A Space Cowboy in the Desert
Okay, it's been a while. Your patience has not been in vain. As always, special thanks to YoukaiYume for inspiration. Thanks Beta!
Chapter 25: No Getting Out of It This Time
Buzz and Bazooka Jane did not resist at all on their way to the Base's lab and Jane's holding cell, which was more like a kennel cage when you considered its dimensions. Immediately and without being told, both jailer and prisoner played out their rolls perfectly. Buzz locked up Jane in her "cell" and Jane freely went into the tiny space. Well, she went into it as freely as any mind-controlled slave could be expected to do so. Jane then sat down in her cell since standing within it comfortably was out of the question. Buzz, in turn, activated the cell's energy bars by flipping a switch inside a box mounted to the wall opposite from Jane's cage. His prisoner secure, Buzz stood guard in front of the glowing bars with an air of the utmost seriousness. Buzz looked like he had things more than covered, nevertheless, his self-important, muscular, alien escort still barked orders at him. They could not understand a syllable of what Buzz was saying in response while stuck in Spanish mode. Thankfully, in spite of the language barrier, Buzz's efficient, no-nonsense behavior convinced them that they could leave the rest of the boring night's job to the brainwashed space ranger. Buzz was relieved when the brutes left so quickly, but did not plan to move a muscle until he was sure that they were long gone.
Bazooka Jane looked quite relaxed, considering her meager accommodations. Perhaps taking up lodgings in this confined space was a common occurrence for her and she had since become accustomed to it. Jane kicked back her legs up against one of the walls of her kennel and pulled her hat down over her face. Buzz's back was turned, but he did not miss out of the corner of his eye the eerie similarity this action bared to those of a certain sheriff at his desk early that day. Buzz wondered, but did not dare to hope now, that this was, yet again, another trace remnant of Woody's sister's memories bleeding through. Jane species' biology was apparently unique in that their minds were less susceptible to a complete and permanent mind wipe, but he had to remember that Jane's mind had just been freshly wiped. There was no way any remaining bits of her memories that obstinately refused to be completely erased could have resurfaced so soon, if at all. "Kicking back" in this way was probably common of this planet. Just one more custom that he had failed to notice since crash-landing on the planet earlier today or perhaps yesterday, he had lost track of time. At any rate, Jane, just as much as Buzz for the moment, seemed resigned to the fact that she was not going anywhere any time soon.
Jane's appearance of contentment to stay put was indeed just that, an appearance. Not even a moment after she was certain that her former associates had cleared out of the lab for the night and that she and her jailer were alone, Jane sat up. She looked maybe like she was going to try to stretch within her cage, but instead stretched her arm out through the glowing bars and placed her hand, on Buzz's shoulder.
"Okay, Buzz. You can let me out now. We've got a job to do." she said in a relaxed, but professional tone. Buzz could have laughed out loud, though he found nothing about his current situation amusing in the least. That tiny, black, hat-wearing swine just had to make doubly sure that Buzz was not faking a mind wipe! Porkchop just had to be certain this recently ostracized and currently companionless space ranger did not have any bit of his lonely heart left to shatter! Heaven help him, Bazooka Jane, self-inflicted mind wiped Bazooka Jane, was acting like she somehow retained the memories of their acquaintance! He knew that could only mean that some sort of default behavioral program had been implanted into her mind after the erasing of her memories! Porkchop was again using Jane to try to trick him.
Porkchop was indeed every inch as paranoid as Bazooka Jane had claimed. How could the pig not be to have devised such a cruel, yet begrudgingly clever, failsafe? A crafty ploy that would work on anyone who did not know enough to believe a mindless slave was capable of being a spy. Buzz was someone who knew better though. He understood that the format of this program was easy enough for any near mindless drone to follow… First, the spy instills false hope in the victim suspected of being improperly mind wiped. The spy does this by creating the illusion that they were just as unaffected by the mind wiping process as the victim. Next, the spy gets the victim to let their guard down and reveal that their freewill is still intact. And finally, the spy reports them to their superiors. During the spy's dialogue with the victim, the trap did not even have to be perfect. Any inconstancies in the spy's congenial, reminiscent ramblings or behavior could easily be, and often was, overlooked by the victim. After all, a desperate person's mind can ignore a great deal of glaring oddities if they believe it will somehow contribute to their own self-preservation.
