With extremely grateful thanks to my brother for supplying me with the names of assorted boxers for the opening scene.


Missing

Eric had spent the greater part of his adult life in situations where an ability to retain a clear thought process was a definite boon. It was, generally, an ability he possessed in spades and it had, unquestionably, saved his life more than once. Unfortunately, it was currently eluding him.

All John had said to him was that Paul Jones was in reception. No clue that the Paul Jones standing in reception was going to look as if he'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones all at once and then, for good measure, had taken a header down at least four flights of stairs. And Eric couldn't help but remember that Paul had been a member of Taylor's patrol that had gone to investigate the Northland Collective site...along with Alice and Lexia. The thought 'if Paul looks like this, what does the rest of the patrol look like' kept pounding through his mind to the point where it was all he could do was say,

"Paul -- this way."

Paul looked grateful to be leaving reception. "I'm sorry, sir..." he began, sheepishly.

"What for?"

"They captured me."

Eric stopped in the middle of the hallway. For a second, he couldn't take in that trio of words. When he finally managed it, the implications hit him like a tonne of bricks. Hoping against hope that he was just leaping to conclusions, he said, "When?"

Paul looked even more sheepish. "Four weeks ago...at Cranston Plaza. I only managed to escape this morning."

~*~

The second the men's room door swung shut behind him, John rolled up his left sleeve to uncover his morpher. The device had been designed to look like a diver's watch -- even to the point where it did actually display the time. The design meant that the Vengeance Rangers were more able to wear their morphers in public, although ostensibly -- and as far as Chief of Police Mackenzie was concerned -- their morphers were kept in the same secure storage as the chrono-morphers and quantum morpher.

John smirked faintly as he pushed the button that would teleport him from the SGHQ to the Northland Collective site. Thank God Mackenzie is on Dad's shit list...The men's room vanished from view to be replaced by a series of full-length mirrors circled around him. The sounds of a fight filled his ears, but he barely had a chance to register that before hands grasped at him.

Looking down, John saw translucent hands clinging to his waist. What the...?! Then he found himself being hauled backwards. He realised that he was going to be pulled into the mirror, and prepared for that impact only to feel the viscous sensation of being dragged, backwards, through some sort of membrane and into some kind of liquid. He fought against it but the force pulling him was too strong.

There was time for him to recognise that this had not been one of his better moves and then everything went black.

~*~

Breathe, Eric reminded himself. It's not as bad as you're thinking. Trust.

He looked at Paul, taking in the depth and amount of bruising on the other man's face and the careful way he was standing. That, more than anything, brought common sense and clear thought back to Eric for the first time in ten minutes. A plan started to form.

"It's OK, Paul. It happens to the best of us."

"Sir." Paul didn't look or sound any less sheepish.

Eric sighed. Time to deal with that later. He started leading Paul in the direction of the med-centre. "Is there anything else I need to know about your captors?"

"They've got a lot of those robots." Paul paused. Eric glanced at him and saw him frowning. "Come to think of it, sir, I don't think I saw anyone who wasn't a wachama..."

"Cyclobot," Eric supplied. "No humans at all?"

"No."

That started the wheels turning in Eric's mind. It sounded like this might be some sort of back-up plan on Frax's part, which almost certainly meant the Northland Collective site was a trap -- and a trap liable to be swarming with Cyclobots. Which meant that time was of the essence. The nucleus of a rescue plan formed as they reached the door of the med-centre.

"Sir?" Paul looked a little startled at their destination.

"You," said Eric, "need to get patched up." Paul looked less than thrilled by the idea of spending time in close proximity to Jackson. "Meantime, I need to do something about the metal heads."

~*~

Duck. Avoid. Dodge. Kick. Punch. Repeat.

It was both monotonous and exhausting. Taylor felt as if she was moving through treacle. About the only good thing about this fight having moved from blasters to hand-to-hand was the lack of space. There were so many Cyclobots trying to hit only two targets.

A thought blossomed at the back of her mind despite her better efforts. She wasn't going to be getting out of this...

