2~

Benton gave an absent gaze around the assembly floor of his hidden lab complex from over the railing of the catwalk that stretched high above the work that was going on below.

Only about the size of a warehouse, the work area made Quest a little wistful and reminiscent. He had owned and worked in bigger facilities.

Once, he was the golden boy, the man who could do no wrong. America's hand-picked representative, standing proudly upon the global stage of science. His genius was innovative, breathtaking...to some, even risk-taking. But Benton Quest was a super-scientist, body and soul, and wouldn't let a little thing like chance interfere with the future.

Until the accident occurred. Now, he was a man darkly transformed by tragedy. Now, those halcyon days were over, replaced with days of him and Quest Industries being watchful of the law.

Below him, an arch was being put together, with ports along the inner sides of its arms to allow mechanisms to extend and retract when needed. Off to one side of the work area, a control podium for the arch was already constructed and wired, cables running from an open panel in its base to await connection.

Benton gave a wan smile at all of this. Soon the secrets of Sundial would be his to use, and not only would he be able to bring his wife back to the world, she would find him the emperor of it.

The sound of a door opening behind the catwalk brought Quest from his musings. The visitor walked in to the sound of sliding feet on the grated flooring. Quest knew who it was.

"Please, pick up your feet, Deeds," Quest deduced without turning to greet him. "So, what brings you here? Come to tell me what a success that Zoo Suit of yours has become?"

If Quest wanted to needle Deeds, it had the opposite effect. The mad scientist stood, beaming. "I would, but I think I have something even better to tell you, Doctor. What would you say if I told you that someone was asking around for Lab Rat?"

Quest answered the question with a tired sigh. "I would tell you to stop wasting my time with that. And then I would have you removed as forcibly as my security staff could, to make the point."

Deeds grinned through the threat. "Even if it was...the daughter of Lab Rat?"

"Daughter?" Even Quest was compelled to turn to face Deeds over that. That could mean ...

"Explain, Deeds."

"Well, as you know, I spend some time at the Test Tube, y'know, just unwinding from a hard days plotting and schem-"

"You know, Deeds, they say that time is money, Benton told him. "It is also life, and yours is ticking away with this nonsense."

Deeds decided to turn down the smugness, this time. It was getting dangerous. "Oh, yes, sir. Uh, anyway, this nerdy-looking girl came into the bar asking about Lab Rat, and let it slip that she's her mother."

Quest raised an eyebrow. "Was this girl thin, wore yellow-tinted glasses, and have brown hair?"

That surprised Deeds. He didn't know that Quest had already known the girl. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Droopy socks and a wool jacket, too. She was rocking that geek chic. Anyway, heated words were exchanged, and since I really wanted to put my Zoo Suit through its paces, we had it out in the bar."

"And she defeated you?" Quest asked. He already knew the answer.

"Maybe..." Deeds admitted, sheepishly.

"Then what?"

"I got out of there, just so I could tell my good employer about this, wondering if I could get something out of it."

"You will get something out of this, Deeds," Quest said pleasantly, then he canted his head up, slightly. "Do you smell that?"

Deeds raised his head and sniffed. Apart from the scent of metal being welded, he couldn't really place anything. "No."

"Exactly. That's because air is odorless, and what you're getting is the opportunity to breath more of it. Now, please, continue."

Deeds gulped. He hadn't realized just how much thin ice he was walking with Quest, today, but he could guess it was a lot. "Well, I managed to call the cops and frame her, before I came here, to kill two birds with one stone. I get some pay-back, and you know where she is."

Quest stood silent, thoughtful. Then, he returned his attention back to Deeds.

"That was actual brainpower you exhibited, Deeds," he complimented. "In fact, you can do something for me. How would you like to get not "some" pay-back, but complete pay-back, as well as a raise in your next paycheck?"

The greed swelling in Deeds' eyes was all the confirmation Quest needed to set his plan into motion.

"Sure! What do you want me to do?"

"I want you and those two elderly friends of yours to find and eliminate that girl."

"The professors?" Deeds asked. "Yeah, we can do that, no problem."

