I'm--BACK...!! For all of those who were wondering if I fell off the face of the earth, never to be seen again, I'm still here! YAY!! To celebrate my return after a lengthy move and about a month without Internet, have a chapter on me!
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27
"Ah…" Kim breathed haggardly, "finally!"
The chilled air of the locker room was a welcome touch on her clammy skin. The trip was like something out of a bad cartoon, as though trapped in one of those impossible figure drawings. Time was running out, her hour mostly spent running through doors on one side of the hall, only to stumble through the doors on the opposite wall. It was madness!
"Oh… thank you!" Junior stumbled in after, practically tripping over his sore feet. "Thank you, whomever--is--hovering--uselessly--in--the--clouds--right--now! That was nuts out there…."
"Tell me about it." She replied dismissively, turning for him briefly. The broad beefcake leaned against the doorframe pathetically, his huge chest heaving for precious air as his brow glistened in the light.
"I don't think I have to tell you, Blue Fox…." Junior panted. "We just came out of that carnival house, after all. Who designed this place anyway--?"
"I'd say M.C. Escher," she quipped quickly, "but that would be an insult to him."
"I have no clue to whom you are referring to," Junior shrugged weakly, "but whatever you say, my Blue Fox. But may I enquire what we're doing here anyway?"
"Looking for my stuff!" she shook her head as she turned it back around, eyeing that long locker row with scrutiny. "And my ticket out of here, if they hadn't confiscated it yet…."
"A ticket?" Junior said, as though metaphors were such a brand new concept. She let her eyes take a welcome roll, her sigh a flat grumble. "What kind of ticket? Like for a plane, or a Peter Puff-Puff Choo-Choo Train?"
"I wasn't speaking--!" she spun around on a tense heel, clenching her fists, rearing her shoulders up, madder than a cat in a whirlpool. Junior took a hearty step back, his dark eyes wide, his teeth in a frightened clench. She'd have to give the good Senor Senior credit. How his old man kept a straight face, kept his cane firmly planted in the ground around this bungling oaf was beyond her. "You know what I--!"
"You are going to smash something--?" the beefcake squeaked pitifully, his empty head shielded by the bulk of his meaty limbs. "Like that pale, green woman?"
It took all she had not to let her knuckles crack upside Junior's greasy head. In fact, she had to yank her hand back down at her side with help of the other. All her frustrations, she forced them all to her throat.
"GRR--!!"
Putting the curve back into her spine, she let gravity tilt her head back and she let out a curse, a curse so loud that the metal around rattled. Junior's hands clapped over his ears, his lids slamming shut over his wincing eyes. If glass were around, it surely would have shattered. And so horribly forgettable that she forgot even what she was screaming.
Her voice became an uncontrollable decrescendo, her lungs squeezed of air, her lips meeting each other as her mouth fell shut. Her nose caught a pungent scent of chlorine and cleaners as she took in a hearty sniff of air. Junior was still squeezing his head, cringing strangely in the doorframe.
"Make… the--noise stop…!" Junior yelled.
"Junior…?" she blinked.
"Please--I--CAN'T--TAKE--MUCH--MORE!" he squealed.
"Junior…!" she said again, her finger bouncing on his chest when she poked him. His fingers hesitantly peeled off his head, eyes batting open, darting every which way as the still air blew quietly into his ears.
"What…?"
"Can we move on, Junior?" the corners of her lips drooped to a frown, her boot tapping out a fast, edgy rhythm on the floor.
"Oh--!" Junior righted himself with his elbow's push to the frame. "Of course. I've been ready to go since I arrived at this dismal place, with its welcome wagon armed to the teeth. And that Tank Man person--oh…! What a creep!"
"Indeed." She nodded. "But if we want out, I need to find my things and quickly."
"Of course!" Junior folded his arms as he strolled for the closest row of lockers. They clanged at him flatly as he gave their thin legs a light kick. "By the way you cursed, you could have brought the entire place down."
"Oh--just help me find my stuff!" she growled. "If I want a running commentary, I'll watch ESPN!"
"OH!" Junior's eyes brightened. "Like the network with those X-Games, right? I do wonder how I did in that bicycle sport… thing…."
