Part 17: An Angel's Mercy
Who knew doing nothing was so relaxing? After a week of rest, Madison was slowly beginning to feel better about life. She'd almost forgotten about her father's death, Mandy's flight from the law, or her own currently homeless situation. All she cared about now were Sam and Brittany, and what fun activities to take part in that day.
"I hear that new Brad Pitt movie is supposed to be pretty good." Brittany commented as they walked through the mall with smoothies in their hands. Sam scoffed.
"Everything with Brad Pitt in it is said to be good because he's a hunk." Sam smirked.
"Is there a problem with that?" Brittany grinned. Sam shrugged and took a sip of her smoothie, leaning against the rail that separated the second floor of the mall from a twenty-foot drop to the floor below. Madison leaned against the rail beside her, taking a sip of her own smoothie.
The pre-teen perked up when she saw a nearby store advertising something she was normally forbidden to get because they were supposedly bad for kids. "Hey, let's get some video games!" She exclaimed, pointing to the nearby store.
"Sure, we can take a look. I'm not making any guarantees though. This stuff is expensive." Sam replied. They walked into the game store, where Madison instantly ran to the wall full of games in big cardboard boxes. She grabbed one to examine it, a strange game with three strange looking bug-eyed cartoon girls on the cover.
She sucked idly on her smoothie as she put that game back, grabbing another one with a strange squat fat guy with a mustache, red shirt and blue overalls. Who designed the characters in these games? Why weren't there any with normal looking people?
"See anything you like Madison?" Sam said as she and Brittany walked up behind her, scanning the wall of games.
"Not really..." Madison sighed and put the game back on the shelf, taking a step back to examine the rest of the games. Suddenly the floor beneath them fell open, and all three girls plunged screaming through a long metal tube. Finally they emerged into Richard's office. Sam and Brittany slammed into the steel floor, with Madison falling on top of them with a gentle impact, being significantly lighter weight.
"I trust you girls enjoyed your vacation, and are ready to get back to work?" Richard asked, his eyes sweeping over the girls. Madison jumped off of the teenagers so they could climb to their feet, brushing themselves off.
"Yeah, actually." Sam replied. "We're ready to get back to work. Right girls?" Sam looked back at Brittany and Madison, who both nodded.
"I'm glad to hear it, because Clover and her accomplices have been spotted on the east coast, negotiating passage to England." Richard gestured grandly as a screen activated behind him, displaying a world map with a red line running from the United States to Great Britain. "According to our spies, this happened a few days ago, but they're still on the open ocean."
"Taking a boat?" Brittany smirked. "Should've seen that coming. They knew we'd block the airports."
"Why didn't you block the ports too, Richard?" Sam asked.
"Because as long as they're at sea, they're sitting ducks." Richard replied with a sly smirk. A host of red dots appeared on the screen along both coasts. "These dots represent every port their vessel can dock at. We don't know precisely where they are, but you should be able to find them with your Heat-Sensor 6000 Sunglasses."
"Then it's a simple matter of boarding and rounding them up." Brittany realized. "That's pretty slick thinking."
"Thank you. Now hurry, go get ready, you must leave as quickly as possible." Richard said. Sam and Brittany nodded and turned to leave, followed by Madison. She followed them down to the locker room, where they pulled their WOOHP uniforms out of the lockers and undressed to put them on. Madison pulled out her purple uniform and looked over at the others.
"I'm... gonna go get dressed over here." Madison pointed to the other side of the lockers.
"Huh? What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"Just... you know, it's embarrassing..." Madison managed to force a blush to her cheeks. Sam raised her hands defensively.
"Okay, sure, go ahead. Just hurry." Sam said. Madison nodded and rushed to the other side of the room with her uniform. She pulled her shirt off slowly, taking the chance to press the button on the back of her earring. She folded up her shirt neatly to waste time until finally she heard a small voice come out of her earring.
"Madison? What's up?" Clover asked.
Madison spoke in a hushed whisper. "Clover, they're onto you. They know you're on a boat, and they're blocking all the harbors." She slowly removed the rest of her clothes, making a show of folding them up as well, though she didn't really care about wrinkles.
"Shit..." Clover's voice came back. "I should've known it was too easy to get on this boat."
"What are you going to do?" Madison asked worriedly.
"Don't worry about that. You just worry about keeping your cover intact." Clover replied. "Thanks for the heads up though, and contact us if you hear anything else."
