"Huh?"
"And then you'll need a new washing machine."
"Ah." Drake started laughing. "You're worse than I am." He undid the catch and the cape released the costume. "Also, this is absolutely the coolest thing I have seen in this entire place. Thank you."

"Just remember when you're folding down, you're extracting air. Come on, I'll teach you some Braille."

He smiled, "Wait just a sec."

"Oh, you can get changed in there." She waved him off to a barely visible side door.

Drake went into the side room, briefly appreciating the insanity of his current situation as he changed.

He came out and dashed up the way to Bellum.

"So what formulas have you made?"
She picked up a canister. "Nutty Putty. So sticky, they'll wish they'd worn their Teflon coat. Onion-aide, decaffination. Grapple hook, net cast and you can't carry them at all if you're going the full umbrella."

"I know, right? The logistics of that TV show get mind boggling at times."

"You'll find yourself regrouping a lot. Go back to a safe point, recalculate your odds, reassess your strategies. That's the best thing about smoke bombs. Hows my redesign of your outfit?"

He tried a spring jump and roll near her and then turned back, "Yep; no issues... I feel very dressed." He flourished the cape but the metal caught. "Oh." He stopped, his smile fading. "This does something different."
"Yes, it's an umbrella."
He raised an eyebrow. "And doubles as a...?"
"An umbrella. It's a minor defence against shrapnel."
"What about a parachute?"
"Er, no. It's not strong enough for that."

He tried again. This was a little too difficult for him to fake. "Unfortunately... It..." He swallowed. "Needs to be fabric. Darn, I'm sorry!"
"What for? Let's troubleshoot this problem. What are you trying to do?"

"Be scary. You know the whole 'flapping terror' schtick."

"Where's your old one?"
He pulled out the bundle from his pocket and handed her dark purple layer.
Bellum lifted it up between them. "When they don't make things very well." She sighed.
"I was hardly up for knit-picking at the time."

She turned it on its side, cocking her head and sighed again. "...And then it's going to be we-ird..." She flipped it back to him like a tea-towel. "No, no, won't do. Here," She pulled out a slip of paper from her pocket, "You memorise the Braille patterns and I'll go play with the sewing machine. Also I'll need that." She pointed to his neck.

Drake undid the clasps and handed the starchy umbrella cape to her. "I do like it for what it is..." He said to her as she left. He saw her disappear to the right behind some large cylinders and let out a breath he'd been unconsciously holding. Then he realised that might be weird to the person watching the security camera.

"My goodness... I need to get out. Find a party to crash or go to or... knowing my track record: do both."

He looked down at the card and started memorising the dot patterns.

A huge almost industrial amount of noise shrilled into his ear slits. Drake put the code page on the grenade table and went to see what Doctor Bellum was doing.

She was standing over the controls, watching the screen of a giant box machine.

"That's the sewing machine?"
"Ah, well, it's not exactly a secret around here."
"How does it work?" He asked her, engaged in the concept.
"Oh. It best starts with a plan. You have to be very precise."

"You mean like with the clasp issue?"
"That's exactly..." She stared at him. "Now I feel rude for not asking."

Drake shook his head, "No that's fine." He chuckled, "we both get carried away. We might not have the exact same answer, but I'm sure yours is good enough..." He paused, "I mean, I'm 'sure' it's good enough!"

The machine stopped a moment later and Bellum opened the door, pulling out the fabric from inside.

"So, now this should work: Inside out and bingo." She clipped the fabric to the outside, leaving a collar flap to go over and hide the connectors. "How's that look?"

"Pretty good." He smirked, taking it from her and put the clasps onto his collar.

He picked up the fabric edge, raising the ends of the outer cape and swishing it forwards and back. "Ye-es!" He grinned at her. "Best ever."

"Thank you." She accepted with self-satisfaction.

"So it's just one last thing then." She walked him back up the way.

"The ultimate expression of thinking through a fight." She gestured to the gas gun on the table as she took the last steps toward it. "You have to be good enough."

Drake nodded. "I'm pretty good."
Bellum handed him the gas gun. "Go for it."

Drake stared at the gas gun in his hand. The weight, the feel, and was it bugged, sabotaged or booby trapped? Sabotaged, most likely. The trigger mechanism was probably made using a fast wear plastic so any test grenades would go off fine, but later down the line and he was in real combat, the grenade would get stuck and discharge in his hand.

"Um... Darkwing?"
"I am going to stop so many criminals with this thing; they 'will' be terrified."
"Have fun!"

He looked up at her cheery smiling face. She handed him the grenades in a string belt. "We-ell. Guess you're off on your holiday. Do have a good time."

He stood there, staring at her baiting him again.
"Sorry, you have a question?" It was almost imperceptible. Was this a hint? Might she really be trying to help him?
Drake's beak twitched into a smirk. "Doctor Bellum." He held out his hand, "May I have the formulas, please?"

"Oh. Why of course you may." She smirked back and handed him a laminated slip.

He pocketed it, took a step back and tipped his hat to her.