Junior drowned in his own fleeting thoughts, dark eyes glossy and fixed to the tiles hanging overhead, overwhelmed where reason or common sense could save him. Tragic? Maybe, definitely farther down the road for the man-boy when the free ride was over, where his old man had to park it for the final time, with as much Le Goop as the sweat on his pampered brow could afford.
She sighed dismissively with a shrug in her shoulders as she angled around the beefcake's broadness. The locker room was almost as wide as it was long, about 26 rows in all. Each section was apparent as she eyed the first, in the row aptly named A as suggested by the big, black "A" painted on the side. Each section of lockers was no bigger than a common hutch, divided into four compartments, two on top and two on bottom.
What little logic the facility had just flown completely out the door as she looked over the labels. ADQ, ABX, APW, ANP. It made little sense if there was even the slightest shred of sense to be found. It surely couldn't have been alphabetical, nor was there any suggestion of order to be seen--
It hit her like a slap on the face. Everything had a pattern, she learned during her few years as a freelance agent. The label pattern was random, -desperately- random as though designed by a desperate criminal trying to cover his tracks. It was simply a faint, simply intended to stir confusion in potential escapees.
"Oh Drazen…." She mused. "Mr. Conceited surely wouldn't think anyone on the shit list wouldn't have made it this far. But when it comes to nutcases, I aim to disappoint."
"I'm sorry," Junior shook his head, "what did you say, my Blue Fox."
"I said stop calling me Blue Fox, Junior!" she frowned.
"Oh Blue Fox," he said, "why must you continue to evade fate like the plague? We are meant to be! Do not fight it; embrace it like you'd embrace a long lost lover--or Honolulu Kyle action figure! Oh--Kimberly Possible, be mine!"
She turned on her heel, disgusted, strolling towards the other end of the room in a huff.
"Blue Fox?"
"You are so flawed…!" she moaned.
The rows passed her by easily as she strolled for that 23rd row, nodding to herself as she ran over that W, emblazoned smoothly in the same jet black at the other characters. She turned on a dime--or a quarter at least as that row brushed her by. The labels hinted only the haughtiness that went into what little of their design; nothing more, just like all the others. Yet there was still another trick she could try, just one before her time slipped through her grasp.
"A." She mumbled, the tips of her fingers pressing gently onto the section by the upper-left door. Her leg arced wide, the sole of the boot pressing flatly on the tile as she shifted her weight to it, dragging the other leg with her. Her fingers bumped over the tight seems as her hand dragged them over the face of the section and onto the next.
"B." She noted aloud again….
Her legs felt as though they'd simply fall off at the hips as she sidestepped the 15th locker.
"P," she said, "finally…!"
The section took coldly to its new moniker, stonewalling it as it stood impassively on its four feet, even after she laid her fingers to its crown.
"You're glad to see me too, I see." She sarcastically noted. "Not that you have any say in the matter. Great! I'm striking up conversation with crafted sheet metal, for crying out loud! God--I got to get out of here! Let this be it--please!"
"WMD…" she hummed quietly, giving the upper left label a hearty tap before her hand swept for the right.
"WCW…" she gave the thin white paper a tap before she let gravity take her hand down a few inches.
"WND…" her fingers swept to the left after another tap.
"WKD…" her fingers tapped it--her head dragged back again by the eyes in a double take. Her index traced the angled lines barely on the thin strip, feeling the black impressions on the paper. "W--K--D…! WKD! Yes!"
Her eyes dropped to that shiny handle just below the air vents. The plate shined dully compared to that daunting, buffered chrome that ran through it and a piece of the frame, curving sharply down into the lock at both ends. It glinted sharply at her, imposing its little self between her and her things, guarding her ticket out of Hell at the behest of the Devil himself.
The combination lock was a simple one, like ones that belonged in an elementary school or even junior high. It was cylindrical, four number wheels across its center and capped with chrome at both ends. Child's play at best, it was, where even the most incumbent of delinquents had a shot at cracking it. But if the first set of numbers that clicked didn't pan out, Junior would finally have to put those biceps to actual work.
"4496?" she thought fleetingly with a bit of a shrug. "Hell--why not?"