For someone in Porkchop's seemingly dire, stranded situation, having ready-made, amiable spies to test the potency of his brainwashing technology was an invaluable commodity. However, in Buzz's case, it served no purpose other than inflicting bewildering pain on his already insulted and injured psyche. Now Buzz found himself stuck in a room being forced to watch a woman, whom he respected, unwittingly make an utter fool of herself as she tried to fool him. She was pretty convincing, to her programmer's credit, but her efforts were nonetheless in vain. Jane had blasted away any memories that might have been helpful in modifying her deceptive behavior to suit Buzz's unique case. So there was no way she could adequately tackle a dialogue between her and Buzz. She could not do it without understanding the strangely indefinable nature of their relationship and no amount of ill-founded hope was going to allow Buzz's mind to forgive the inconstancies in Jane's recollections.
It hurt Buzz deep in his core, the thought that Jane's memories of him were gone. Just gone, obliterated by order of Porkchop like it was nothing of any great consequence. Porkchop was just paranoid and his paranoia simply dictated that Jane's rebellious mind needed to be re-wiped periodically, nothing personal or more than that. To Buzz however, it was "more than that", there were consequences and it was personal. Indeed, if Porkchop had known of the far greater consequences of being overly vigilant in this instance, he might have let the matter slide and just let Jane keep her memories. Unfortunately for Porkchop, he did not know, and so, inadvertently, he had given Buzz a major edge in this battle for the planet. Porkchop gave Buzz a permanent reminder not to let his guard down for even a moment, and all in the form of the constant sting of a broken heart. With this aching memento, Buzz was a more formidable adversary to Porkchop now than he ever was before.
While all these miserable revelations were festering within Buzz's mind, Jane was still talking to him with her hand on his shoulder. When Buzz did not repel her touch, she took this as encouragement and in turn, gingerly pulled on his shoulder to get him to turn around and look at her. Buzz did not budge, even when her ministrations brought his mind back to the present. He would not be fooled into breaking character by Jane. He was supposed to be a mindless sentry and he would keep up that appearance until he found a way to save everyone, including Jane! Unfortunately, though she was not trying particularly to do it, Jane's voice to Buzz, was like a siren call. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to listen to Porkchop's beautiful puppet. However, Jane would not be ignored,
"You're not fooling anyone, soldier boy. Come on already. We're friends, remember?" she said amiably. That was the finally straw and Buzz reacted. For his sanity, this had to end now! In retrospect, Buzz hoped that his outburst was born solely from his desire to play a convincing role of a terse, unfeeling guard. He could not bare the disturbing idea that he was just taking his anger, frustration and feelings of hurt and loss undeservingly out on his Jane. No, it was all a lie and whatever her designation was before, she certainly was not his anything. She was Woody's little sister, Jessie, Jane was erased and never really existed to begin with! He spun around to face Jane as he thought about these demoralizing truths with a face that fit the bill perfectly of an angry, resentful guard. Seemingly always the contrast to Buzz's emotional state, Jane's face was calm and placid. She was unconcerned and did nothing more in reaction to Buzz's sudden movement other than counting backwards from three as he turned to meet her gaze,
"3, 2,…" When she had reached "1", Buzz said forcefully,
"Spare me your lies, temptress! And I am-" It was not Spanish that came out of Buzz's mouth and this realization effectively stopped him midsentence. Jane was more than willing to finish his sentence for him though,
"-Immune to my bewitching good looks?" she interjected quizzically before breathing a frustrated sigh of relief.
