In this chapter: Activating an artefact is never as straight forward as one would think. And there is always a downside, aside from bells that cannot be unrung.
When Myka came to, she was wedged in the corner of a holding cell, rather uncomfortably: her shoulder jammed into the cold wall, her head resting in the gap between two bars. She groaned and attempted to move - a huge mistake - as dizziness took hold and she could do nothing but let her body fall limp where it was.
She felt fingers at the nape of her neck, attempting to rub it. She groaned again and opened her eyes, turning her head as far as she could (given that giants were stomping around inside her skull) to find Helena on the other side of those bars, with her hands cuffed, attempting to relieve Myka's headache. Myka could just about register that the way Helena positioned her hands must have been stupidly uncomfortable for her as well.
"What..." Myka started but stopped, her jaw pulsing with pain. "What happened?" she muttered quietly.
"We've been kidnapped, it appears," Helena said, her tone light. That wasn't good. A light tone meant Helena was trying to be reassuring, which meant things were bad. Really, really bad.
"Where's Pete?" Myka asked, slurring her words slightly.
"I'm afraid I don't know," Helena said, apologetically. "He wasn't with us when I woke - which was about ten minutes ago, by the way."
"Where are we?"
"I don't know that either," Helena said. "I haven't heard any noise since we arrived. We could be anywhere."
Myka's mind was slow to come up with solutions or even ideas. Those giants stomping around up there are stomping through thick mud, it would seem. If only she didn't get rid of the earwig, she chided herself, only to argue back that they would probably have taken it out anyway, whoever they are.
She then slowly - very slowly - looked around her. There were no windows, no visible doors either. There was the cell she was in, and the cell where Helena was, and a wall opposite the wall she was leaning against (which was grey and had no distinguishing features whatsoever) and that was about all she could see. "How many other cells are there?" she asks.
"Two more, one on either side of your cell and mine," Helena answers.
"Any doors?"
"One, fortified, by the looks of it. The handle, rather helpfully, is on its opposite side."
"Goddammit. Why would they kidnap us if they have the shard already?" Myka was trying to be logical. "What do they gain by kidnapping us?" Myka asked, her words coming out slowly and still slightly slurred as she tried to articulate her thoughts.
"I don't know, darling. I saw them hit you and then I believe one of them used a taser to incapacitate me. I assume that someone dressed us in these clothes, since we were a little... unfit for company. Which is rather disturbing. And that is all I can tell you," Helena said, her face creased up in worry.
"Can you pick the lock?" Myka asked wearily. Helena shook her head.
"Even if I could manage it with these cuffs on, I'm afraid they took away the tools I usually have with me. For now, we are quite stuck," Helena said.
Myka's head was swimming, so she gave up on trying to figure a way out. "I guess we just wait and see what happens?" she asked, and Helena nodded.
"Perhaps we should talk, since we have the opportunity, about what happened earlier, in my hotel room," Helena said hesitantly.
Myka blinked slowly. "Yeah..." she slurred, "perhaps we should talk," she said and tried to pull herself up so she could look at Helena. That was quite possibly the most graceless moment of her life, looking like a fawn finding its feet, but she managed to sit upright look to her left, where Helena was sitting lotus-style, as close as she could to the row of bars that separated them.
Helena smiled at the sight in front of her. Myka in brown scrubs, just about holding herself up, just about holding her head straight, just about holding her eyes open. She reckoned the blow they rendered to the right side of Myka's face (which was making its presence known in glorious technicolour) was excruciatingly powerful. And still - there was no person on earth she would rather be with right now.
"What?" Myka interrupted her adoration gruffly.
"Would you like to start or should I?"
"You can start."
Helena looked at Myka for a moment and considered what it was she wanted to say. It was her idea to talk, after all. It was her idea to kiss Myka. The problem is - Helena had worked so hard throughout the time she had known Myka to never say such words and really mean them. Perhaps now was the time. "I was rather hoping it will be you coming to fetch the shard. I have missed you terribly, Myka."
Myka swallowed. It was partly from nausea, but also from nerves. She had not been expecting this moment to come at all, never mind in a prison cell in an unknown location. And she was probably concussed. She took a deep breath, however, and ploughed on.
"I... I really missed you too, Helena," she said, before chuckling slightly, causing her headache to worsen momentarily. "In case that wasn't obvious, when I pretty much jumped you."