"Right." Madison slipped into the jumpsuit and zipped it up the front, taking the chance while fixing her collar to press the button on the earring twice like Clover had instructed. When she turned around her heart nearly jumped out of her chest to see Sam and Brittany standing right behind her, glaring down at her. They must have heard her...
"Do you know the meaning of the word 'hurry'?" Sam demanded. Madison gulped, forcing herself to calm enough to speak.
"Wr... wrinkles... I don't like wrinkles." She gestured to the folded up clothes on the bench. Sam rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead while Brittany gave her a slight smile.
"Yeah, that's good, but we're in a hurry. Come on." Brittany pushed her toward the lockers gently. Madison hurriedly slid on the matching purple gloves and boots so they could head up to the hangar on top of the building. They climbed into one of the WOOHP jets and soon took off across the sky, heading toward the ocean.
Brittany slid on her Heat-Sensing Sunglasses, staring out the window when they reached the ocean with a speed unmatched by any normal jetliner. Madison wrung her hands in her lap nervously, looking down at the ocean and hoping NOT to see any sign of her sister's boat.
"I see a heat signature over there." Brittany pointed off to their right. "A whole lot of bodies, it's gotta be a pretty big ship." She said. Sam turned the jet to intercept the boat, much to Madison's dismay. They were going to catch Mandy despite her best efforts. Maybe she could do something else... but what? She couldn't let them take Mandy...
The jet pulled up over the boat and went into hover mode. Sam fired a small grappling hook at the nose of the ship and walked to the back, gesturing for Madison and Brittany to join her before they were lowered to the ship's deck on the steel platform. They all looked around, but only saw the startled faces of the crew staring back at them.
"Where are your passengers?" Sam demanded, approaching the one who looked like the captain.
"The loons left the ship without any suits." The captain replied. "Poor bastards, there are worse things than space slugs out there." He took off his cap and put it over his chest, looking out over the water. "May the stars make a fine home for them." The three spies stared at him blankly until the first mate approached them, speaking conspiratorially.
"They jumped off the side of the boat... don't mind the captain, he has some issues." He told them.
"Jumped off? As in overboard!?" Sam ran up to the side of the boat, looking down. She slid her Heat-Sensing Sunglasses on, looking out across the water. They could see the coastline of Great Britain approaching in front of them, but there didn't seem to be anything in the water. Madison approached the side of the boat, looking down at the water worriedly.
Sam and Brittany scanned the water around the boat for fifteen minutes before Sam finally whipped off her glasses. "Damnit... I don't see them anywhere."
"Do you think they died out there?" Brittany asked, sliding her glasses into a pocket. Madison's breath caught in her throat, listening.
"No, they wouldn't have jumped in unless they were sure they could make it on their own... but the thing that troubles me is why did they do it?" Sam asked. "It's almost like they knew we were coming."
"Do you think there's a spy in WOOHP? Well... one that's not spying FOR WOOHP?" Brittany asked. Madison stopped breathing altogether. It felt like even her heart had stopped. Would they put two and two together? Was she about to be uncovered? Would Sam hate her forever for all of this? She liked Sam, even though she was hunting her sister. She didn't want to lose her...
"Possibly... but let's not jump to conclusions. It's also possible they got tipped off some other way. They have Alex's gadgets, they could have seen us coming if they were careful." Sam replied. Madison finally started breathing again. They weren't going to uncover her... not today at least.
"So what do we do now?" Brittany asked.
"We beat them to London and keep an eye out for them." Sam replied. "They have to be coming here to get more support for their movements against us... or kill the British leaders." She reasoned. Madison wanted to scream at her that Mandy wouldn't do that... she wanted to scream it to the open ocean, but she was careful not to. She had an important job to do here.
"Let's get outta here then. We don't know how much of a lead they have on us." Brittany pointed out. So they turned to pile onto the steel platform, being lifted up into the WOOHP jet where they all took their seats, Sam taking the controls.
Madison leaned against the window as the tether retracted from the boat and they flew across the ocean again. Madison looked out the window at the water below, watching the shoreline of England pass underneath them. She blinked when she saw a pair of figures lying on the land on their backs. She didn't have time to see who it was, but she was sure she saw them there...
"Madison? You okay?" Brittany asked.
"Yeah... yeah I'm fine." Madison replied, hoping against hope that Mandy was one of the figures she saw. There had only been two... she didn't want to think about what might have happened to the others. So she leaned back and waited to reach their destination, though her fingers gripped the arms of the seat a little bit tighter.
