Dateline: Thursday, April 23, 1981, 10:42 AM, Pacific Daylight Time.

"So, if you work at the Black and White department store downtown, what were you doing in the Sapphire Village during business hours?"

The cab driver's question made Violet feel extremely nervous. Does he know I'm Python? In desperation, she searched the recesses of her memory for a response. "Uh…uh…"

"Hey, if it's your business, it's your business," he said. "If you don't want to talk about it, then I don't want to hear about it."

She sighed a sigh of relief so great, she almost passed out. Almost. "Thank you for understanding," she barely managed to breathe out.

The cab pulled up to the Black and White department store. "Well, here we are. That comes to three dollars and fifty cents."

Violet reached into her wallet and dug out the very last of her money to pay for her cab ride. Ashen-faced, she climbed the stairs that led to the Cube Farm. Slouching, she walked back to her desk via the cube of Zachary Smith. Smitty, as everyone in the office knew him, was the payroll accountant. He wore his curly brown hair in a gigantic Afro, which made him look extremely foolish. Of course, nobody ever rose a stink about it, because Smitty cut everyone's paychecks.

Violet was secretly hoping that Smitty wouldn't notice her, much less her being gone for seemingly no reason. Unfortunately, she had no such luck.

"Parr! Where were you? You missed something great on the news!"

The grimace of Vi's face (which had appeared when she realized that Smitty had spotted her.) disappeared almost as soon as it came. There was something in the way he had said it that made her wonder what he was so worked up about.

"Ooh, ooh, they're showing it again!" Smitty was screaming. "Hurry, come and see!"

Excitedly, she made haste to Smitty's cube. It was difficult to get through the opening without getting her massive hair caught in something, but eventually, she was inside Smitty's cube, watching his tiny black-and-white TV.

What she saw playing on the news made her gasp!

Meanwhile, Dash had decided not to go directly back to school. There was something he needed to check on first. So, he started looking for another house in the Sapphire Village, hoping that Herr Cannon hadn't destroyed it yet. When the brick house came into view, Dash was elated that it was still standing. He made his way to the front door and knocked three times. The door swung open, and standing in the doorway was a female, about forty years of age, platinum blonde hair, a nice even tan, and a slender frame. "Hello there, Mirage," said Dash.

"Hello to you too, Rocket. Come on in." And Dash did as she suggested.

Mirage's house was teeming with electronic devices; everything from flat-screen television sets to digital cameras, all of which she built herself. Dash couldn't for the life of him figure out what Mirage intended to do with all this digital…he knew no other word for it…junk. There was no way she could sell it, he knew. After all, who on earth besides Mirage would want to own a portable telephone that could take pictures? In Dash's mind, that was just overkill. Ultimately, he didn't care what Mirage did with all her precious prototypes. Someday, he figured, all that stuff just might come in handy.

"I know why you are here," Mirage told him. "You came here to see if I have the item ready for you."

She was right, he knew, but he simply couldn't let on that she had read him like a book. Again. "No, of course not!" Dash began, "I just came to make sure your house wasn't destroyed. After all, you moved to the suburbs to get away from danger, and here it comes knocking at your door! What is the world coming to? But since you bring up the item, do you have it ready?"

Mirage chuckled. "I knew your intentions couldn't all be noble," she said.

She meandered to a hall closet and returned with a large metal box. Dash pressed his thumb against a small electrode on the box's lid, and it opened. Inside the box was the very object that he asked Mirage to make for him four days earlier. He removed it from the box and felt its weight in his hands.

"Is it to your satisfaction, Mr. Parr?"

"It's perfect," said Dash, "but I can't take it right now. If I get caught carrying this at school, I'll get into serious trouble."

"I understand completely. I'll hold onto this a little while longer and you can come pick it up…when?"

"Tonight, at 7:00 PM," asserted Dash. He returned the item to its box, said his good-byes to Mirage, and ran with his trademark speed back to school.

Back at the Black and White department store, Violet was still stunned by what she saw on Smitty's television. It was news footage of the showdown between Alpha Force and Herr Cannon!

"Wow," Smitty said, "that Python is one hot superhero!"

Violet couldn't tell if she should feel offended or flattered. She opted to feel flattered, because that's how she felt when people complimented Python. However, what Smitty said next disturbed her a little.

"I'm going to go out with Python someday, and then I'm going to marry her."

Uh-oh "O-Kay, I have to get back to work now, so, bye-bye, Smitty." And with that Violet tried to get back to her desk. She barely got out of Smitty's cube before something, or someone, grabbed hold of her giant hair. In an instant, Violet felt more fear than she knew what to do with.

"Don't leave without your paycheck," said Smitty.

Relief swept over Miss Parr like dew on grass. So, Smitty hadn't put two and two together…yet. She grabbed her salary and returned to her desk. As she studied her check, melancholy set in when she realized that every last nickel of it was pre-spent.

Good thing Dash is getting a part-time job today.

(A/N: Now we start to see a little bit of mystery in this story. Any questions that this chapter ignited in your mind will be answered in future chapters, I promise. Oh, one more thing, could you guys please be a little more detailed in your reviews? Don't just tell me you liked it or you didn't like it. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like, okay? Okay, Chapter 8 is currently in production. Until next time…)