4~
The gentleman turned his back to Marcie and closed the door with a patient slowness that spoke of the confidence of the kill. The sound of the lock clicking was the dread signal for action on both their parts.
He turned to face his target in time to feel his feet freeze under a spreading, irregular slab of ice. Marcie, thankful that the office was furnished with a hardwood floor for her capsule to break against, threw another Insta-Ice capsule behind him.
The capsule broke against the wall and splashed blue liquid that bridged the gap between it and the gentleman, freezing, mid-air, into a crooked, icy hand whose thick fingers clawed into the side of his torso and shoulder, immobilizing him.
Although he still had one arm free to grasp or strike, Marcie didn't think he could reach her. The gentleman was far enough away from the door that she felt confident that she could unlock and open it without interference.
She stepped away from the desk to prove that theory, when she stopped in incredulous horror.
The gentleman gave a twisting shrug, cracking the ice that held him from behind. It came apart easily and fell into wet chunks to the floor. He then looked down at the rest of the ice that clung stubbornly to his feet. He balled his fists and hunched over slightly for leverage.
Marcie watched in amazement at the personal battle being waged before her, as the gentleman's legs, first the one and then the other, lifted their respective foot out of the ice slab, breaking clear from its base.
He looked down again and noticed that one shoe slipped off and was still held captive in its icy prison, but he didn't mind. It would melt soon. Probably under the fading body heat of a deceased Marcie Fleach.
Marcie was stunned with the exhibition of strength this person had, to break free so soon after being frozen in Insta-Ice.
"Wow," she whispered. "I've got to work on bumping up my ice formula, when I get home." Then, gulped, "If I ever get home."
She reached into her jacket and hurled a Discourager to the floor before the gentleman's feet, exploding into a cloud of thick, gagging, eye-watering smoke.
Marcie gave a pause before she did anything else, gauging his reaction within the cloud. Would it affect someone who demonstrated such power as him?
She could see the gentleman's silhouette still standing where he was, with only his head moving slowly, as if he was just watching the mist, itself, instead of trying to see through it. To Marcie, it looked like he was studying it. Maybe he was confused by it and stopped due to indecision.
She decided to take the chance, went for the door and ran for it, making sure to shield herself from her own weapon.
She got as far as the door, when a grip like a steel trap clutched her arm, the same arm that Lab Rat held on to so much, earlier. She began to lean into the pain of the grip.
"My arm is never gonna heal at this rate," she groused, before the gentleman pulled back and spun her the short distance from him to the front of the desk. Her back slammed into it, and since the desk never budged, she took the full force of the impact, which almost made her double over.
"Ugh! What are you trying to do? Drive me into the desk?" she asked, rhetorically.
"Why, that's an excellent idea, Miss Fleach," the gentleman said, cordially. Then, he lunged at her.
Instinct took over, forcing Marcie to hop up on the desk to evade him. His hand reached out for her, just as she tried to squirm away further, accidentally knocking over the desk lamp that sat beside her.
There was a sizzling pop sound as the lamp fell to the floor, and then, all was dark and deathly quiet.
Marcie wondered what went wrong, or right, as the case might have been, and pulled out her penlight to shine it forward on where the gentleman was.
Marcie gave a gasp in reflex. The gentleman's grasping hand was halted mere inches from her face, his body, inexplicably caught in some stationary mid-action, and his face, a motionless rictus mask of impending victory, or sadistic pleasure. In Marcie's mind, given the context of the situation, one was as good as the other.
Carefully sliding off the desk and stepping past the gentleman, in case he somehow revived himself, Marcie looked down to see where the desk lamp fell, and could see that his sock-clad foot has stepped into the water of the surrounding little stream just as the desk lamp fell into it, popping the light bulb inside and electrocuting him.
Yet, an electrified body wouldn't exactly stand stock still, she knew, it would tremble as the electricity made the muscles in his body tighten uncontrollably. However, she wasn't going to argue with the results, so far.
Letting her weird sense of curiosity guide her, she gave the gentleman an experimental tap against his the back of his head, and could swear that she heard a dull, faint ring from under the scalp that didn't just vibrate from where she struck, but also through his skull.