~*~

Eric headed briskly back towards reception. A quick radio conversation with Control had confirmed that they hadn't heard anything from Taylor since she'd left base. Not necessarily anything to worry about, in fact under any other circumstances, Eric wouldn't be worried. At his insistence, Control attempted to call up Taylor on the comm. network, only to be blasted by interference. That was proof enough for Eric.

The plan was simple. The four SG rangers present -- himself, Wes, Rick and John -- would head straight for the Northland Collective site. Following on behind -- subject to a comm. report -- would be Ben and a squad of SGs. If necessary, Kimberly would be included in that squad. Between them, any and every Cyclobot on site would be dealt with. Simple.

Control had paged Wes and Ben. Wes would collect the quantum morpher and his own chrono-morpher from safe storage and collect Rick from his PT session, while Ben would put together the SG team, leaving Eric to collect John from reception and speak to Kimberly.

John, you wanted to be an active Guardian, now's your chance, Eric mused as he reached the reception area. His eyes fell on the reception desk and he frowned.

"Gina -- where's John?" Eric asked, unable to prevent his mind from leaping to conclusions. It was probably nothing...

"He went to the men's room," Gina answered, frowning herself. "But now you mention it..."

Eric's heart sank. "Gina, what was he working on when Paul Jones came in?" Please let me be wrong...

Gina craned her neck to peer at the computer terminal John had been using. "It looks like today's assignment lists."

Worry and anger vied for dominance in Eric's mind. "I hate it when I'm right."

"Sir?" Gina asked.

Eric headed for the door, unclipping his cell phone to call Kimberly. So much for keeping her out of things unless she was absolutely necessary... "Gina," he called over his shoulder, "you reckon I did some dumb stuff. I think my son about has me beat." Looked like anger was winning.

"As I recall," Gina answered, "anything you did, you did for the right reasons. Looks like it runs in the family."

~*~

Kimberly stood in the shade of the porch, watching and waiting for the black SUV to pull up. A part of her mind was surprised that Eric had called her for this, knowing his basic reservations about her holding a morpher. The greater part of her mind was occupied with worrying over the safety of her two children. That Alice had found herself a part of the patrol that was probably about to be -- or was being -- ambushed came as no real surprise. The words Alice and trouble went hand in hand and always had done. As for John...

Like father, like son. Kimberly shook her head as the SUV pulled up. I just hope he's good as he thinks he is...and I hope he's as good as his father when it comes to coming out of situations...

"OK?" Eric asked from the driver's seat as she climbed into the vehicle.

"Peachy," she replied, a little sarcasm in her voice.

"Right. Silly question." Eric put the SUV back into gear and they were on their way.

~*~

Shawn knew this was hopeless.

The number of robots in the warehouse was continuing to increase, and while the close quarters were helpful to his and Taylor's continued existence, they were hardly that helpful. Sooner or later, exhaustion was going to hit them and that would be that.

But he was damned if he was going to give up. Damned if he was giving the bots and their master that satisfaction. It was coming back to him now -- what they had done to him. The hurt and anger and humiliation gave him fresh energy.

He might be going down but he was going to take as many Cyclobots with him as he could.

~*~

Being surrounded by Cyclobots and fighting, not just for his own life but for the lives of those depending on him, brought back a host of memories for Wes. The closeness of the battle, in particular, reminded him of the battle of the clock tower. That had been the first time he and Eric had truly fought side by side.

First but not last.

Not last by a long streak.

Wes ducked a blow intended to separate his head from his shoulders -- morphed or not -- and twisted into a super kick that did separate robotic head from shoulders. The loose head flew into the centre of the circle of mirrors that he had been peripherally aware of.

Given that the Cyclobots hadn't been standing inside it when they'd arrived, none of the rescue party had yet to set foot within its confines. As Wes saw the Cyclobot's head be literally pulled into one of the mirrors, vanishing completely, he decided that none of the rescue party would be setting foot within its confines.

Over the comm. he heard Kimberly whistle. "Didja see that?"

"I saw it," Eric answered.

"Creepy," Rick offered.

Wes had to smile at his son's response. In the SUV he'd looked nervous at being included in this mission, but now, here in the heat of battle with no time think about it, he sounded as confident as if this was his hundredth mission rather than his first.

