By N. E. Shaw
Andros was beginning to think he'd spent all his luck at Outpost 99. The life sign in Kreebo space had been a false alarm--a Karovan diplomat ironing out peace agreements. The Sunshine's presence had nearly started a new war, so he had hightailed it out of there. Three days had gone by, and there hadn't been a promising lead since.
Signal after signal came within range, and the ship had been through sector after sector following them. So frustrating! So disappointing. Andros knew this painful combination of feelings all too well. Was this the beginning of another decade of fruitless searching for someone he loved?
Time passed slowly at The Corruptor's headquarters as well. Locked in her cell again, Ashley paced the damp floor, wondering if her own luck had run out.
It had been a few days since she first met her captor. He was a mystery--polite and gentile at times, tall and foreboding at others, and prone to outbursts of rage when he was angered. Ashley hadn't been hit again, but the technique was been highly effective. She had been choosing her words carefully since that day.
'Day' was an odd word now. She hadn't seen daylight since the day of her capture. Whenever she was brought to The Corruptor's office, it was dark and starry outside. Maybe they only brought her out at night, or maybe this planet was in perpetual night. There was no way to tell because of all the lost time.
Whenever she was moved from her cell to the office, she was first tranquilized with a dart gun. She would wake up later in the office, to be questioned or whatever, and then tranqued again before being returned. When in the cell, the shot always came from the ceiling somewhere, and was always preceded by the sound of rushing water overhead. Ashley had painful sores all over her neck and collar from where the darts had struck. The poison was building in her system too, she couldn't think as clearly as before. If this went on, she would be in severe trouble.
But all hope was not lost. She did have the makings of a plan, as well as a few strange clues she didn't know what to make of.
For instance, one time, during one of The Corruptor's outbursts, he had shoved a Quantron into a wall. She could have sworn she heard the machine curse at its master, but everyone pretended like nothing happened. She might have imagined it, but she did remember.
Then, maybe a day later, she was being interrogated about the Rangers and was sitting on the platform-chair. Suddenly there was a sound like wood splitting, and the platform lurched, dumping her off. As she sat on the ground, all she could think of was why wood had been used in the construction of this great steely complex; but they tranqued her again and took her away before she could wonder any more.
Something was fishy around this place. It was not what it seemed to be.
Unfortunately, her cell was no less confining, and The Corruptor was no less demanding, and she had to act quickly if she was going to save herself.
HEXA looked on from above as the latest life signal proved to be useless. The Sunshine had been all over the galaxy by now, and its young commander was losing hope quickly.
"HEXA, calculate," he said quietly from his chair. "Given the number of signals we've investigated, and the amount of space we've covered so far, what is the probability we'll find Ashley within the next month?"
HEXA gave her familiar thinking bleep, and replied, "That figure contains too many digits to conveniently report with my vocal function."
Andros closed his eyes. This was hopeless. He could almost see how the next few years of his life would be spent--just like old times, searching for Karone. He had eventually found her, but how could he possibly be so lucky a second time?
"Suggestion," HEXA said then. It was a word he hadn't heard from her until that moment.
"What is it?" he replied.
"Suggest you look in the improbable place."
He frowned. "Excuse me?"
"You are excused," she replied dumbly, but he didn't bother to get annoyed. She had just given him a bizarre idea. She had said to look in the improbable places; true, he had been looking in all the backwater areas of space, but could he do better than that? What was the one place where he hadn't looked?
"HEXA, are you talking about Earth?"
"Probably," she said. "Earth is an improbable place to search for a missing Earther."
"You're damn right it is..." he said, his heart accelerating a little. "Okay, set course for Earth. Let's see if you're right."
The Sunshine took off moments later, and Andros took a moment to realize what HEXA had just done. She had been observing him these past few days, learning the way he thinks--and the way he doesn't think. She knew he had covered all probable search strategies but one, and finally decided to point out the last one. She had learned him, just like DECA.
Ashley had been scouring her cell for an hour now, and finally found what she was looking for. A flaw. There was a piece of paneling that had rusted a little, and this she began to pull at until a chunk came free. It was the size and shape of her hand with outstretched fingers. A few more minutes work produced another piece of metal just like it. These she bent over her knee until they were curved enough to form a tube together. Now she had a fully-functional, dart-proof neck-protector.