Helena chuckled richly. "I don't think the fault was all yours, Myka. I'm afraid my good intentions fled as soon as I hugged you. You felt so very wonderful in my arms."
Myka stared, a little brainlessly. "You... what about when we hugged in Boone? You managed to resist my charms then," she stated.
Helena's face fell. She'd done a lot in her life. A lot of good, a lot of bad and a lot of crazy. But parting from Myka in Boone was rather a regrettable moment in her tapestry. While she may not be going on a time-travelling bender to try and fix it, it is definitely a moment in time she would have preferred to have happened differently. "I have nothing to say for myself other than I had made a mistake then," she said after a while, "I am sorry."
Myka wasn't sure if her feeling side-swiped by Helena's honesty was because she didn't expect it or because it was some kind of residual momentum from the fist that collided with her face not too long ago. "Sorry?"
"I am sorry I wasn't a bigger person then, in Boone," Helena spoke with conviction which was mysteriously sourced, "I am sorry I let myself believe you when you were clearly being noble."
Myka closed her eyes and swallowed again, recalling the details of that moment, when she chose to let go of Helena out of some misguided notion that the smartest woman she knew would come to realise (sooner than she actually had) that she didn't belong in those suburbs with that man. That same misguided notion that she should let go of Helena, because Helena would surely find her way to her – but that part of Myka's misguided chivalry is something Myka doesn't dare think of because it raises all sorts of questions she doesn't like answering.
"I'm sorry I didn't hear the words you were saying without actually speaking them," Helena took a breath, "because I love you too."
Or at least that's what Myka thought Helena said, because a loud series of metallic clangs rattled the cells just after Helena said "I".
"What in the hell was that?" she exclaimed, making an ill-fated attempt to get to her feet, which instead ended with her landing rather heavily on one shoulder on the floor. From her prone position, she saw men in the same balaclavas and black clothing from earlier. They were carrying stun guns, now, instead of handguns, but they had the same rigid posture that bespoke discipline and obedience.
They entered Helena's cell, dragging her to her feet and taking her with them. Helena caught her eye and mouthed, "I love you," as they took her out of the cell to god only knew where. Myka tried again to get to her feet but she ended up falling more severely this time, catching her head on the cell wall. She landed on the floor, on her back, and the last thing she saw before passing out was a pair or booted feet approaching her at speed.
When Myka came to again, she felt even less comfortable than she felt when she came to the first time. Her shoulders felt like they were encased in iron. Her whole upper torso, actually, felt like it was being forced back and held tight. When she tried to move her right arm she found out why - her arms were bound tightly behind her back.
She straightened her head with tremendous effort and looked down - her chest was strapped as well. She was sitting on a chair in the middle of a small room that seemed to have no doors or windows or anything of any kind, except some pale LED lighting. It was also entirely still and silent - no sign of Helena or Pete or anyone. Or anything.
This was not turning out to be a good day for Agent Myka Bering.
She couldn't work out what they could possibly want from her. If they had the Liberty Bell shard, they could be taking over the world or starting world war III or enacting whatever other crazy plan they had in mind. What did they want with her? And where was Helena? And Pete? This couldn't be good.
"Agent Myka Bering," a voice said, emanating from somewhere behind her, she thought.
"Yes?" she replied acerbically.
"We are going to ask you a series of questions. If you answer them honestly, no harm will come to you or your colleagues. If you do not..."
Suddenly the wall in front of her lit up - she wasn't sure if it was a screen or a window. But in front of her there were images of two rooms, both of which held 2 figures. On the left, an unconscious Helena was hanging from chains that were affixed to the ceiling, and a man in a mask and black clothing had a gun held to her head. On the right, it was the same scene, except the person hanging from the ceiling was Pete. Myka swallowed and tried not to panic.
It's a terrible sensation, when one's heart stops beating, when blood stops coursing through arteries and veins, stops carrying oxygen and carbon dioxide, stops carrying warmth. It's a terrible feeling of a gripping chill, of the clutches of death; Myka knew that her heart hadn't actually stopped beating, but the grip of those clutches felt very real to her, more so than any other time she found her life hanging in the balance.
"Sure," Myka said curtly.
"As a gesture of good faith, Agent Bering, and to show you your colleagues are still alive..." the voice boomed and stopped suddenly.