Her thumb and index pinched the first two wheels right above the protruding zero, rolling fours right next to that red line dashed on the chrome with a twist of the wrist. Her finger then swooped underneath the bulky zero on the next wheel, jerking as something clicked underneath as she pushed it up a notch. The fourth zero graced the steel door behind with a tap, jacking the lock at her as she rolled it to six.
The pads of her fingers compressed to the impassive steel of the caps, her eyes closing when her lungs swelled with a fresh breath of air.
"Here goes nothing…." She noted.
Her muscles tensed within her limbs, straining from the peak of her biceps to the fore-knuckles, the lock tapping out on the locker the erratic panic racing in her mind. She pushed it aside somehow, her elbows arcing out before her in a jaunt. A burst of energy shot through her limbs, her fingers quivering in the wake, nearly slipping off the caps. But with a grunt, she dragged her arms down like an axe handle--
-Click-ku! -
The notched steel tore out of the lock effortlessly, the lock itself brushing off her hands as it turned itself around. It gave a final tap against the locker before it finally came to rest.
"Ha-ha…!" her fingers brushed against the soft firmness of stick man's jacket. "Close one, Drazen, but no cigar! The apple really doesn't fall far from the tree!"
The locker rattled and clunked at her as she removed the lock from the frame, letting the troublesome tool clink and clatter, skitter away from her on the floor. The metal sheet clunked again as she pulled the handle. The jet blackness of her trademark top softened her right up. The top hanged before her on a bare wire hanger, her cargo pants piled just below, folded neatly with the inseams pressed together. Her low cut boots flanked them by the inside wall.
Her palms twisted out, her fingers straight and they slipped themselves under her cargos, drawing them out of the locker like a hot pizza on a paddle. She angled her arms down 45 degrees, letting gravity unfold the legs for her. She let a hand snatch the waist, lifting the pair high, away from the filthy ground as though it were the slick, greasy cement everywhere outside.
-In pocket number one we have…. -
Her hand dipped into her pocket on the right, what would have been her left if she were wearing them. It snaked its way inside easily, another benefit of keeping her palms well moisturized. A second had only passed before the pad of her middle finger gave way to something firm, flat and thin when she got it into a pinch.
"The locator card!" her cheer was fleeting as she slipped it out. A small circuit board was coated firmly in beige plastic, one of the thinner edges impaled by tiny shafts of steel "And the battery contact…?"
Her hand had to snake in a little deeper. The battery contact and the nine-volt were still there, just as she left them, piled densely in the saggy corner. She dragged them out by the frayed wires, toes curling instantly when a small charge stabbed her sharply.
She seized the contact by the two tires, mere millimeters away from where they frayed off into opposite directions. A small flash of pure light arced between them barely as she looked over the card.
"Staying alive, I see…." She noted. "Now let's see…."
Her fingers dragged the black wire away from the red, the pinch slipping up its plastic length smoothly, twisting the frayed metal around itself into a thin… nub--for lack of better word. Her hand followed suit with the red one, twisting its metal fray into a plug.
"One for here…." She plugged the red nub into the tube far at the right, strands of copper splintering as her pinch jammed it in. The black nub had an easier time fitting itself into the tube at the far left for some reason, a reason she couldn't be assed to figure. "And one in here…!"
The card winked at her through its beige plastic, blinking rather with a little green light welded straight on the circuit board. It was working. She could see a faint streak of light at the far end of Uzi's winding maze of doom, at last. It was growing so large as though it were closing in on her, the stagnant air so fresh she could practically smell the outdoors--
--The sticky quagmire, the bog, the broken meat locker in a bayou. It smelt so foul, leaving such a stale, moldy taste in her mouth she hacked it out. Her nose burned painfully as that terrible stench swirled into her nostrils like a pair of active Roto-Rooters. Surely that burly pansy by the door couldn't have missed it.
A grave sense of puzzlement circled around her like the foul air. Junior had been unusually quiet for the past couple of minutes, for no apparent reason seemingly.
"Junior…?" she called, her body routinely dropped into a crouch as she crept to the front. "Junior…! Are you there? We're finally getting out of here! It's back to fun in the sun and womanizing, right? Or do you just shop for Le Goop all the time? Junior…? Answer me, damn it--!"