'A...machine?' she wondered in awe. 'If so, then Quest had surpassed himself. A shame he's working with Greenman, though. Which reminds me...'
Marcie tabled the thought, as she ran to the back of the office and unplugged the desk lamp. Then, she reached her hands into the waterfall and felt around for the severed part. It was hard to differentiate between wet stone and wet steel, but after a few seconds, she thought that she had gotten a handful of the part, and gave it a good heft, successfully dragging the metal base of the speed governor out of the cataract.
Tucking it under her arm, Marcie stood up and quietly unlocked the office door. She slipped out and checked up and down the path of the house. No gloating Greenman.
Tip-toeing ahead to the living room/lounge, she didn't run into the master of the house, there, but, sadly, she did hear him from behind and froze, mentally becoming one with the room's decor.
Greenman walked to his office, cheerfully saying, "It's quite quiet in there. Did she put up a struggle at all?" He opened the door fully, seeing in the dark room, the still, dark silhouette of the gentleman, standing with his back to Greenman.
'Perhaps, he just finished her off against my desk,' he thought as he called out, "Gentleman? Are you alright?" With no answer, or movement, Greenman knew something was off. He backed out of the office with every troubled step, until his peripheral vision caught someone in the lounge.
'Marcie,' his mind hissed.
He spared her a single word, "You," then, he charged.
Even though he would have to run past the den before entering the living room, Marcie could see that Greenman was still too close to where she was and knew she wouldn't have the time to open the front door before he pounced. But there was another option.
Praying that it would work, she took off towards the front windows of the house, grabbed the governor's base, and, with a swinging, two-handed toss, let the part fly through one of the wide windows, shattering them completely.
Outside, in the Clue Cruiser, Lab Rat turned her head to the sound of glass breaking, in time to see Marcie leap through the window frame, land hard onto the landscaping, and roll towards the driveway, absorbing the impact.
She didn't look back, or even stop to catch her breath, especially when the front door opened and its doorway was filled with the figure of Greenman, radiating his ire upon her, like a dark sun. She jumped to her feet and scrambled into her car.
"What happened?" Lab Rat asked, while Marcie frantically started the car and dug out before a sprinting Greenman could reach the rear bumper.
"Did you get the part?" the woman asked, again. "Where's the part?"
Marcie recklessly twisted back onto the logging road, flooring the accelerator and pushing the Cruiser hard into the dark night.
She remembered seeing the base bounce and tumble across the lawn, and, in retrospect, compared to having given Greenman the temporary slip, she couldn't have cared less about that heavy hunk of metal, just as he so eloquently told her earlier. Before he tried to have her killed, of course.
"It's in the past, Lab Rat," Marcie decided. "It's in the past."
It grew quiet in the car and it wasn't until they saw the city lights beckoning them into Crystal Cove, once again, that Marcie felt confident enough to speak.
"Lab Rat, I'm really sorry," she said, sincerely. "You were right. Quest did send someone to get me, and it was all because of Greenman. I can't believe he'd go this far, but why would Quest help him? I thought he was a better man than this."
"We can talk about that when get to my hotel room," Lab Rat said. "It's too dangerous to go home, just yet. This Greenman might know where you live, but he doesn't know me, or where I stay, so this is safer."
Marcie's mind was bouncing from one thought to the next, and she didn't regard the wisdom her passenger was giving her, but she had to think aloud.
"I think...that assassin was a robot, but it looked human."
"Human-looking robot, huh? Wouldn't have thought of that." Lab Rat nodded. "That would be Quest's style."
"But, what about my dad?" Marcie worried. "What if that thing gets to my house and he's there?"
Lab Rat gave that a thought, then nodded. "Okay, we'll swing by the house and pick him up. Then, it's off to the hotel, understand?"
"Yeah."
Marcie turned on the lights and called out to Winslow from their home's living room, but there was no answer.
Lab Rat took a look around the modest home and saw no evidence of struggle, nothing overturned, nothing broken.
She saw Marcie jog from the kitchen to the stairs, and up the stairs, to call out to her father again, and again, there was no sound.