"It's about time you answered me." Jane chided, "I was starting to worry your Universal Translator was making you only understand Spanish as well. Glad to see my figuring was right about how long it'd take that Translator to recalibrate itself once I tinkered a bit with its frequency. But then again if you got stuck that way, it's not like I don't speak the lingo, Juguete Espacial..." she finished with a sly smile. That was all it took to make Buzz drop the emotionless act.
"You understood everything I said before?" Buzz gawked.
"Your 'desert flower', am I?" Apparently she did. Buzz blushed madly and tried to reign in his embarrassment as best he could. He was failing miserably. He had never been at such a tactical disadvantage on such an emotional level before in his whole life. Unwittingly his guarded heart had lost the high ground and he had no idea how he would regain that lost territory! Speaking of lost things,
"How do you even remember any of that? You eradicated all your memories of me'- Of everything that happened tonight." pressed Buzz, recovering at the last moment when he realized he was making things too personal again. Jane sighed exasperatedly,
"Didn't I just infer that I could modify the settings on that ray gun to suit my needs? Land of Goshen, and you space folk say folk like me are the ones leading a slow pace existence. Keep up with me, space toy." Buzz was indeed having trouble keeping up,
"But… How…? Then why did you lead me on-?" Buzz could barely manage to ask this question to begin with and now that he started he could not seem to finish it. He was not sure if he even wanted to finish when his confusion caused him to pause. Originally, he had meant to ask Jane why she had led him to believe that everything that had just transpired between them and Porkchop was real… But the various ways his broken sentence could be interpreted on its own seemed a perfectly appropriate way to cover all his conscious and subconscious questions simultaneously bombarding his brain. Buzz did not get a chance to make a definite decision on this matter though. As much as Jane was enjoying the confused expression on the travelled space soldier's standing in front of her, she took pity on Buzz, interrupted his jumbled thought processes and interpreted his question in a way that was less likely to make him blush.
"To put it plainly, Buzz. It's because I had my orders and you're a terrible actor." said Jane flatly. Then again, maybe pity had nothing to do with it. Maybe her own amusement had everything to do with how and when she interrupted. That statement just had to be yet another taunt. Buzz had no idea how these two ideas could have come together as an explanation otherwise. It was frustrating, but he tried not to get mad at Jane. She was, after all, the victim here. With a long drawn out breath that towards the end, nearly shuttered with the weariness of his heart, Buzz said evenly and in almost a beseeching tone,
"Seriously, Jane. I don't have time for any more riddles and jokes."
"Seriously, I'm not joking," replied Jane, "You have, by far, the worse poker face I've ever seen, and I had my orders from Porkchop. If I somehow survived my encounter with you tonight, I had to bring you in. I'll admit at the time, I didn't know what he was really saying was 'if you somehow ain't blown to bits tonight'… But I did know that getting you captured in the slave's quarters was something I couldn't get out of. Porkchop would catch us sooner or later and he still thinks his mind control doohickey makes it impossible for outlaws like me to disobey direct orders. To some degree it's true, but he doesn't need to know that. Reckon it'd cause quite a stir if he knew I still have freewill enough to find loopholes in our mind control programming." Jane then finished off her wordy explanation with a proud smile. Buzz's head was beginning to feel like it would never stop spinning,
"Wait. So if you're saying what I think you're saying… Leading me to the slave quarters, planting that modified mind control gun to use on me, Porkchop sending us to this holding area in his lab… This was all orchestrated by you outside Porkchop's knowledge.
Are you some kind of double agent?"
"I'm a free agent. Like I was saying before, space toy… I'm just looking out for what's best for me."
