Chapter 10 – Aftermath

Pierce and Sam aren't moving! Jerry quickly checks the pulse of both of them! He is relieved to know that they just blacked out from their fall, and sudden stop. He quickly handcuffs Pierce, and tends to Sam.

"Sam? Sam? Are you all right?", Jerry asks with concern.

"Jerry?....", says Sam. She then breaks into tears as she hugs Jerry around the neck, "JERRY!"

"It's all over, Sam!", say Jerry as he hugs Sam consolingly. "Everything is going to be all right! You're safe now, and going home!"

Pierce awakens to see Sam crying in Jerry's arms. "I wish she would have felt one tenth of that emotion towards me! I wanted to make her Queen of the world!", he says quietly.

Jerry responds, "Pierce, you can't buy or intimidate the love, affection and caring of a woman's heart! She has to be willing to give it to you unconditionally! It can never be forced!"

The WOOHP copters and jets arrive at WOOHP. Pierce is taken into custody, and Sam walks off Jerry's jet with him.

As soon as Regina and Morgan see Sam they run to embrace her.

"Sammy!", says Regina as she gives her a tearful hug.

"You're all right!", says Morgan as she gives Sam a tearful hug as well.

Sam politely returns the hugs, "Thanks girls! You were great! But you have to introduce yourselves! I've never seen you before!"

Regina and Morgan look stunned. Then they start laughing. Regina pulls off her mask – it's Alex! Morgan does the same, and it's Clover.

"Never seen us before? How do you like that?", says Clover in fake anger.

"ALEX! CLOVER!!", cries Sam as she tackles both of her friends via neck hug.

"It's YOU! It's really YOU!!!" says Sam as she keeps hugging her friends through her happy tears.

Clover and Alex are laughing and crying as they hug their friend. "Yes, it's us!" says Clover through her tears.

"We're like the proverbial bad penny, Sam. You can't get rid of us!", says Alex through her tears.

"Why would I ever want to?", says Sam through hers.

In Jerry's office, everything is explained. The girls are on their landing cushion, one arm around each other.

Jerry begins, "You see, Sam, I knew something was wrong when I WOOHP'd the gals, and you weren't there. Pierce had done an excellent job of intimidating the girls into believing that if they tried to help you in any way, he would kill you.

"I noticed Clover had one WOOHP hair barrette in her hair and Alex had one WOOHP hairpin in hers. I found that odd, as they both normally wore two. After they told me about how they tried to break out of their cells, I reasoned that the missing barrette and pin were probably in the cells. It would be easy to activate the WOOHP tracker and pinpoint their location."

Clover continues, "We wanted to help get you back, but Jerry told us we'd have to turn the case over to 'Regina and Morgan'. When he went to introduce us to them, we found out that they were masks WE could wear. We would be Regina and Morgan! That way Pierce couldn't use us as a reason for dumping you in the piranha tank."

Alex takes over, "So the next problem was how to get on the island. Jerry came up with the trader idea, and hid us in one of the steamer trunks! While he was showing the wares to Pierce, 'Morgan' and I got out and started snooping."

Jerry continues, "We got an unexpected assist when Russia and the USA started hammering Pierce's transmission island and taking out his pods with their space-based lasers."

Clover takes over, "So 'Regina' and I sneaked into the control panel room and started lasering everything in sight. That's when Pierce returned to the throne room, and we confronted him. After he sent you through the wall, he went through the floor, delaying us with that glass wall of his. Jerry destroyed it with his sound gun."

Alex says, "We trailed Pierce to his plane, but we were too slow to stop it from taking off. Luckily, Jerry had secured our copter/jet on the trading boat, and the WOOHP ones, with his jet on a nearby island. We got in our copter/jet and followed you. When we got close enough, we used our jet go-go boots to cross over to his plane and cut the opening. You know the rest."

"As for that agreement you signed, and Alex and Clover witnessed, it was completely null, void and unenforceable!", says Jerry.

"But how is that possible?", asks Sam.

"Any agreement, oral or written, that is agreed to under duress is unenforceable. Duress means an action like putting a gun to your head."

"Or threatening the lives of my friends?"

"Exactly!"

"I know I owe my life to you all, and I especially owe Jerry one!", says Sam as she gets up and kisses Jerry on the cheek. Jerry blushes momentarily. "That was one great catch!"

Jerry tries to slough it off, "Merely routine. The computer did the calculation, all I had to do was be there at the right time." But the gals know better, and they smile at Jerry with one of those 'yeah, sure' smiles. Jerry blushes again. They saw through his little white lie.