She gasped as she felt cold, hard steel dig itself into the back of her skull, a rough something--a hand probably snatching hold of the collar. A shivering chill ran down her spine as her ears twitched at the soft click of a safety lever.
"What?" that annoying, boyish voice blew into her ears. "Like this?"
"Shia…!" she growled.
"The one and only, Possible!" he sniggered. "I'm sorry you didn't win this little game of cat-and-mouse, but you win the booby prize! Once again, you have the pleasure of Galil Wilhelm Drazen as he has a night on the town on you, painting you quite literally in red."
"What have you done with Junior!?" she demanded.
"Oh," he replied jokily, "that beefcake? Don't worry, he'll be fine but not before old G teaches him a lesson on aiding and abetting the enemy. Should have paid more attention to that bite, Possible. Your bloodletting led Tank Man straight to you."
"Thought so…." She cursed, biting her lip. "I should have known! That little leech!"
"I have to agree with you on that one." He noted. "But as much as I like to compare the Major's cannibal to our favorite annelid with you, I'm afraid that work must intrude yet again and that I have a meeting to get to."
"Wow," she sneered, "I bet you'd hate to miss that!"
"Back to fun house with you!" he continued. "And boy is Eli going to have some fun! Oh--and that little locater card of yours…!"
The light at the end of the tunnel died, fading to a deep shade of the blackest black, overwhelming and devastating as she heard a sharp -snap- behind her. The nine-volt flew past her, clipping her in the ear, waving her a faint goodbye from its red and black tassels just before it clattered to a halt on the floor.
"March, Possible!" the barrel sank a little deeper into her skull as though Shia had something to prove. So not the drama, she would typically note aloud. "Now!"
"After you."
The barrel jerked on her head, slipping off completely as she snapped her body around. The curly top squeaked girlishly in sudden surprise. Her arm became like a serpent, winding itself around the boy's assaulting arm tightly, splinting it in a lock at the elbow. His other hand lifted up against her, fingers straight and flattened, swooping uselessly for her neck. It simply rolled off her other limb, recoiling back to its owner as she easily swatted it away.
Shia grunted haggardly, growling it out. The curly top jiggled like a piece of gelatin when the heel of her palm met his septum harshly, dots of crimson twinkling in the light before it arced over her head. Her reward was a kind of strangled groan when her knee caught him between his legs.
Her hand didn't need to be told twice as it swept for the bulgy pocket on her chest, watching an olive button spin through the air when she tore the flap open. A thin cylinder rolled into her hasty pinch, slipping it out effortlessly as its slim orange cap poked into her mouth. It joined the button on the floor; the long, slivery dagger unsheathed, winking at her in the bright light before it stabbed into her weak adversary.
Shia yelped like a puppy while her thumb shoved the little, mysterious tab inside him. He gained weight immediately, forcing it all on her while his locked limb fell limp. Out his mouth came a weak groan. Her limb unwrapped itself and she moved herself back, letting the curly top jiggle as its owner planted a kiss on the tile.
"Great!" She cursed with a furious shake of her head. "Now how am I going to get out of here--?"
Something growled loudly nearby. She couldn't place it, not with those snapping and buzzing sounds. Mechanical as they were, as her middle ears helped them click in her brain, she couldn't dismiss that growl itself, so deep and rumbling as though it hollered out of some undiscovered beast…!
-Oh… --crap! -
The ceiling looked much lower than what it should have been, she could make out the rough holes on the tiles, and yet the tiles below appeared far too small to be natural. Yet the sharp, stabbing pain on her back, and the lack of feeling on her soles brought it all together as the ceiling shrank exponentially. The floor tiles were expanding just the same after her body flipped over--
They were expanding way too fast while she caught a sliver of metal out of the corner of her eye, silvery, shiny metal that flattened out quickly beside her. And it pressed against her swiftly, harshly, carrying her on its hard, flat surface briefly before she floated off of it… her body sore, flattened like road-kill as she flew into the wall. Tile cracked before her, giving way to her in clumped pieces. Shards, chunks of plaster and grout broke her fall on the floor. It was like Saturday afternoon all over again.