The hooded characters on the screens picked something up from the floor next to them - containers, mugs? - and brought them to Helena's and Pete's mouths, in eerie synchronicity.
Pete and Helena seemed to be taking a mouthful of whatever that was in those cups. Helena spat the liquid out but Pete swallowed it and shook his chained arms.
"How does the Liberty Bell work?" the voice asked.
Her blood was turning to ice in her veins. Myka Bering didn't love easily, but when she did, she loved fiercely. And the two people she loved most in the world were in front of her, with guns to their heads. But she had been here before, in a situation where the fate of the world was at stake, and she knew that she shouldn't even have to think about this. If these people didn't know how to use the Liberty Bell, then they couldn't use it to take over the US and then the world. Two lives balanced against that was nothing. These two lives, however... Myka would be lost without them.
"I'm Agent Myka Bering, badge number 379, and I have no idea what you're talking about," was the best she could come up with, because that's what she'd been trained to say in these situations, and her concussed brain didn't seem to be working the way it usually did, and there was just so much at stake.
In the two seconds of silence after coming up with that answer, she excused this as a good way for testing the boundaries of her captors.
The silence was broken by a muffled cry from Pete, who appeared to have collapsed after being zapped by what looked like a cattle prod. Helena made no sound, but her body fell limp on the screen.
They mean business, she thought and clenched her jaw, knowing it will bring her a lot of pain. She couldn't be the only one not suffering.
"You're making a mistake," she gritted through her pain, as inspiration suddenly hit her.
There was an audible pause, and the voice said, simply, "Explain".
"If you want the Bell to work, you need all of us," she said. "Do you even know who she is?" she managed to inject some disdain into her tone.
"Yes," the voice said, but there was a note of uncertainty in its tone. "Helena Wells, formerly Emily Lake."
"You don't know a damn thing," Myka said contemptuously. Her brain, however, was spinning. How could she use this?
There was a longer pause this time. "I know more than you realise, Ophelia," the voice seethed from behind her, "let me send Colorado Springs PD an anonymous tip about Cuban contraband in your dad's book shipments," followed by another quick silence. "Other than being the mind behind HG Well's writing before the turn of the previous century, the only good Ms. Wells, or Ms. Lake, or whatever name she's going by now, is - is by being leverage."
Myka tried not to cringe. This could be a hint that they are after something only she knows, something only she has - if they really are using Helena as leverage.
Then again, they could be lying.
She could lie back. "If that's all you think she's good for, you obviously don't know what you're talking about," Myka swiped her tongue against the bottom of her front teeth, pretending to think. "Fine," she said. "Kill her. Kill them both. And kiss your chance at using the Liberty Bell goodbye."
The voice paused again, and Myka took in a long, shaky breath, trying to appear as calm as possible. She had made her choice, for now. Muddy the waters, make them think that Helena and Pete were integral to any chance at activating the Bell and its powers. And then...? Find a way to get them all out of this, alive, with the Bell safe.
Not too much to ask from Agent Myka Bering.
But then a black hood was thrown over her head, the chest strap was loosened and a solid hand was tucked in her armpit to roughly lift her up just before throwing her on the ground where she hit her head again and blacked out.
After she was unchained and while being dragged somewhere, Helena moved each of the muscles in her limbs subtly, checking for damage. To any onlooker, it would look like her muscles were twitching involuntarily, but it was Helena twitching them on purpose. She had been captive for weeks, months even, before the Bronze, and Victorian England was even less forgiving with its incarceration conditions than this. She knew how prevent muscle damage from settling. So far, she reckoned, her right shoulder was dislocated.
Thinking of the last time she dislocated that shoulder relaxed her a little bit (it involved her grappler and a speeding SUV and an agent she'd only recently confessed her love to). Given her past experiences of being held captive, Helena also knew how to use her memories to lighten up the darkest, most still of existence; and her memories of Myka, particularly ones made very recently, were lightening indeed.
She was then manhandled onto a chair of sorts, her arms were bound tightly behind her and her chest strapped almost to the point that her breathing was constricted.
And then, the hood came off.
"Miss Wells," a voice said. She'd heard it before, when it was trying to persuade Myka to give up the secrets to the Bell. It was an unusual voice; one that could potentially be male or female. Or perhaps it was altered somehow.