"Which is precisely the reason why I can't let you out of there. It's not your fault, but you are, in the end programmed by Porkchop. And the part of you that's not influenced by him, is focused on surviving no matter the cost-"
"Darn tootin'! Paid way above normal wages by generous ol' Porkchop, but no amount of generosity or orders will ever make me blindly walk, or get blasted, right off a cliff! Trust me, I won't go turncoat on you after what Porkchop did tonight. I want to get even with him as much as you do. Buzz, let me out." entreated Jane. Buzz looked at her pleading eyes and her outstretched hand for a long moment. He wanted to believe her so badly, but he just could not, for so many reasons.
"I am not fighting for revenge tonight, Jane. I am fighting for justice and for the safety of others, including you. At the core of it, revenge is about nothing but fulfilling your own selfish desires. Believe me, quite recently, I've become all too familiar with this truth. Sure you may help some people in the pursuit of revenge along the way… But in the end, it just isolates and destroys everything, including you. The free part of your mind, Jane, is misguided and that's why you'll be safer in there. I'm sorry, Jane." With a heavy heart and his mind made up, Buzz turned to leave. Jane was not licked yet though. She did something so unexpected that Buzz could not help but give her his full and undivided attention again… She agreed with him!
"You're right, partner. You've got no reason to trust me. I only act to my own advantage." she said solemnly. Buzz felt a weight of guilt lifted from his shoulders upon hearing this and was about to express just how grateful he was that she was seeing things from his perspective… But then Jane quite urgently provided another solution for his dilemma with her,
"But if I'm only in it for me, then just give me something I'd be practically shooting myself in the foot to pass up by betraying you! Give me something to fight for other than revenge. Something better!" she finished gleefully. Buzz did not know where she was going with this and thought it best to remain ignorant.
"Sorry, Jane. But I just can't risk it. I can't risk your life." He got as far as the metal door leading into the lab beyond the holding cells when Jane spoke again,
"You'll never be able get to Porkchop without sounding the alarm. Not now that you're inside the base. I know this place like the back of my hand. I know where all the booby-traps are. You thought the dampen field outside was bad? It's impossible to use your scanners in here. You need me, partner." argued Jane. Buzz quickly tried to scan the lab outside of the holding cells. She was right. All data was inconclusive and any attempts at adjusting his sensors rendered similar results. He probably could manage. He was Buzz Lightyear and had snuck through facilities more heavily guarded than this, but look where that got him as of late. Alienated, trapped without backup and saving the day was left up to chance much more than he would like. Could he take such another huge risk? Not with Woody and a whole planet of helpless people on the line. Buzz reluctantly asked,
"What could I possibly give you to reassure that you won't double-cross me, if I let you out?"
"Promise me that when all this is over, you'll join my posse." she requested eagerly.
"I'm sorry, Jane. But I already told you, I can't do that." sighed Buzz in defeat, he would have liked to have had her help if he could only trust her. Buzz was about to leave out the door leading into the lab, when he was suddenly thrown against it by another great tremor. It was huge! Nothing like what he had experienced earlier in Woody's office. His domed face pressed against the glass window on the metal lab door, as the area shook, Buzz was not so distracted to notice that the shaking seemed to be nonexistent on the other side. What was going on here? Just as quickly as it came, the quake was gone and Buzz had to catch his breath. Jane, seemed completely unfazed by the whole event,
"Gravity stabilizing doohickeys," explained Jane indifferently, "The whole base is loaded with 'em. Expensive though, so they don't bother using them in the brigs. Surprised I haven't had my brains scrambled yet since I spend so much time in here."
"There's no fault line around here, no volcanoes, nothing to cause a quake like that. What is going on at this compound?" Buzz almost demanded.
"You want to find out? Well then you're joining my posse. Because I'm telling you right now… These quakes ain't getting smaller and if Porkchop's the cause of 'em, you can't stop him without me. Join my posse and I promise you, I'll give it my all. Revenge can take a walk." Jane said seriously and sincerely. Buzz knew he had no more time to argue. Whatever the situation was, it was far worse than he had imagined. He said with resolve,
"Fine, you help me save this world, and I'll join your posse." For a brief moment, Jane looked like she could have sung for joy, but since Bazooka Jane did not sing or even yodel, she suppressed the urge. Jane just gave a quick, satisfied, lopsided grin and then got down to business.