A couple clumps and shards were pushed against the back of her neck as she made her head tilt back more. The freak of the hour sat there sadistically, its rotting flesh elevated a couple of notches higher than when she last saw it, its fleshy lip curled into itself over his grimy enamel. The red dot on its brow bled generously, trickling down the strange flesh of its face to its mandible where the stream abruptly stopped.
Clenched firmly in that menacing talon's grip was a thin shaft of metal, running from the pommel to the hilt of that long blade, the very same piece of cutlery that nearly cleaved her in two. Its thin belly scraped the tile as it circled around its thick tracks, gracing her cheek with a prickly pat by the tip. It let out a buzzing hiss.
"That's enough, Mr. Drazen." The boots' clicking on the floor was a gentle crescendo, yet so mild that they could barely be heard over that familiar voice. "I think she learned her lesson. She's no use to us dead… yet, anyway."
She wanted to curse; she wanted to scream but she couldn't. The burning pain torched her body badly; it hurt just to twitch. All her tight throat could let out was a stressed groan.
"But I must say, Mr. Drazen." A head loomed over her, that disgusting two-faced man gazed at her blankly, impassively. Her side burned angrily as she felt a boot toe at her ribs. "You sure do know how to catch them and reel them in."
Tank Man let out another hiss.
"Oh--that's right!" the scarred man looked up at the stinky creature briefly before he let his eyes drop. "You don't heed the words coming out of my mouth, do you?"
The bony, overgrown leech hissed again.
"I thought so." He shrugged. "But I have a feeling you do understand somewhat, after the much time you spent down here, hanging out with the Major and Eli in the comfort of your own dank, little fun house! Galil Wilhelm Drazen: Mr. Organ Grinder himself who's scared of a little sunshine. Must have been fun back in the Czech Republic and Serbia. No AC needed!"
The actuators attached to its face pushed that metal mandible open, reddish drool oozing out the corners.
"And no," scarred man carried on needlessly, "you can't eat her, not yet. Your brother isn't through with her yet."
The actuators pulled its mandible shut.
"Scarred man--!" she groaned out.
"Ah… well if isn't 4496?" he replied. "Tank Man hadn't broken your jaw after all. Though I bet he broke some other things."
"What did you do with Junior--?" she cringed when the scarred sergeant toed her ribs again. "-Ah--! -"
"Why don't you ask him yourself, '96?" a faint smirk tugged as his lips, growing seemingly as he leaned it into her face. Her hair felt as though it would rip off her scalp in the size of carpet samples as the scarred man seized it by a tuft, dragging her head up with it. "He's right where you left him, in the open and defenseless."
Her eyes managed to regain clarity just after the pain burned through. The brainless beefcake stood pitifully, his head hanging from his neck shamefully as his old man stood beside him strongly, tapping his cane irritably.
"I'm sorry, my Blue Fox…!" Junior shook his head weakly. "But these people have very persuasive methods of operation--!"
"Junior…!" his old man growled sternly. "The less you say now, the better. And what have I told you about wooing an arch foe?"
"-Huh…. -" Junior sighed. "It is spitting upon traditional villainy which my dear old father adheres to the most. Blah, blah, blah…!"
"Don't 'blah, blah' me, young man!" Senior's stubby fingers pinched around his son's closest earlobe. "After your little stunt, aiding and abetting the enemy, I have half the mind to leave you here!"
"Listen to your father on this one, Junior!" the scarred man interjected. "Your infatuation with this little fox of yours is strong, I give you that. But do you truly wish to share her fate? It makes no difference to us, but I'm sure Tank Man here could use another playmate!"
A gentle whirr hummed throughout the room, filling at least the side she laid upon, and the freak's tracks rolled it closer to her. Her skin was never too sore to crawl away as the freak's strange eyes leered at her greedily, hungrily, snapping at her with a quick bite to the air before her. Its tracks rolled it slowly to a halt, just short of the A row of lockers. Its monstrous, cumbersome talon grabbed the lockers by the corner, twisting the metal as they closed around it. It shivered… delightfully--and she cringed strongly at the sharp screeching it made.
Junior's handsome boyishness was gone, drained from his face as he blushed a sickly tone of white. His old man even was drained of color as the freak poked his head around the warped corner, hissing and growling monstrously at them. Junior squeaked as its mandible dropped from its head, barely humming "shalom"--as the good Lord was her witness, that freak said "shalom"! Ironic, it was.