Ignoring the discomfort, she slipped the chunks of metal inside her turtleneck, one on each side. She thanked her stars that this all hadn't happened when she lived in Angel Grove, or she would have been wearing a tube top that day. Now she hunkered down to wait, making sure her throat was properly exposed. When she heard the rushing water, she pretended to be asleep.
Right on schedule, the dart hissed through the air and struck its mark, sticking in the folds of her collar, but not penetrating the metal. She congratulated herself on her Ranger-like resourcefulness, and promptly pretended to faint. Now came the fun part. What would happened to her when the Quantrons came? Where would the door to this cell prove to be?
As she suspected, the door was in the ceiling. With an unprofessional rusty squeal, the lid was raised and stale air wafted down to the bottom of the cell. Human voices surprised Ashley as they wondered aloud if she was asleep yet. Finally they decided she was, and lowered a ladder to the cell floor.
Ashley was ungraciously heaved over a shoulder and hauled up the ladder into that stale, dark air she smelled before. A large fan whirred somewhere in the background. Ashley was laid out on a cold canvas stretcher and the men began to haul her up a hill.
She hadn't seen any humans under the employ of The Corruptor. She only ever saw Quantrons. Why did they appear now to do the dirty work of hauling her unconscious butt around the complex? Why did they sound so young--and so familiar? No faces came to mind, but she was sure she'd heard several of these voices before; not very long ago either. They weren't aliens she knew from her Rangering days.
They didn't say much as they hauled her along, and she stayed in character, not moving an inch. This incline must be the island slope, she thought. Her pallbearers were having trouble keeping their footing though. At one point, someone slipped and the stretcher tipped, and she nearly gave herself away with a scream. Then she heard someone whisper, "Watch it, dumbass. You'll ruin this whole production if you wake her up out here."
Whatever he meant by that, the person he was chiding didn't respond.
Ashley decided to risk a peek at her surroundings.
Her head was turned to the side on the stretcher, the metal plates digging into her throat. When she opened one eye, she had to gasp.
She was flying, soaring high above the buildings of the complex. Yet still the young men walked on the ground with her stretcher in their hands. Was her addled brain playing tricks on her...or had she just learned part of The Corruptor's secret?
She closed her eyes again when they reached the top of the hill. A bit of light shone through her eyelids here, and then someone opened a door and warm air washed out; this air smelled like the office. They had arrived, and so had the moment of truth.
Earth in the viewscreen was a warm welcome. The last time Andros had seen it, he was looking out the port window of the Yugathi ship, the day they took him away to Outpost 99. That had been, what, a lifetime ago? But Earth also posed a challenge for Andros and HEXA. Earth had the highest concentration of humans in the Galaxy. How to find one among billions of them?
HEXA knew. They were barely in orbit when she reported a probable lifesign. Using all the scan parameters they had tried before, she had found a possible match, and when Andros looked at the readout, his heart soared. He knew the numbers were hers.
"Where is she HEXA?"
"City of Brooklyn, New York State, United States, North America."
"Show me."
The viewer switched to an orbital shot of Brooklyn. It was night time, the dawn terminator at least two hours away. The shot adjusted to a closer view, and then a large circle began to blink.
"Is that the building she's in?"
"Affirmative."
"Any idea what it is?"
"Negative."
"Good enough. Hold this orbit, I'm going down."
He strode off the bridge feeling energized and ready for anything.
Ashley was brought into the office, laid down, and slid off the stretcher, then a voice began to mutter orders. It instructed that the stretcher be stowed, the ocean "refilled" and for "you guys" to "get back in costume". Someone made a complaint about the discomfort of his costume, but Ashley didn't really hear it. She was fixated on the first voice. This time she knew it was someone she knew. Someone from the recent past. From school. The voice stopped talking and was replaced by a new one, the voice of The Corruptor. He said, "How much stuff did you pump into her? She should be awake by now."
Someone replied dumbly, and The Corruptor brushed him off. "Nevermind. Get your helmets on and get ready."
Ashley heard movement--the sounds of Quantrons moving--and then all fell silent. This was her cue. She opened her eyes and took a breath, hoping she was a convincing enough actress. Recalling previous occasions, she looked around for a moment as if she didn't know where she was, then her eyes fixed on The Corruptor. He stood before his desk, arms folded. This time, his mask hid nothing. It all came to her in a rush of recognition.