"Then let's save the world, partner!" beamed Jane. To Buzz's surprise, Jane swiftly removed a floor panel she had been sitting on inside her cage and flipped a switch or something beyond his view. Then the small wall on the back of her cell retracted to reveal a hidden tunnel.
"You could have escaped at any moment?" he gasped, feeling utterly duped! He saw something like this coming and yet he could not stop it!
"Well, not from the way I came in. The bars can only be deactivated on your side." explained Jane, as if somehow that made the trick less offensive.
"Besides," she continued, "It's not like I could show my secret weapon and lab before when we were enemies. Partners get those privileges though. Now are you coming, space toy?" Jane started crawling into the tunnel and out of Buzz's sight. Dumbstruck, Buzz deactivated the bars with the turn of a switch on the wall opposite of Jane's cage and quickly followed after the bewildering redhead into the tunnel. The all words of her statement finally hitting him,
"'Secret weapon'? What secret weapon?" he called back in confusion.
While Buzz and Jane's miserable time spent in the holding cells of the laboratory was coming to an end, Bo Peep and Woody had already spent nearly an entire night of wallowing in their own despair and it was still ongoing. After Woody had went down, Bo Peep had managed to scramble to Woody's side and had refused to let him go. A stun gun from an alien had made short work of her uncooperative behavior. When she was jostled awake by the extreme shaking beneath her, she found herself in a strange looking, dimly lit room with no windows. Normally, being in these earthquakes terrified Bo Peep. She could not help but feel that she might shatter from all the shaking like the fragile porcelain doll everyone made her out to be because of her impossibly pasty skin. However, all the fearful quakes in the world had no hold on her when she saw Woody! There, on the adjacent side of the room, propped up against the wall was her cowboy and at the moment he was the one bearing an uncanny likeness to that of a disparaged, broken doll. His clothing was torn, his lip split, and his bad arm even looked like it was being held up by but a thread! She rushed to him to assess the damage. Was he conscious?
Yes, Woody had been semi-conscious for quite some time now. But when he awoke to find that his worse nightmare was in fact real, neither his mind nor his weakened and pained body seemed capable or inclined to move. Jessie… Buzz… They were both gone.
"Woody, are you all right?" asked Bo Peep. Woody had not answered at first, but the worried tone of his beloved's voice called him back from the gloomy shadows of his mind. Out of all his tired, dulled senses, Woody's sense of love and compassion for her sufferings endured. Woody would have done better to say something comforting to her. Pitifully, he could not think of anything to utter than what was forefront in his mind,
"They're both gone, Bo." Woody finally stated. It broke Bo Peep's heart to hear it, to be reminded of the loss and to see Woody so grieved. Tears welled up in her eyes, but Bo Peep tried to ignore it and forced away thoughts of fallen loved ones. She did not know what sorry state she would be in if she gave in to her sadness now. Now was not the time to imagine a future with missing family members. Heck, she had to be sure she had a future before she could do that! So instead she just focused on her present situation and what she had within her power to improving on it. Bo Peep examined Woody's limp arm and was pleased with what she found.
"I should be able to correct this." she said to herself. She smiled, but it vanished when she looked to Woody. She could fix this problem, but with nothing to deaden his pain, it would be a hellish experience for Woody and he already looked like he was in hell.
"Woody, honey," she said soothingly, "I'm going to try to relocate your shoulder. I'm not going to lie to you. This is probably going to hurt, a lot." Thinking of everything, she untied hers and his bandana from around their necks, folded them up on top of each other and then brought them to his mouth.