"Indeed, and I want you to get one of my ID cards to take it with you."

Deeds didn't think that made much sense, but he shrugged and nodded. Where money was concerned, Quest was the boss, no matter how loony his decisions were, at times.

He turned to leave his employer back to his thoughts, when Quest stopped him with one last bristling detail.

"Oh, and if she defeats you…again, I want you to tell her this…"


"Okay, as someone who's spent a fair amount of time in my own town's lockup," Marcie quipped from behind the bars. "I can tell you that this is not the best looking holding cell I've stayed in."

It was her only defense against the shadow of her father knowing what she was doing in Gatorsburg on a school day, and where she ended up, at present.

The diminutive sheriff gave a chuckle, as he waddled up to the cell. "I didn't know we had ourselves an interior decorator of detention, here. Tell me, Martha Steward, what should we do with our holding cells to make them more cozy, like?"

"Repaint your walls, for starters. 60's Fallout Shelter Green is so done."

"Well, when I call your daddy to come and pick you up, you can dance and play in your holding cell all day long," the sheriff said, smugly.

"I suppose it would matter if I told you again that I was framed by that Deeds guy," Marcie said. "Just go back to The Dirty Test Tube and ask all of the witnesses who saw me fight that crackpot. They'll tell you I'm innocent."

"But not innocent in using your inventions, here," the sheriff countered. "I know you look at us, and think we're all just simple folk, making our way in the world. But we don't take too kindly to all of this science stuff floating around."

Marcie lifted an eyebrow in confusion. "You people?"

"Mad scientist!" the sheriff clarified. "You folks with your doodads, gadgets and gimcrackery."

Marcie rolled her eyes at the realization of who had jailed her. "Ugh! Are you some sort of luddite? And where is my car?"

"Here, in our impound, and you can call me whatever you want, dearie," he sniffed. "I'm not the one in the hoosegow, now, am I?"

"Look, you can't lock me up just because I use science to solve problems," Marcie continued, trying to reason with him. "I mean, look at you. You're a law officer. Don't you use the science of criminology to solve crimes?"

The small man pointed at the girl. "Don't you count me with one of you Lab Coats. Sheriff Beauregard Q. Scaleback solves crimes the old-fashioned way."

"And that way is?" Marcie asked, not caring.

"Guesswork and pure dumb luck."

"Of course," she said, not at all surprised, then she asked, "Do you know a sheriff named Bronson Stone?"

"Stone, huh?" Scaleback ruminated on his way back to his desk to see to his paperwork, and also, a curiously wrapped object. "Solid-sounding name."

"Yeah, a real rockhead," Marcie muttered under her breath, as she walked back to her bench to sit and think on what to do.

"Uh, Sheriff, would you mind sending one of your deputies over to the Test Tube?" she entreated, again.

"What for? They ain't eggheads, like you."

"To question the people," she reminded with a sigh.

"Miss Fletcher-"

"It's Fleach," she corrected.

"Whatever. I have a lot of paperwork to do, so I can't send the manpower to do your...questioning, right now." He picked up the wrapped object, that suspiciously had the shape of a burger.

"You're eating a sandwich."

He unwrapped the big burger and held up its paper wrapper for her to see. "Nope. I'm doing my paperwork, and what a big paper it is, too! Now, you just sit there and wait for me to finish, so I can send your pappy after you." He punctuated the sentence with a guffaw, and then, stuffed his face.

"Obviously, the long harm of the law," Marcie sulked, not noticing the poking, blue fangs that literally began to dissolve and chew away at the holding cell's dingy green outer wall.

The teeth's mouth, and the hole it was making, began to grow wider, leading into a dark and deadly maw of chemicals and pseudo-living material that could liquefy inorganic material as quick and efficiently as it could flesh. Something that its creator, could attest to, due to earlier, and far more gruesome, testing.

The sound of semi-solid cinderblocks falling to the floor in sizzling plops, alerted Marcie to the present danger. She glanced worryingly back at Scaleback, who was still enjoying his lunch, wondering if she was going to lunch for something, herself.

"Sheriff! Sheriff!" Marcie called out, while watching the wall get more and more eaten away. "You've got to get me out of here!"

