THE TROJAN HORSE REDUX… WITH ZOMBIES

Luke was changing into a bus driver's uniform, and Danny was considering how to adapt his martial arts abilities to the walking dead, as the Lieutenant in charge of Code : Blue explained his plan. Both of them were a bit skeptical, but were willing to try anything.

Lt. Stone sat on a bar stool in a corner tavern a block away from the hostage situation that the NYPD had taken over as a temporary command post. "These guys have seen too many movies. "They are demanding transportation for themselves, AND their hostages AND a bunch of their zombies AND a haystack of their drugs and cash. They think they deserve a bus to the airport and then a private plane to Haiti."

"They aren't asking for much…" Luke grumbled. "At least your negotiator convinced them to take a CITY bus instead of a bunch of limousines."

"Not so loud, partner, they might hear you," Danny said with a smile. "So Luke is the driver, the bus pulls up to the front door, they all get on. Why is HE the driver in this and not me? As soon as the head witch doctor comes onto the bus and passes by me, I could drop him unconscious with just one nerve pinch as easily as Luke could with a decent punch."

Luke looked thoughtful. "I think I see. Fist, you can do the sneaky ninja thing. Go in through the top of the building while all this is going on out front. Get inside, look for anything like the altar that Terry described, and smash it. OR… since the head witch doctor might be the last one out from under his rock, you can take him out from behind. So one of us is bound to take out the leader, Unless he's in the middle, I guess."

"I think it is our best bet. I will have snipers stationed up high as a back-up here, and we could put some up at the airport while we pretend to get a plane ready for them if we had to. But without that yellow disco shirt Cage wears, I'm hoping that none of the Tonton Macoutes will recognize him. Those zombies slowed you down out there, but I'm pretty sure you could muscle through them and get your hands on their controller if he was there."

"Count on it," Luke said with a grin. "What about our tagalong, partner? Should we get the Captain to be our special emergency worst case scenario backup just in case?"

"No, I think he is in good hands talking to Terry. Terry tried to convince me to let him send a robot armed with a particle cannon into the building. The two of them will keep each other busy coming up with solutions until we can wrap this up."

MEANWHILE, A FEW MINUTES AGO...

Terry called out over the speaker phone, "So Officer Majowski, can you get me a live feed over this iStark connection? And Bobby, what's your deal?"

"Working on it now, Professor," Majowski replied as he worked the communications console.

"Ummm… I'm kinda following Heroes for Hire to learn how it's done. I'm sorta a superhero too, but I'm kinda new at it," Bobby explained. This earned him a curious sideways glance from Officer Majowski, who almost interjected but thought better of it.

"Interesting. Have you been involved in anything I'd have heard about?" Terry Vance's scientific curiosity was kicking in. "What set of abilities do you have? Zombies burn well according to reports, it would be convenient if you had flame powers, heat vision, something like that?"

"...no, I don't think so anyways. I'm still figuring this stuff out." Pausing, he quoted what the doctor had explained to him, that he was still trying to understand. "Control of atomic str…. Structure, of my own body and of some materials closeby. Ability to affect, mass, volume, in… inertia, gravity and electrolytes."

"Electromagnetism?" Terry interjected and gave a low whistle. "That's quite a win of the superpower lottery there. If you know enough physics and chemistry you should be able to do a lot with that."

"Uh… yeah. So if zombies are real, magic is real? What was that about salt?" Bobby did not want to get into how little he knew about physics, chemistry, math, or anything he suddenly wished he knew. "You said they can't cross over salt?"

Terry cleared his throat, and adopted his "teacher voice," a habit he developed years before. "Magic is as near as I can figure out is a way of controlling energy we can't detect, using rules we can't explain, to get results that don't add up. It has a weird logic to it, though. Undead zombies get power from somewhere, and their creators need to give them orders. But they can't cross a line of salt. If you're going to be attacked by a zombie, get inside a circle made of salt and they can't "get in" to attack you. And if you can load salt into their mouths and sew their lips together, their master can't give them orders and they "die" again. If I had to guess, I'd say there is something about salt that absorbs or blocks whatever the energy is that powers the zombie. Or that the magician uses to control it. Or something. Far as I know, no one has ever scientifically studied it properly, which is a shame. Seems like it'd be easy to do, try some new things out," Terry groused.

Bobby perked up. "II know, right? It's like, everyone knows about wooden stakes and vampires. But what about wooden BULLETS, no one can tell me what THAT would do to Dracula. Or people say ONLY a silver bullet to kill a werewolf, but what if you DROWN it, or are you telling me if you put a werewolf through a MEATGRINDER it'll still be alive?"

Terry' blurted out a laugh. "HA! I had the same argument! Or if they can't cross a line of salt, what about salt WATER, or how THICK does the line of salt have to be? Someone needs to test this stuff!"

"Or what if you dump a PILE of salt on a zombie?" Bobby asked. "Or spray them with melted salt? Wait, can salt melt?"

"If you get it hot enough, it melts. I mean it wouldn't be EASY, but I could build a molten salt squirt gun," Terry said, energetically. "For all we know that would fix this in no time."

Majowski interjected, "If these street gangs start using zombies as muscle, I KNOW you could sell those to the NYPD."

"Officer, please remind me of that later, I think I can do that one with a little tinkering. But no one has even tried shooting ROCK SALT out of a SHOTGUN at voodoo zombies that I ever heard of. And that's an obvious one! Majowski, does Code : Blue have any rock salt shotgun shells?"

"Nope," the officer admitted. "And that's a good idea for NEXT time I have to remember."

Bobby jumped up. "Or if a zombie can't get into a circle of salt around someone they want to attack what happens if you draw a circle AROUND THE ZOMBIE?!"

"I know!" Terry replied. "Does it block the energy the zombie needs to move around? Does the zombie still move but the magician can't CONTROL it…."

"Or what if you put the MAGICIAN inside a salt circle?" Bobby answered back. "What happens THEN?"

"... wait, what?" Terry replied.

"...Huh... " Bobby said, drawing a circle in the air with his finger.

"I GOT IT" Bobby shouted just as Terry yelled "BINGO!"

TO BE CONCLUDED….