Epilogue~
A few hours' drive from Crystal Cove, in Hollywood, stood HC Productions, the studio that put, among other things, Wacky Races, on the map.
Outside the office of the studio's president, a busy, solitary secretary chattered into her headset.
"HC Productions, please hold. HC Productions, please hold. HC Productions, please hold..."
Inside the President's Office, a well-tailored man, seated in a high back chair, watched on the wide screen TV hanging on the far wall, the raw footage of the fight between The Racers and the Rottens in the convention center, and the battle outside with both groups against the giant robot.
The man leaned into the intercom, that stood next to a small framed photo of Penelope Pitstop, on his stately desk, and purred, "Barbera, get Wilcox in Legal. Tell him to draw up some contracts."
The man turned in his chair to face the desk. He straightened his tie and smoothed his auburn hair self-consciously. Image, to him, was as important as success. In fact, he would say that one often led to the other.
"Right away, Mr. Sneakly," the voice buzzed from the intercom.
"I think I've just found my next big hit," the president of Hooded Claw Productions slyly thought aloud.
With images of new characters injecting even newer, and more exciting, forms of bad attitude on television, thus creating even more success for his thriving business, Sylvester Sneakly gave himself a satisfied chortle.
"Dead nerd, walking!" Sheriff Stone unabashedly called out as he entered the holding cell room at police headquarters, where Marcie was, again, cooling her heels.
"Aren't you supposed to say that while I'm being taken away from my cell?" she asked while lounging on the cell's cot.
"Just keeping in practice, jailbird," Stone said smugly. "I just came by to tell you that you have a visitor."
Marcie sat up anxiously. "My father?"
"No, not him. Some people, out here, seemed to believe that you had something to do with solving a mystery and clearing someone's name, or some such nonsense like that."
"Wait a minute," Marcie said, walking up to the bars, curious as to who had come to see her. "I thought you said I had a visitor. Singular. Now, you're saying people?"
Caught by her logical observation of his faux pas, Stone bristled and said, "Whatever. Those Racers are here to see you."
He left the room and The Slag Brothers, The Gruesomes, Prof. Pending, The Red Max, Penelope Pitstop, Private Meekly minus Sergeant Blast, Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear, Peter Perfect, Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth, and The Ant Hill Mob, with Muttley bringing up the rear, marched in to take the officer's place, gathering by the front of Marcie's cell.
"Hey, guys," she greeted them.
"We heard about you getting the ticket," Penelope said. "Are you going to be alright, Sugah?"
"Yeah," Marcie shrugged. "It turns out that Jason was sitting on it, the whole time. I swear, he can hide a phonebook under that butt of his. Anyway, a deputy told me that I'll have to go to traffic court, but I can bring Jason with me as a witness. Once he tells the judge that I had my licence and registration with me at the time I got my ticket, it'll get dismissed."
She looked to the private and noticed the absence of his CO.
"I heard that one of you was hurt battling Doctor Spring," she said, more to Meekly, than to the others. "How is the Sarge?"
"The Sarge will be okay," Meekly said, the relief clear in his eyes. "The old warhorse is in the hospital getting cleaned of that poison. He'll be barkin' orders at me by the start of the race, in no time."
"I'm glad."
Muttley stepped forward to see the girl who did so much for the group, as a whole, and for him, personally.
He barked as close to a recognizable language as he could approximate, with Peter acting as translator.
"He wanted to say thanks to you and the chubby boy for all of the hard work you both have done in exposing the Rottens as the kidnappers," Peter told her. "Because we still have Mumbly, the Rottens have offered up Dick in exchange, and we will make the switch sometime tomorrow."
"Well, thank you for that message in the hard drive," Marcie said to the dog. "It came in very handy in our investigation. Not to mention, it was pretty brave of you to infiltrate the Rottens like that, for your friend."
Muttley shied away from the compliment with a big toothed grin, and growled, "Aw, shucks."
The group of Racers then parted, and with military stiffness, the Red Max walked to the jailed girl, and solemnly presented himself to her, as though he was visiting a hero of the state.