"See?" Scarred man said, pointing to the freak. "You do understand the words coming out of me! Now if we can get you to learn actual Hebrew, or even English for that matter, we can put you to some actual good use!"
The freak cocked its head like that of a dog.
"Sergeant Jude," Senor Senior interjected, "as much as it has been fun in Major Drazen's grotto of doom, I'm afraid my son and I must be getting back to our island. We need to spend some more… -quality- time together, I'm afraid."
"Uh--oh…!" the sergeant said mockingly. "Someone's going to get busted!"
"Have you not paid attention, Sergeant Jude?" Senior replied. The whites of Junior's eyes grew as his old man's fingers closed around his earlobe. "Someone's already had! But who am I to say? I am but a--"
"A humble multibillionaire!" Jude replied strongly, folding his arms. "We know!"
"But of course!" the old man's lips dropped into a frown just before he nodded. "Come on, Junior. Let's go home!"
"But father--!" Junior's feeble protest was halted before it even began.
"Back to the lair with you!" Senior tapped his cane strongly. "Tradition dictates that we must leave our foe to expire at the hands of underlings--!"
"I'll be sure to give the good Major your regards, Senor Senior." The scarred man replied with a sneering frown of his own.
"Would you be so kind?" the old man said as he walked out of the room, dragging his poor son with him. "Now--quit dragging your feet, Junior! We have a plane to catch!"
"But father--!"
"Don't 'but' me!" Senior grew fainter by the second. "Or yours will be out of commission for a week!"
---
Break time came upon Tara like a nice, warm shower. Her man was right, it felt like a whole hour slipped away during training in the makeshift -Dojang- though the clock hands motioned only that of 20 minutes at best. She didn't care; her knees burned sorely and the soft, buoyant cushion on Robin's couch was more than welcome on her hot derriere.
"Don't sweat on the couch now!" Ron said. He and his odd little pet were getting acquainted with Robin's fridge, getting to know that large block of goat cheese intimately. "No one likes to sit on clammy textiles!"
"Oh--shut up, Ron!" she moaned, glancing over at that kitchenette. The cheese was devoured halfway, from the outside in. Rufus, everybody's favorite African rodent, was missing in action. "Not like you're the one out there, working your butt off in the desert sun wearing black!"
"Actually, Tara--" Ron replied rudely after he shoveled a cheesy chunk into his mouth. "I was the one out there a while ago… in a free spar--with Yune. He thought my proficiency was great…! But he's a little concerned about you, T."
"He is…?" she sat up.
"Yeah…." The blond swallowed. "-Ah…! - Much better! Anyway, he told me 'bout your sessions back at Middleton High. While he said you were coming along nicely, he also said you lose focus easily."
"Right…!" she nodded soberly. "He did say that…!"
"Yeah," the blond replied, "I just said that."
"You know what I mean, Ron!" she rolled her eyes.
"But do you know why, T?" her man said. Her rump shifted on the couch, her heart jumping as that hunky Asian strolled in coolly, despite the way the natural light glistened off his clammy brow. It wasn't clammy as before as he drew the back of his hand across his crown.
"You love me?" she asked.
"Exactly!" he nodded. "Tara, I hope you understand why I'm a little harder on you than I am on Ron."
"I think I understand, Yune." She nodded. "You don't want to see me hurt."
"And worse!" his small bangs waved at her in the midst of a nod. "Tara, as much as I don't want to, there may come a time where I might have to drag you into a battlefield. And I want you ready for anything that might and that will come up. Understand?"
"Of course." She pushed herself to her feet. "I wouldn't be a very good girlfriend if I didn't try to. But why so tenacious, Yune?"
Yune shook his head just before he let gravity pull it down. His knuckles rolled, fingers taking turns to roll into themselves.
"That's… not a happy topic for me, Tara." He said bluntly.
"Oh, really…?" she reared herself away. She had struck a cord, and the cord still had a little sound to resonate.
"Best if you left it at that." His dark eyes glistened at her. Her heart twitched at the sobering sight. "For now, at least. Until I'm ready, okay?"
"Yes…." She nodded apprehensively. "Of course, Yune. But even if you know next to nothing about me, Yune, I want you to know one thing."