"If it hurts too much, I want you to bite down on this, Woody. Don't bite your tongue." Woody vaguely nodded, not seeming to hear her completely and Bo Peep took that as consent to begin. Bo Peep was right. It did hurt a lot! After far too many moment of physical discomfort than Woody would have wanted added on top of the pain he was already feeling in his heart, the gruesome procedure was over and his shoulder was popped back into its joint. Woody pulled the bandanas out of his mouth with his good hand and then rested the same hand on his injured shoulder,
"Thanks, Bo." said Woody in a strained, groaning voice. Woody was fully alert now and he rubbed his achy shoulder in a circular motion as he tested how well he could move his arm. It was sore, but he found that it still pretty much moved the way he wanted it to. Woody dropped his arm the ground and his chin to his collarbone in exhausted relief. Bo had never ceased to amaze him. They were backed into the tightest corner that they had ever been in before, but thanks to Bo Peep, they now stood a better chance of getting out of it.
As Woody's tired head remained drooped, he felt a sensation against his chin that he was not accustomed to since he was seldom without a bandana around his neck, cold metal. To be more specific, it was a thin, gold chain that he was feeling against his chin. Using the hand on his good arm again, Woody grasped the chain and drew it out from the confines of his collared shirt. There was a circular trinket hanging from the end of the metal links and Woody held it up to show Bo Peep.
"No reason hiding this anymore." he said with a shallow, slightly lopsided smile as the gold ring spun ever so slowly and caught the dim light. Bo Peep smiled back with somewhat moist eyes and Woody prayed they were not sorrowful tears. Woody got that much for his prayers. They were tears born from a range of emotions, but mostly from happiness. She pulled the ribbon with her own ring on it out from under her collar, over her head and held it up too. She had wanted for so long to sing from the hilltops to whom her heart irrevocably belonged. As pointless as it seemed now, she was so happy that she no longer had to hide an important symbol of that anymore.
"Our engagement?" asked Bo Peep, knowing what he meant, but needing to hear him say it. Somehow, if Woody could say it like it was a definite fact, their future together, it just had to happen.
"Yeah, our engagement." he smiled back. His words like a soothing balm and Bo Peep let out as happy a sigh as she was capable of in their present situation. Since it was out of reach for his good arm, Woody reached out with his newly fixed arm for Bo Peep's ribbon strung ring.
"Woody, maybe you should rest that arm for a bit longer before you-" Bo Peep tried to protest, seeing that he was still tender in that arm. However, she paused when she saw what he was really doing. Woody took the ring, untied it from the ribbon, though a bit slower and less dexterously than normal, and put the dainty thing on her left ring finger.
"I don't want you to ever have to take that off again if you don't want to, Miss Peep..." he said with strength behind the words that promised he would fight to preserve that choice for her.
"That goes the same for you, Mister Pride. They'll have to pry them from our cold, dead fingers-" Bo Peep grinned back in a tone that backed up his words equally, but faltered at the end when she realized the crude imagery she had just used. She looked at Woody and hoped she had not hurt him with her unintentionally ill tasted comment. It was bad enough that death and the pain of loss were already at the forefront of his mind without her adding to it. Woody's face was unreadable at the moment, but looked like he was coming to some sort of startling realization, before it was masked behind a wall of mirth,
"Well, I'd be more than willing to oblige to the lady about wearing my ring. Right away too, if she'd be so kind to help me with this chain its on." laughed Woody as he made a show of how hard a time he was having lifting his right arm up skillfully enough to get at the clasps behind his neck. Bo Peep chuckled back, so relieved she had not rubbed salt in Woody's new and old psychological wounds. She leaned in to get the chain off. She got the chain off easily enough, but when she drew herself back, she suddenly found herself met with resistance! Bo Peep looked behind her and saw that Woody had loosely wrapped his arms around her lower back. She brought her head back around to Woody for an explanation, but when she did she was surprised again when Woody captured her lips in what she was pretty sure was the deepest kiss she had ever shared with Woody without her initiating! When Woody finally released her, she set herself to finish the task that got her into this mess. Mimicking Woody's previous gesture, she slipped the gold band on his finger all the while smiling at how easily Woody had laid a trap for her and how easily she had fallen for it. She should have known that his arm was not as bad off as he was making it out to be. After all, she was the one who fixed said arm. Jokingly she said,
"Stealing kisses now? You really are a terrible, terrible gentleman." Instead of teasing back though, Woody just hugged her again and as tightly as he could manage.