TO BE CONTINUED
Who knew doing nothing was so relaxing? After a week of rest, Madison was slowly beginning to feel better about life. She'd almost forgotten about her father's death, Mandy's flight from the law, or her own currently homeless situation. All she cared about now were Sam and Brittany, and what fun activities to take part in that day.
"I hear that new Brad Pitt movie is supposed to be pretty good." Brittany commented as they walked through the mall with smoothies in their hands. Sam scoffed.
"Everything with Brad Pitt in it is said to be good because he's a hunk." Sam smirked.
"Is there a problem with that?" Brittany grinned. Sam shrugged and took a sip of her smoothie, leaning against the rail that separated the second floor of the mall from a twenty-foot drop to the floor below. Madison leaned against the rail beside her, taking a sip of her own smoothie.
The pre-teen perked up when she saw a nearby store advertising something she was normally forbidden to get because they were supposedly bad for kids. "Hey, let's get some video games!" She exclaimed, pointing to the nearby store.
"Sure, we can take a look. I'm not making any guarantees though. This stuff is expensive." Sam replied. They walked into the game store, where Madison instantly ran to the wall full of games in big cardboard boxes. She grabbed one to examine it, a strange game with three strange looking bug-eyed cartoon girls on the cover.
She sucked idly on her smoothie as she put that game back, grabbing another one with a strange squat fat guy with a mustache, red shirt and blue overalls. Who designed the characters in these games? Why weren't there any with normal looking people?
"See anything you like Madison?" Sam said as she and Brittany walked up behind her, scanning the wall of games.
"Not really..." Madison sighed and put the game back on the shelf, taking a step back to examine the rest of the games. Suddenly the floor beneath them fell open, and all three girls plunged screaming through a long metal tube. Finally they emerged into Richard's office. Sam and Brittany slammed into the steel floor, with Madison falling on top of them with a gentle impact, being significantly lighter weight.
"I trust you girls enjoyed your vacation, and are ready to get back to work?" Richard asked, his eyes sweeping over the girls. Madison jumped off of the teenagers so they could climb to their feet, brushing themselves off.
"Yeah, actually." Sam replied. "We're ready to get back to work. Right girls?" Sam looked back at Brittany and Madison, who both nodded.
"I'm glad to hear it, because Clover and her accomplices have been spotted on the east coast, negotiating passage to England." Richard gestured grandly as a screen activated behind him, displaying a world map with a red line running from the United States to Great Britain. "According to our spies, this happened a few days ago, but they're still on the open ocean."
"Taking a boat?" Brittany smirked. "Should've seen that coming. They knew we'd block the airports."
"Why didn't you block the ports too, Richard?" Sam asked.
"Because as long as they're at sea, they're sitting ducks." Richard replied with a sly smirk. A host of red dots appeared on the screen along both coasts. "These dots represent every port their vessel can dock at. We don't know precisely where they are, but you should be able to find them with your Heat-Sensor 6000 Sunglasses."
"Then it's a simple matter of boarding and rounding them up." Brittany realized. "That's pretty slick thinking."
"Thank you. Now hurry, go get ready, you must leave as quickly as possible." Richard said. Sam and Brittany nodded and turned to leave, followed by Madison. She followed them down to the locker room, where they pulled their WOOHP uniforms out of the lockers and undressed to put them on. Madison pulled out her purple uniform and looked over at the others.
"I'm... gonna go get dressed over here." Madison pointed to the other side of the lockers.
"Huh? What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"Just... you know, it's embarrassing..." Madison managed to force a blush to her cheeks. Sam raised her hands defensively.
"Okay, sure, go ahead. Just hurry." Sam said. Madison nodded and rushed to the other side of the room with her uniform. She pulled her shirt off slowly, taking the chance to press the button on the back of her earring. She folded up her shirt neatly to waste time until finally she heard a small voice come out of her earring.
"Madison? What's up?" Clover asked.
Madison spoke in a hushed whisper. "Clover, they're onto you. They know you're on a boat, and they're blocking all the harbors." She slowly removed the rest of her clothes, making a show of folding them up as well, though she didn't really care about wrinkles.
"Shit..." Clover's voice came back. "I should've known it was too easy to get on this boat."
"What are you going to do?" Madison asked worriedly.
"Don't worry about that. You just worry about keeping your cover intact." Clover replied. "Thanks for the heads up though, and contact us if you hear anything else."