"Yes?" she replied smoothly.
"You know we want the Bell. What would you do, what would you give, to save Myka Bering?"
The wall in front of her lit up, showing an image of two rooms. In one, Pete Lattimer, and in the other, Myka. Both were chained, suspended from the ceiling, and accompanied by black-clad men with guns.
The man in the cell with Myka started, visibly, and then nodded in response to whatever he'd heard. He drew back his arm and hit Myka in the head with the butt of the gun, hard.
Helena screamed in rage and fear. All the pleasant memories she had had a few moments ago had all but vanished, and were replaced with ones she had fought for a century to subdue. Fought, and failed, it should be noted.
Myka already had a bad concussion. More damage to her head could kill her. That blow alone could have fractured her skull. Helena had helplessly observed a scene like this before and it drove her mad. She could not sit idly and watch another one unravel.
"I would do anything to save her. Anything!" she shouted.
"Good. Then you will come with us, Miss Wells, and show us how to activate the Bell. If you are obedient, we will drop Agent Bering at a hospital. If you are not... we will drop her at the morgue."
She was hooded again, unstrapped, and then pulled up by her dislocated shoulder. The pain from her shoulder wasn't enough to make her scream, but the thought of losing Myka was. That was an unkind thought to keep in her mind while her world darkened again and she was hauled elsewhere.
She heard two doors opening and closing, she heard the hum of an elevator and felt it stop after an ascent. As she was dragged out she felt a chill in the air, but also freshness that did not exist wherever it was they were being held.
The hood came off again.
She was standing in the middle of a large and empty warehouse, its windows boarded up, but not so tightly as to keep the fresh air out. Fresh air that smelled salty. They were close to the ocean.
The man in black spun her around and there it was - secure to a large wooden truss - the Liberty Bell.
"You said you would do anything, Ms. Wells," the voice hummed from everywhere, seemingly, "then do it."
"How did you manage to steal the Liberty Bell?" she asked, impressed despite herself. She thought even she might have had trouble with that task.
"That is not your concern," the voice said. She turned her head slightly, to meet his or her eyes, but was greeted with a sharp slap to her face instead.
"Eyes front, Miss Wells," the voice said, a hint of laughter in its tone. She ground her teeth.
"Where is the shard?" she asked, and it was placed in her hand by Goon number 1 on her right. She looked at the thin piece of metal, and a plan formed. If she concentrated and moved quickly enough, this could be a deadly weapon. Or it could get her killed, along with Myka and Pete.
"What assurances can you give me that Myka will be safe?" she asked, and the Goon number 2 on her left shifted, showing her a tablet on which a video feed was displayed. A video feed from the back of a van being driven by yet another black-clad goon, a feed which image shifted from the driver to Myka's wan and bruised face and her listless body rocking gently on a gurney as the van hurtled down streets Helena couldn't possibly recognise due to the poor quality of the image. After a minute or so, the van stopped and the camera was handed to the driver who climbed out of the van and aimed it at the building it parked next to – a hospital. Which hospital – she could not tell. He then walked to the back of the van and pulled the gurney Myka was on out, and headed towards the doors.
"You have your assurance, Miss Wells. Now, how do we use the Bell?" the voice asked.
A new idea took hold and she got ready to tell the biggest whopper of her life convincingly. "I have to be the one to use it first and I will then transfer its powers to you," she said, "but only once Miss Bering and Mr. Lattimer are safe."
"What do you take me for, Miss Wells?" the voice huffed angrily.
"You must be aware of the history of the Bell in order to understand how to operate it. I gather that you had tried placing the shard in the crack and nothing happened, am I right?" she even astonished herself with her cocky ingenuity.
There was no answer.
"I will take your angry silence as confirmation," she smiled slyly. If whoever-it-was tried to put the shard in and it didn't work, there is a good chance it won't work for her either. "The Bell will only abide by those who have a true cause with which to ring it."
"And you have a true cause, Miss Wells?" the voice asked dismissively.
"Have you read any of my stories? My essays?"
Another long silence.
"And how will you be transferring its power to me?" the voice questioned.
"It's a simple matter of using one or two artefacts from the Warehouse," she brushed off arrogantly.
"Do not toy with me, Wells," the voice barked, "Just as you want your assurances, I want mine. Which artefacts will transfer the power of the Bell?"