From the bedrooms, bathroom and attic, Marcie checked, but in the end, she slowly walked back downstairs, deep concern etched into her young face, and met up with a Lab Rat sitting in the living room.
"He's not here," said Marcie. "Do you think that...the robot..."
"Look around," Lab Rat calmly said to her. "There's nothing out of place, no signs of a struggle, but that doesn't mean much, I know. All I do know is that we can't stay here. Mr. Charming might come back, if he hasn't, already."
"Alright," Marcie sighed, as she followed Lab Rat out the front door and locked the house behind her.
"There, now, isn't this better? A regular home away from home," Lab Rat said, as she showed off the interior of her comfortable hotel room. It was spacious, well-lit and appointed. It was beyond reproach, as far as Lab Rat was concerned.
"I'd rather be home," Marcie grumbled, sitting on a sofa. She saw Rat's face fall a little, as she sat next to her, and felt like kicking herself with a steel-toed boot.
'Rude,' Marcie thought, then said, "I'm sorry. I just don't want anything to happen to Dad. He's been through so much, lately, and I don't want to lose him, like I lost my mom."
That intrigued Lab Rat. "Your mother...did she die?" she asked, hoping not to touch a nerve and ruin a possible friendship.
"No," Marcie related. "She just moved out when I was little. I thought we were happy, but I guess the divorce papers proved me wrong. Since then, it's been me and my dad against the world."
"He loves you, you know. Your father."
Marcie wondered for a second why Rat would tell her that. She knew it, herself, but, it was becoming harder to see, lately. "I know, but he can be hard to live with, sometimes," she confessed. "We never had to worry about curfews, or anything like that. I mean, where would I go past nine o'clock, back then, anyway? And grades were never an issue..."
"But..." Lab Rat goaded Marcie. Marcie proved an easy lock to pick.
"Well...it's his ways, y'know," she continued. "He's a good man, a hard worker, and he loves his park like it's a part of the family, but, ugh, he's so cheap, I mean, like, super-cheap. My crappy nickname growing up was all because of his stupid work ethic."
Again, Rat's interest was piqued. "What was your nickname? I promise, I won't laugh."
Marcie sighed and wondered, 'Why was it so easy talking to her? I'm blabbing like the English language was going out of style, around her.'
"Well...it was...Hot Dog Water."
A chuckle slipped from Lab Rat.
"I thought you said you wouldn't laugh, you traitor!" Marcie said, her face reddening.
"That wasn't a laugh," Lab Rat said, pedantically. "Technically, that was a chuckle."
"Well, technically, this isn't a handshake," the girl said with a vengeful smile. "It's punitive tickling!"
Lab Rat's breath was taken away by Marcie's thin fingers raking against the sides of her ribs, and she suddenly regretted keeping her lab coat open for Marcie to attack through, as she howled in laughter.
Retaliation was in order, and so, Rat's fingers found their way past Marcie's jacket, and her ribs were under risible assault. When a knock on the door was heard, both of them sat breathless and laughing.
"Pizza Man!" they cry out in unison. Lab Rat got up and walked over to the door, paid the pimply teenaged boy, and then carried the precious food over to the dinning room table.
The aroma that was released upon opening the box, was nothing less than spell-binding.
"Well, what's the game plan for tomorrow?" Lab Rat asked between bites of a hot slice.
Marcie chomped into hers. "I told Greenman that I was going to find out why he came to Crystal Cove and why he wanted Dad's park so bad. When I was in his house, I found what looked like a nature shrine, in his office. When he caught me, Greenman asked if wanted to be a druid. Is that what he is? A druid?"
"If he is, it's weird, because there can't be too many pagans living in this country. Well, apart from witches, I mean."
"But Greenman's English," Marcie reasoned. "That might count for something, like a reason he came here. Maybe there's something here that he, or his religion, wants."
"Hmm, maybe," Lab Rat shrugged, then took another bite.
Marcie reached into the box for another slice, and said to Rat, "Tomorrow, I want to go see someone from the university, here, in town. A professor, my friend, Daisy, told me about."
She couldn't wait until tomorrow, as well. She had a lot of questions, and was eager for the answers, as she ate hungrily.
She held up her half-devoured slice and toasted, saying, "To getting answers!"