"Young girl, you have saved my reputation, as a pilot, as a competitor, and as a citizen of the world, and have given me back my good name. Though my home is many years away, and my old life is gone, you have restored my tomorrows, and I will always consider you a member of my Wacky family, for that."
Now it was Marcie's turn to feel bashful for the naked praise she was receiving.
"Ich wäre stolz, ein Teil Ihrer Familie zu sein,"("I would be proud to be a part of your family,") she said in demure German.
With that, Max shattered the quietude with a boisterous, Teutonic laugh and made a suggestion that just came to him on the spot. One, he was confident, all would be in wholehearted accord with.
"If she is a member of der family, that makes her an honorary Wacky Racer," he proclaimed. "And since she is a Racer, now, vhen her car has come out of der impound, it must haff a name, befitting a Racer. So, Marcie, vhat vill you call your car?"
Marcie blinked at that notion. She had just gotten her very own car not that long ago, and already, she was being immersed in the car culture.
The idea of naming one's car was, at once, a singular eccentricity, and wholly personal endeavor that she long thought was the prerogative of only the male car lover.
Yet, even the cultured Penelope Pitstop had her Compact Pussycat. Feminine empowerment, it seemed to Marcie, took many forms.
A thought came to her. A comfortably logical thought.
"Well, I guess, since I, along with Jason, solved the mystery," Marcie decided, giving a self-conscious smile, and feeling as though her choice was both permanent, and as important to her life as picking out her wedding china. "I suppose I'll call my car, the Clue Cruiser."
The Racers nodded and murmured in mutual acceptance.
"Then you vill need this," the Red Max told her.
With that same military crispness, the pilot presented to her, a large, oval decal of a stylized W sitting in the center of a green background. The emblem of the Wacky Races that every car displayed.
"I'll put it on my car with pride," Marcie said, soberly. "Thank you."
"Okay, everybody, the meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society is over," Stone scoffed from the doorway. "Time to go."
As the Racers filed out of the cell room, Pat Pending turned and added, at the last minute, "Oh, when you get your car out of the impound, let me know. If I have time, I'll give it a tweak or two before race day."
"You would? Really? Thank you, Professor! Thank you!" Marcie beamed in her cell. Here she was, languishing in a holding cell, and her favorite Racer was offering to modify her car. For free.
'Bitchin'', she thought.
When the cell room was empty of guests and quiet again, she went back to her cot and contentedly laid back down, contemplating a myriad of modifications to squeeze into her VW.
"Quite a big fan club you got, there," came a boy's voice from the dimness of the other cell.
"Just showing their appreciation for something I did for them, that's all," Marcie said from her cot.
"You a detective, or something?" the voice asked.
Marcie thought before she answered, then decided, after everything that happened, there was no reason to think otherwise. "Perhaps."
There was a space of silence. Then the voice asked, "You got time for another case?"
"Until my dad comes to pick me up," the girl said, simply. "I've got nothing better to do."
The sound of cowboy boots heralded the approach of a tall boy of late teens with a stocky build coming to the bars to lean wearily against them.
He wore the uniform of the troublemaker, the bad boy. A pair of well-worn jeans, a long, loose t-shirt, a sleeveless, high-collar leather vest, and a tattoo of a heart with an arrow driven through it.
He glanced over at Marcie's cell. The worry was slight, but still perceptible, even under the freckled, pugnacious face and the fiery cloud of curly hair.
"What's your name?" he asked. "Mine's Red."
"Marcie," she said, approaching her bars to see who she was talking to. "Alright, Red. What seems to be the problem?"
The neighborhood of the police impound lot enjoyed a period of calm and peace that night, after the chaos of the day.
The well-placed bomb destroyed that peace, and a good portion of the impound lot.
Deputies scrambled like irritated ants, calling the fire department and Sheriff Stone, and securing what they could of the lot.
A white, generic-looking truck, ignored by the officers in this new chaos that raged, zoomed away from the destruction.
In its trailer, protected under a hastily covered tarp, rested the formerly confiscated remains of T.H.R.O.B.A.C's Hour Tower...
TO BE CONTINUED...