"I'm the worse." he answered into her shoulder shakily. His voice was muffled as he spoke, but the tone of fear and guilt was still as plain as day,
"I thought they were going to shoot you back there in that godforsaken pit. They were going to shoot you and there wouldn't have been a thing I could've done about it." Bo Peep shushed him and held him, not knowing what to say and she had no time to think of something profound. No time to go into how, even if Woody's nightmare scenario had been realized, how she had no regrets about helping and being with him. She also doubted that no amount of time or talking would ever make him feel any less responsible for any misfortunes she or anyone else in town met at the hands of Porkchop. So what was she going to say? She finally decided to avoid talking about misfortunes and nightmarish what-ifs and to instead point out their good fortune to which Woody was currently blind. They had to focus on that and moreover, the job they still had at hand. She cupped Woody's face with both her hands and gave him one of her ordinary, loving smiles that always seemed to have an extraordinary way of capturing Woody's attention.
"I'm still here, Woody. I'm here, with you. For now, we're both safe. Your arm is fixed and we're both chomping at the bit to be married. I don't know about you, but I say that's a recipe for a world of hurt for Porkchop." Woody had to agree with a smile in spite of himself,
"Yeah, I reckon it is." he replied. With help from Bo Peep that he did not need, but did not refuse either, he got up and dusted off his ruined shirt. Woody then reached to adjust his hat in the way that he always did to emphasize his determination on a matter. When he realized that it was not there and remembered that it had been taken by a space varmint who was already not held in very high regard. Woody frowned. Oh, this night had gone beyond personal, near vendetta! He turned to Bo Peep,
"Okay! So what are we waiting for? We're getting married! To have time to do something like that, something really needs to be done about Porkchop and him so rudely filling up our social calendar. But no fear, somewhere in between us finding a way out of this room and finding my hat, I'm sure we'll have no trouble foiling Porkchop's sinister plan." Woody may have started in mock seriousness, but he finished dead serious. Bo Peep smiled at Woody's statement. That sounded more like her beloved sheriff. He was confident in spite of everything that they could do something as daunting as defeating a powerful enemy. Somehow, good would always triumph over evil. She tried to hold on to that feeling of hope and did manage the whole time as he and her felt around their door and windowless room for some means of escape. However, her hope could not help but falter a little when suddenly a small entryway slid open in front of her and an armed guard was pointing a weapon in her face! Bo Peep recovered from her fright and grabbed at the weapon! Sadly, she was not quick enough to get anything for her valiant effort other than a hard shove from a second guard who was following the first!
Bo Peep staggered back from the force the second guard's push and before she fell off balance completely, Woody caught her. More guards piled into the small room and barked orders in a language that Woody did not understand. However, Bo Peep understood and held onto Woody's hand tightly, refusing to let go of him as one of the guards held up some metallic objects that were not guns. From the shape of it, Woody could only assume they were the space folk equivalent of handcuffs. Ultimately, no amount of gun-waving, or in this case, gun-jabbing, could make Bo Peep relinquish her grip on Woody. Finally the frustrated guards settled on simply shackling them both together with one handcuff. Bo Peep let out a sigh of relief when this was done. Woody shuttered and wondered what they could have possibly said that would make Bo Peep so happy that they at least would be bound together. What was in store for them next? Woody was about to ask, but then they were both pushed and shoved out of the room and into the hall beyond.