"Uh-huh?" he nodded.
"I don't want to be just your girlfriend." She said. "I also want to be your best friend too, one where you're not afraid to talk to."
"I thought so." He smiled weakly. "And you already are, Tara."
"Thanks, Yune…!" She smiled brilliantly.
As if someone far above had planned it, tugged at the necessary strings precisely, Mozart began to play one of his recognizable pieces on an outdated synthesizer. Tragic really, the MIDI didn't do the enigmatic Elise justice at all.
"He-Huh--phone…!" Rufus squeaked. She turned for the kitchenette while Yune showed her his backside, following that screeching melody to its Swedish source. The little rodent poked its head out from the crumbling dairy product, its buckteeth picking at the cheese as it tried to climber its way out. "Oh… cheese!"
"It's the meaning of life!" Ron nodded--blinking perplexedly.
"Huh?" she put a kink in her brow.
"No idea why I said that!" the blond shrugged.
"Does that happen a lot?" she smirked.
"Oh--come off it, T!" he frowned.
"-Yeah…! -" His little buddy threw in its two cents.
---
"Yell-o!" Yune pressed the phone to his cheek as soon as his thumb nicked the green phone button. It had better not have been another wrong number; he was in no mood for it today. "Bin-Mok's Laundry: less starch per stiff!"
"Humor…!" the tanned Barbie replied flatly. "Amusing…!"
"If it isn't everybody's favorite woman of the hour." He continued. "Come to grace us with more bad news, is it? Or maybe she's going to spill the whole damn jar of beans on us, and tell us what the hell's really going on!"
"Good to speak with you too, Mr. Bin-Mok!" Hershel retorted sarcastically. "I already told you what was going on behind the scenes, if I recall."
"If life with the Drazen family taught me anything, Ms. Hershel," he said, "that appearances can be deceiving. There's the spoken truth, and then there's the real truth! And I'm getting the feeling that there's still something you haven't told us about!"
"All will be revealed in due time, Bin Mok!" the woman snapped. "Are you even on a secure line?"
"Does it really matter?" he asked.
"Reports are coming in, Yune." She said. "The military picked up a weak signal somewhere south, a little north of the Egyptian border. Given the signal's strength and specific algorithms, we think it might be our broken arrow."
"Or even Kim!" he blinked, batting his eyes.
"Yes, it's possible." She noted. "But I'm not holding my breath on it."
"Possible, huh?" he smirked. "Remember Hershel, anything's possible for a Possible."
"That sounds conceited." She quipped.
"And yet how true it is…." He said.
"That's up for debate."
"Have you got a location?"
"Negative." She said. "The signal was weak, and it dropped off our frequency scanners before we even had a chance to triangulate. All we know is that it came from around the southern border, close to the Red Sea."
"That's a pretty big area, you know." He folded his free arm behind his back. "Any possibility you could narrow it down?"
"Negative."
"Goody…."
"If that really was Kim, I'm sure she'll find another way to signal us."
"So what the heck do we do then?"
"Just sit tight."
"You know, if you take away the minutia and the bureaucracy of it all," he frowned, "do you realize how asinine that sounds, with a neutron bomb listed as MUF?"
"I know." She replied. "But until something new develops, I trust that you can manage by yourselves."
"We'll lay low till you guys can pull your head out of your collective ass." He retorted. "If it takes longer than a day or couple days, we're moving ahead regardless."
"That won't help you, us, or even Ms. Possible!" She snapped. "I don't have to send a few people, do I?"
"Don't worry, Hershel." Yune clenched the phone irritably. "We'll be good little children."
"Glad to hear it." She said strongly. "Go take a nap or something. We'll talk later."
There was a clatter at the other end; silence trailed behind it steadily. He didn't need to be told twice as he thumbed the button, painted with a red phone. The rumbled it made when it fell back into his duffel couldn't overwhelm the disgust, thick in his sigh. Kimberly was stuck in palm of Uzziel's bloody hand; a nasty WMD might as well have been thrown blindly into the wind, and still the Barbie shoved his hands under his own ass.
He shook it off with a shake of his head. He chuckled bitterly.
"Could this trip go any better…?"