"You ain't going no-" He said, before almost choking on his food at the sight of his cell being destroyed from the outside. "Is that your doing, girly?"

"Trust me! It's not!"

"Then who in the world is doing that?"

"Santa Claus! I don't know! Just get me out of here!" Marcie yelled, as she pressed against the bars, endeavoring to keep as far from the blue mouth as possible.

The sheriff jumped from his chair, ran to the cell, and fumbled for the keys, as the rest of the wall, weakened by damage, crumbled on the spot, allowing for a view of the police station's rear parking lot, that led to the impound lot further back. Whatever had eaten at it, moved away when the wall collapsed.

The question of what had torn down the wall was tabled, when Marcie saw her chance to escape, and took it.

"Hey! Wait! Where are you going, missy! You are still incarcerated in my custody!" Scaleback yelled, as he saw Marcie sprint away from him and the bars, jumping through the ragged hole that used to be a sturdy, though badly painted, wall.

Blinking away the sun's glare, Marcie got her bearings, and then reacted by leaping to one side, as a huge mouth, far bigger than the one that started on the wall, descended to swallow her in one corrosive gulp.

She rolled on the pavement, came to a stop, and looked up at her attacker. It was weird science personified.

A dark blue mass of bio-plasm, with functioning eyes and a hungry, searching mouth, approached her on four stubby legs, from a few yards away.

Off to the side, stood three spectators. An old man who looked like Albert Einstein's twin, wearing a purple suit, yellow shirt, a pair of half-glasses, and what looked like a pair of metallic opera gloves.

The other elderly gentleman, displayed a head balding with snow white hair, and sporting a white pair of scrubs.

The tallest and youngest of the three was the one she recognized the quickest.

"Who are your friends, Deeds?" she asked, still watchful of the blue blob closing in.

Deeds laughed. "Meet Professors Von Gimmick and Crankenshaft. They're here to help me get rid of you."

Marcie, wanting to get to her car and flee this strange scene, stood up and backed off towards the cyclone fencing of the impound lot, hoping that the surrounding, parked police cars would slow the cerulean thing from reaching her.

"C'mon, Deeds! I can't hurt them," Marcie pointed out. "They're old. They look like escapees from an Old Mad Scientists' Home."

"As a matter of fact, they are! You, however, won't live long enough to know what that feels like," Deeds taunted back. Then, with a flourish, he yielded the battlefield to his compatriots. "Gentlemen."

Von Gimmick raised one of his gloved arms, and the gauntleted arm extended past the police cruisers toward Marcie at a frightening speed, catching her off-guard by the throat, and pinning her hard against the impound lot's fencing.

"I've got her, Cranky," he told Crankenshaft. "You can let your monster eat, now. Your welcome."

"You didn't have to do that," Crankenshaft groused. "My blob would have gotten to her."

"Eventually," Von Gimmick added, sarcastically.

"You forget, Von Gimmick. My creature gets larger and stronger with everything it eats. It will make short work of her."

"Larger and stronger," Von Gimmick complained. "But not faster! I can't hold her all day, y'know."

Meanwhile, Marcie, fighting against the unyielding, mechanized grip of the glove, yelled, "Do you guys always argue, or do you only bicker like a married couple when you're out of the house?"

"Stay out of this!" Both men yelled at her.

Von Gimmick gave his friend a sigh and sneered in frustration. "Fine! If you think your pet can get the job done, then, here!"

He gave his hand inside the extended metal arm a light jerking gesture, causing the limb to flex, lift and casually toss Marcie several yards to the side, where she landed with a rolling crash onto the sidewalk around the corner from the police station.

"Now, look what you did, you dimwit!" scolded Crankenshaft, as he speed-walked through the parking lot, weaving past the cars his creature wasn't busy devouring, to reach the lot's side entrance.

Marcie got up in a stumble, and jogged gingerly away from the station, and, she knew, her car. The criminals would surely give chase, and she didn't want to be caught vulnerable on the ground.

Eventually, she would have to take the fight to them. Maybe the sheriff would see reason, then.