Helena took a deep breath and considered which artefacts could do this. She considered lying for a moment, but given this person managed to steal the Liberty Bell and already knew about the Warehouse, she'd better play it safe. "A lock of Sampson's hair and a bus pass of a singer called Bob Dylan, of course."
The voice said nothing for a while.
Helena realised she may have landed them in more trouble if the voice and its goons attempted to seize the Warehouse first. She did, however, hope that much like most villains, this one too was too impatient to see their plan unfold. That's where she excelled as a villain, she congratulated herself. Evil geniuses are a dime a dozen. But ones with blessed with patience are few and far between.
"There is also a strong possibility that attempting to use the Bell will kill me," she said with a shrug, goading the voice to come to a faster decision, "which will make for a convenient ending to our encounter for you."
"Fine, then," the voice said after long minutes of silence. "Use the Bell."
Before doing this, she had to consider her options because she could feel the lure of the Bell's powers already, and it was yet to be active: she could slit the throat of Goon number 2 with the shard and then incapacitate Goon number 1, with the risk of more Goons coming about (and with the hope that none would); she could pretend to stick the shard in the Bell and exercise a more elaborate plan that will send her to the very belly of this conspiracy where she could untangle it; she could stick the damn shard in the damn crack and hope that it didn't work; and if it did, she will do her darned best to fight it and not succumb to its corrupting powers.
And for the life of her, Helena truly believed that attempting to activate the Bell would be the lesser of all possible evils.
She decided to take the chance. She didn't know what the odds were for fighting; she couldn't see her enemies, didn't know how many of them there were, and how many of them were armed. So the only thing to do was to try and activate the Bell.
"Stand back, then, sirs," she said, as confidently as she could muster, and she stepped forward, waiting for any objections. The information they had wasn't specific about who had to place the shard, but chances were that if she placed it and it worked, she would have control of the Bell.
She placed the shard of metal carefully in the gap, sending up a prayer to any deities listening that the Bell would choose her as its channel and not the kidnapper or his goons. She watched in amazement as the Bell repaired itself, a bright light shining from it that centred - on her. She could feel the power of it calling her, so for her first trick, she said, "Drop all of your weapons and lie face down on the floor." She turned gingerly and found herself facing the elevator, with six - no, seven men, all dressed in black and with numerous weapons next to them, all lying face down on the floor. She took a deep breath of relief. She had become the master of the Bell's powers.
"Kill them, kill them all," the Bell whispered, and Helena tilted her head, thinking - why not? They would have done the same to her. They would have done the same to Myka. She ground her teeth and took a deep breath, her rational mind reminding her that she might need them alive to locate Pete and Myka. They could live, for now. But with each moment that the Bell tolled its power into her mind, her resolve to do the right thing waned.
Pete first, the voice of her own mind shouted over the sound of the Bell in her ears. Pete, for all his flaws and childlikeness had a strong moral compass and a mean right hook - so if anyone would be able to keep her on track and not kill anyone she didn't absolutely have to, Pete would be it.
As she walked over the bodies of the men who laid face down on the floor, she was considering that actually, it might be necessary to kill these mercenaries, for surely they will crop up at some point down the line and will need to be incapacitated anyway.
She took another breath and tightened her fists when she felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder - right, that was still out of joint. Killing these men wouldn't be half the fun with her right arm out of the game...
Pete! her mind shouted again, and she summoned the elevator. "Tell me where Lattimer is held," she spoke with dark authority.
A cacophony of voices came from the 7 men, from which she made out Pete's location, and Helena focused on the hum of the elevator to keep the murderous impulses at bay.
"Pete," she choked out, as she used the key provided by one of the goons to unlock the door. "I'm afraid I had to use the Bell to take control of the situation and to ensure Myka's safety. And I'm afraid it seems rather likely that it will turn me into - what is it you call me?"
"Lady Cuckoo?" he coughed, still hanging from chains. She unlocked those, too, focusing on the task fixedly to avoid the tolling of the Bell in her head.
"Yes, that's it," she said, and his eyes widened.
"Okay, Helena. We'll fix this. Just you hold on. Think about Myka, what she would want you to do. Before you say anything, just ask yourself that, okay? What would Myka do?"