"No-one goes near that circle," Eric warned.

"Easier...said than done," Wes responded, his moment's wool gathering costing him a bruise as a Cyclobot took advantage. The blow sent him reeling towards the circle, although he caught his balance before he could actually cut the boundary.

"Not if you concentrate."

Yes, sir, mister commander sir, Wes thought, a wry grin on his face.

A Cyclobot grabbed him and Wes found himself in the centre of a knot of the bronze machines. Barely had he taken in that fact than a bot was lunging towards him. Wes sidestepped the move. As the robot stumbled passed him, he donkey-kicked it on the rump, sending it into the arms of the robot that had been immediately behind him.

As he moved to straighten from the kick he felt metal hands grasping his ankle. Wes smiled faintly. Same moves, same response. He jumped, kicking the robot that had tried to take him down. The Cyclobot fell backwards, automatically releasing Wes' ankle as it frantically tried to avoid entering the mirror circle. As Wes landed, he was aware of the unfortunate bot vanishing.

Ooops...

"I've found Ta...Commander Earhardt and one other member of the patrol," Rick announced, pulling some of Wes' attention away from his attackers and to the comm. chatter.

"No sign of anyone else, though," Kimberly contributed, her voice betraying an understandable degree of fear.

Wes refused to think about the implications of that statement. Time enough for that when the robots were dealt with.

As he punched the nearest Cyclobot Eric said, "Rick -- get them outta here and back to SGHQ, and you can tell Taylor that's a direct order from me if she asks."

That meant they were still having communication difficulties. The Rangers' comm. frequency was unaffected, but from the moment they'd arrived on the Northland Collective site communication with SGHQ or anyone else using the standard frequencies had been rendered impossible. Whatever or whoever was doing the jamming was making a very good job of it.

"Understood, sir."

Wes dropped into a leg sweep, taking out four more of the surrounding robots, aware of the haze of teleportation sparkles that signalled Rick's departure, with Taylor and whoever else it was with her. That's stage one, Wes mused as another Cyclobot fell into the mirror circle and vanished, now to clean house.

~*~

John gave a groan as he woke up. That had been one seriously weird dream he'd been having -- about teleporting into the middle of a battle and then being dragged through a mirror by a pair of translucent hands.

It slowly penetrated his mind that he wasn't lying in bed.

He was lying, sprawled on something hard and cold and...he opened his eyes, something very, very pink.

Oh shit. Not a dream.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

John frowned. It sounded like a laugh, but not a real laugh, the sort of fake laughter you got on badly dubbed foreign films. People didn't really laugh like that, did they? He couldn't see the source of the noise, though -- which made it seem even stranger.

"We got you now!"

The words were accompanied by a chorus of the strange laughter. Looking round wildly, John still couldn't find the source.

Then something bit him. Hard. On the rear. He yelped.

"Hey! Cut that out!"

But his complaint was only met with more of the laughter and a second something nipped at his elbow.

"Yeouch!"

He scrambled to his feet, accompanied by more laughter. With a savage chomping sound, something bit his calf hard enough that he felt razor sharp teeth actually tearing his flesh this time. Reacting on instinct, he kicked out at roughly where he thought his attacker was and was rewarded with the sound of a metallic clang as he connected, solidly.

There was a rippling effect and a three-foot high creature, dressed in outlandish armour, suddenly materialised. It had one hand pressed against its snout while the other hand still gripped a wooden pole with some sort of lizard-like critter on the other end. From the shreds of material on the critter's fangs, that was what had been biting him.

"That wasn't very nice!" exclaimed the voice, which clearly didn't belong to the creature John had kicked.

"Nor's having your little..." But fangs sang into his bicep before he could finish.

Yelping again as more blood was drawn, John reached for where he thought the critter's pole was, made contact and tugged, tearing the critter from his arm and turning a second creature visible. This one had topped his armour off with a long snouted helmet and from its pose it was very angry.

"That was a big mistake," it snarled, sounding for all the world like a James Bond villain.

Almost as if cued, four more of the creatures rippled into sight, surrounding them. All of them dressed in variations of the armour. All of them holding critter pikes.

"Oh. Crap."


TO BE CONTINUED...