Author's note: Happy Mother's day! I wonder if there are any mothers reading this chapter. It's perfectly likely.
And Mat, you were right, but why are you still talking about time zones?
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Chapter 5: Action
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01:24 PM - EMMA'S OFFICE
Emma was filling out papers in her office. A guard knocked at the door. "Come in," Emma told him.
The guard entered. "Emma, ma'am, I just heard some strange back-forth-back-forth chanting from the Delta area."
"The Delta area?" Emma responded. "That's where the captives are being held. They had better not be trying to escape."
"How can we be TRYING to escape," a voice retaliated from the doorway, "when we already did?"
Both Emma and the guard gasped. They looked and saw Clover and myself. "You!" Emma cried out. "How did you two get out of my-"
"That's not important right now," Clover silenced Emma. "What is important is kicking your butt all the way to Manhattan!"
Emma had other ideas. She hit a button on her desk, and escaped through a trap door. We followed her, and ended up in a refrigerator room where all the milk was kept cool before shipping.
Two guards stood behind Emma. "So you came," she said. "Very well. I shall take you out and enjoy it."
"That's my line," I countered. The battle commenced.
MEANWHILE
Sam paced back and forth in front of Alex. "There's got to be some way to wake up Alex," she thought. "I just have to think of it. What would be a good waker-upper?"
"Wait a second!" Sam suddenly came up with an idea. "I just remembered what Emma said about her coffee; she never decaffeinates it. Some of her coffee should do the job."
A smile on her face, Sam grabbed a coffee cup that a guard had been using, dunked it into the hot-coffee vat, and poured her retrieval into Alex's mouth.
It did the job quite well. Alex woke with a start. "What happened?"
"I'll explain later," Sam responded. She withdrew a cracker from her lunch box and stuck it between two gears, which promptly jammed and refused to turn.
Sam handed Alex some crackers. "Go around the factory and use these to jam any other gears you see. I'll stay here."
MEANWHILE
I aimed a kick at Emma's chin, but she ducked, and I fell to the ground. The pencil I've always got behind my ear escaped its spot, and Clover grabbed it and tried to stab one of the guards. She missed, and stabbed a milk carton instead. Milk flowed out like a fountain.
I took this opportunity to knock the other guard to the ground. He landed perfectly under the milk spout, got some in his mouth, and was out like a candle before you could say, "Got Milk?"
Emma and the other guard, meanwhile, had fled. Clover and I chased after them, panting.
When I began to fall behind, Clover called back to me. "Leo? Can't you run any faster?"
"Run any faster?" I retorted. "What do I look like, Sonic the Hedgehog? I can only run so fast."
The chase continued all over the plant. We ran across catwalks, leaped over rivers of breakfast drinks, swung from light fixtures, and almost anything else you might be able to think of.
The climax of the chase came when both the guard and Emma stepped on a puddle and got themselves stuck to the floor. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't escape.
Sam stood on a catwalk above us. The thermos that held her health drink was open, and nearly empty. "Need a little help?"
I smirked. "Great thinking, Sam. I think we're tied for the role of team thinker. How's Alex?"
"She's busy with the machines. Any second now they should be all jammed and unable to operate."
Clover, meanwhile, was using her compowder to call in WOOHP's capture team. They came in a matter of minutes, even without Jerry's approval.
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One chapter away from completion, how do you like that? But I feel I'm going just a touch too fast. Oh well. Who needs quantity when you've got quality?