"Right." Madison slipped into the jumpsuit and zipped it up the front, taking the chance while fixing her collar to press the button on the earring twice like Clover had instructed. When she turned around her heart nearly jumped out of her chest to see Sam and Brittany standing right behind her, glaring down at her. They must have heard her...
"Do you know the meaning of the word 'hurry'?" Sam demanded. Madison gulped, forcing herself to calm enough to speak.
"Wr... wrinkles... I don't like wrinkles." She gestured to the folded up clothes on the bench. Sam rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead while Brittany gave her a slight smile.
"Yeah, that's good, but we're in a hurry. Come on." Brittany pushed her toward the lockers gently. Madison hurriedly slid on the matching purple gloves and boots so they could head up to the hangar on top of the building. They climbed into one of the WOOHP jets and soon took off across the sky, heading toward the ocean.
Brittany slid on her Heat-Sensing Sunglasses, staring out the window when they reached the ocean with a speed unmatched by any normal jetliner. Madison wrung her hands in her lap nervously, looking down at the ocean and hoping NOT to see any sign of her sister's boat.
"I see a heat signature over there." Brittany pointed off to their right. "A whole lot of bodies, it's gotta be a pretty big ship." She said. Sam turned the jet to intercept the boat, much to Madison's dismay. They were going to catch Mandy despite her best efforts. Maybe she could do something else... but what? She couldn't let them take Mandy...
The jet pulled up over the boat and went into hover mode. Sam fired a small grappling hook at the nose of the ship and walked to the back, gesturing for Madison and Brittany to join her before they were lowered to the ship's deck on the steel platform. They all looked around, but only saw the startled faces of the crew staring back at them.
"Where are your passengers?" Sam demanded, approaching the one who looked like the captain.
"The loons left the ship without any suits." The captain replied. "Poor bastards, there are worse things than space slugs out there." He took off his cap and put it over his chest, looking out over the water. "May the stars make a fine home for them." The three spies stared at him blankly until the first mate approached them, speaking conspiratorially.
"They jumped off the side of the boat... don't mind the captain, he has some issues." He told them.
"Jumped off? As in overboard!?" Sam ran up to the side of the boat, looking down. She slid her Heat-Sensing Sunglasses on, looking out across the water. They could see the coastline of Great Britain approaching in front of them, but there didn't seem to be anything in the water. Madison approached the side of the boat, looking down at the water worriedly.
Sam and Brittany scanned the water around the boat for fifteen minutes before Sam finally whipped off her glasses. "Damnit... I don't see them anywhere."
"Do you think they died out there?" Brittany asked, sliding her glasses into a pocket. Madison's breath caught in her throat, listening.
"No, they wouldn't have jumped in unless they were sure they could make it on their own... but the thing that troubles me is why did they do it?" Sam asked. "It's almost like they knew we were coming."
"Do you think there's a spy in WOOHP? Well... one that's not spying FOR WOOHP?" Brittany asked. Madison stopped breathing altogether. It felt like even her heart had stopped. Would they put two and two together? Was she about to be uncovered? Would Sam hate her forever for all of this? She liked Sam, even though she was hunting her sister. She didn't want to lose her...
"Possibly... but let's not jump to conclusions. It's also possible they got tipped off some other way. They have Alex's gadgets, they could have seen us coming if they were careful." Sam replied. Madison finally started breathing again. They weren't going to uncover her... not today at least.
"So what do we do now?" Brittany asked.
"We beat them to London and keep an eye out for them." Sam replied. "They have to be coming here to get more support for their movements against us... or kill the British leaders." She reasoned. Madison wanted to scream at her that Mandy wouldn't do that... she wanted to scream it to the open ocean, but she was careful not to. She had an important job to do here.
"Let's get outta here then. We don't know how much of a lead they have on us." Brittany pointed out. So they turned to pile onto the steel platform, being lifted up into the WOOHP jet where they all took their seats, Sam taking the controls.
Madison leaned against the window as the tether retracted from the boat and they flew across the ocean again. Madison looked out the window at the water below, watching the shoreline of England pass underneath them. She blinked when she saw a pair of figures lying on the land on their backs. She didn't have time to see who it was, but she was sure she saw them there...
"Madison? You okay?" Brittany asked.
"Yeah... yeah I'm fine." Madison replied, hoping against hope that Mandy was one of the figures she saw. There had only been two... she didn't want to think about what might have happened to the others. So she leaned back and waited to reach their destination, though her fingers gripped the arms of the seat a little bit tighter.
TO BE CONTINUED