She grasped at that thought, desperately, and repeated it over and over in her head like a mantra. She half-supported Pete upstairs, finding the goon squad still prone on the floor. Pete picked up a few of their weapons, slinging one around Helena's neck and stuffing a handgun into her pants pocket, before finding zip ties in one of the squad's pocket and using it to disable all of them.
"Where is your boss?" Helena asked, and they all fell over themselves to tell her. The voice had been coming from a speaker behind them, but the man in charge was in a penthouse hotel room to the North. They gave her the name of the hotel and the room number.
"Where is Agent Bering?" she asked, finally, and again, they all told her, over and over. She was at a hospital a few miles away. Their boss had sent the signal to have her brought in as soon as she had placed the shard into the Bell.
"How should we play this, Pete?" Helena asked. "I don't know what to do, and I think that if I give any orders to anyone, even inadvertently, I could end up having hordes of followers. Which will make the temptation a little more difficult to resist," Helena said.
Pete rubbed his temple, where a wild bruise had started to blossom. "If it were Myka and me, we'd have split up, one for the hospital and one for the boss, get 'em all at the same time," he said after a moment.
"Wise," Helena croaked, fighting the loud ringing that dominated her thoughts, "otherwise we run the risk of one or the other fleeing."
Pete looked at her sombrely, opening and closing his mouth with no sound coming out.
"What?" Helena growled impatiently.
"You're not Myka," Pete whispered with a wince, expecting the wrath of HG in her altered state.
The volume suddenly increased inside her head. Whispers of "Kill him. Such insolence cannot be tolerated..." itched across the inside of her skull. There was a distant horror at the idea of it, but the larger part of her rejoiced at the notion. To crush his skull, to make him bang his head against the wall until he died... the appeal was unending. She felt her lips stretch into a feral grin, and Pete faltered, stepping back. The fear in his eyes snapped her out of it. For now. She rubbed at her forehead, trying to erase the way those words and images had scurried through her like scarab beetles, glistening and deadly.
"Stay close to me, Pete," she said hoarsely, handing him her tesla. "Should it seem that I have lost control, do not hesitate." She held his eyes until he nodded, swallowing thickly.
"We should check on Myka, first. Then we find the one who did this," she said, and they made their way to the car, each leaning on the other for support.
Eight minutes' drive feel like an eternity when an unfamiliar yet very compelling voice in your head tells one to murder their driver. Helena took the whole of two breaths during the journey, having found that starving herself of oxygen helped to keep the voice at bay.
Breathing exercises were of no use when they left the car, approached the reception desk at the ER, and Helena's rage - her own rage as opposed to that fuelled by the Bell - overtook her, knowing she played a part in causing Myka's injuries. All this anger tapped into Helena's existential anxiety, the very same anxiety that brought her to stand at the Caldera in Wyoming with a trident.
Her brain began moving in a familiar pattern - the world was lost, humanity destroyed everything it touched. Everything good and pure in this world, everything innocent was tainted. How could she have ever thought to bring a child into this? A quick death would be a mercy.
Her first sight of Myka drove the air from her lungs. Myka's head was wrapped in bandages, and an earnest young doctor was talking about ICP and burr holes and all sorts of medical jargon that Helena understood and that enraged her. They had drilled into Myka's skull to relieve the pressure, cut her beautiful hair. She still might not wake. Helena felt the rage fill her, and she suppressed a scream. She thought, distantly, that those men, still back on the floor at the warehouse abasing themselves, should beat each other until their skulls split, and she smiled as she felt them do just that. They bled profusely cutting themselves out of the zipties Pete placed them in, paired off to trade blows and kill each other, carefully ensuring that each blow did the maximum damage to please their mistress.
"What are you smiling at, Helena?" Pete asked nervously, and she shook her head.
"Nothing you need concern yourself about, Peter," she said airily, and with one last look at Myka, she stepped out of the room. The young doctor was waiting to see if they had any more questions. Helena leaned over and whispered in her ear, and the woman nodded, almost bowing as she backed away.
"What did you say to her?" Pete asked, and Helena just smiled.
They stopped to call Claudia and ask her and Steve to come down and assist them. The Bell would need to be neutralised, and soon, if Helena was to keep her control, and they just didn't have the equipment with them to do that. It wasn't going to fit in a standard neutraliser bag, that was for sure.
"Let's go get our guy," Pete said, and they made their way to the parking garage to find their villain.