Rob.
"Good to see you again my dear," he said, affecting his voice like good actors do. "I'm afraid we have no more time to waste. Today you'll hand over what you know, or..." he tsked. "..face the consequences."
What is he doing? Ashley asked herself. Sweet, savvy, ingenuous Rob! He was behind all this! All at once, Ashley was concerned for his sanity and safety, and infuriated by this pathetic stunt he had pulled.
"I've said it a hundred times, you're not getting anything from me."
He didn't move, but she saw that stupid mask twitch a little. She had forgotten herself and provoked him. Now he would get mad and storm around and yell at her, trying to strike fear into her little heart, as usual; but he surprised her this time...he didn't get mad.
"Very well then," he said, and turned his back on her to open a metal case on the desk. Out came something shiny, which he held in front of him so she couldn't see.
"I've been very patient with you Miss Hammond. My demands were reasonable, given the circumstances, but you continue to be stubborn. Because of your obstinance, I'm forced to take more drastic action."
He turned around with a gleaming blaster in his hand. A prop obviously--but a frighteningly good one. "This weapon is set to kill. I will now ask you one more time if you'll agree to my demands. If you refuse, I will kill you, then your father, and when I get my hands on them, your Ranger friends." He stretched out his arm and aimed the gun at her. "Now what will it be?"
Ashley let her face soften a little. "My God Rob. You are a sick man."
At the mention of his name, the gun trembled. Rob stiffened visibly and the Quantrons all looked at each other in astonishment. They actually backed away from her.
"R-Rob?" squawked the thwarted supervillain.
"Let it go Rob, I figured you out," Ashley went on, standing up. "That's not a real gun and you're not 'The Corruptor'. None of this has been real."
"It's realer than you think!" he insisted, but Ashley just shook her head.
"It's over. I'm going to call the police and they'll take us both home. We're on Earth, in one of your film studios or something, aren't we?"
"I'm warning you Ashley!" He brandished the gun some more as she drew near. "Don't make me hurt you!"
Ashley gave him a stern look. "You know who I am Rob. Don't make me hurt you."
Suddenly, a distant alarm went off. The Quantrons looked around, and one of them said, in human voice, "Somebody's at the gate!" Everyone looked at Rob for orders, but he was frozen. Ashley took her chance. She slapped the gun out of his hand and tackled him, sending him careening backwards onto the desk. All at once the place erupted in commotion, as the "Quantrons" began to panic and The Corruptor and his prisoner wrestled frantically to subdue each other. Rob put up a good fight, but he was no space villain, and after a minute of grappling Ashley put a choke-hold on him until he passed out.
His buddies in costume had been watching in horror, but now they looked like they might actually try to subdue her if she let them. They were blocking the exit, but it was time to escape anyway. Ashley sprang up, sprinted towards the nearest window and smashed herself through.
The cheap glass shattered against the force of her leap. Her face covered, wrists turned inward, she felt herself falling for a long time before the ground rushed up to strike. She rolled until she came to a stop on the slope, and took quick stock of herself, finding only shallow cuts and bruisings from her tumble. She was lying on the slope amid the remains of the "complex", an illusory landscape of miniature trees, streets, and buildings with lightbulbs inside. From the office it looked enormously real. Lying on top of them, Ashley felt like Gulliver. Her tumble had mowed down a great swath of them and she almost felt sorry for the imaginary Lilliputians living inside.
But there was no time to mourn for them because Rob was screaming in the office. He must have faked passing out. Ashley got up and ran, noting that the night sky was the dark interior of a bubble dome, and that the stars were specks of sunlight from outside. The "ocean" did not stretch away to the horizon, but angled mirrors made it look that way. This was all an exquisite illusion put together for her benefit. Obviously, dating a fourth-year film student with relatives in the business had been a bad idea; but how could she have known he was capable of such a grand crime?
"Ashley!" he yelled from the broken office window. "You won't get away from me!"
Ashley didn't respond, just kept on running towards the water. The exit would be beyond those mirrors. She wasn't worried for her safety at all...until she heard the sound of a lazer blast. It struck her square in the back like a screaming-hot fireball. Her vision went black and she pitched forward into the ocean, then she couldn't move any more. She could only float in the frigid water, suffocating, and wondering what kind of prop that could have been.