10~
For the last time, the steel door of the assembly room opened slowly, allowing three grim figures solemn entrance, followed by the trotting of a small dog.
As the door was left open, the sounds of a thriving, multi-billion dollar lab complex in its death throes, could be heard, and felt under their feet. The distant cries of fear through the corridor, outside, let the group know that chaos was the master of this house, and almost the entire staff's population were its frantic slaves.
A sudden quake made the pooled water on the floor ripple and shimmer. The overhead work lights flickered, faded, and then surged back to strength, a testament to the architectural design of the man who led this small procession towards the dais of the Hour Arch.
Doctor Benton Quest approached the dark cabin door and opened it gingerly, dire thoughts of his son's condition haunting him, fiercely. He saw what happened to Jonny from the trap, made from desperate genius, that ensnared him.
Lab Rat, for all of her meddling, did seem...honorable. She said that his son was all right, despite the plasma exposure, but even she couldn't guarantee that for long. Jonny needed medical attention, and he was too far away from the complex's sickbay to receive it.
Also, there was too little time. The subterranean explosives that surrounded the even deeper power plants of the complex were making sure of that.
"Jonny?" Benton called out, quietly, in the dark of the cabin.
"Dad?" came the weak reply, joyously heard by his father. Benton called on Race to enter and get his son, as he stepped back out to attend to his work.
Hadji and he had begun disconnecting the cables to all but the one computer station that was still functioning, under the tarp. The Indian brushed aside the makeshift tent, rolled the station up a ramp built into the side of the dais, then waited.
Quest raised his watch-wearing arm and depressed a small button over the watch's face.
Suddenly, a new sound of rumbling added to the cacophony in the room. Behind the time machine, the wide wall that it stood in front of, ponderously rose.
It was, in truth, a massive, armored slab of a door, revealing an industrial elevator that was just as cavernous.
"I got him, Doc," Race said, carefully exiting the cabin with his charge, wrapped in a protective black cloak, in his huge arms.
"Thank you, Race," said Quest, as he ascended the dais, once again, the family dog, Bandit, faithfully at his side. He, then, turned and addressed his people.
"We have what we came for, and not even Sundial could hold us back. Though this lab has been silenced by those...Fleaches..." He spoke the name as if it was a sharp profanity. "In the end, it was for nothing. The Quest destiny will not be thwarted."
With that, he pointed his watch down, depressed another button, and the dais slowly started to move.
The Hour Arch was never supposed to stay berthed in the room, only built there, after it was painstakingly reverse-engineered, and then, moved to a more secure location. Although the machine still needed work, under the circumstances, there was no time like the present.
Trundling along on its tracked suspension, the huge platform began to back the whole of the Hour Arch and the Quest contingent within the lit shaft.
As the dais parked, and the elevator door started to descend, Benton gave a final view of the facility that had so dutifully provided him with the means to transform theoretical vision into physical, scientific reality. There were other labs all over the world, waiting to be activated, he knew, but he expected to lose one only due to a full-scale assault of the law, not because some disgruntled scientist/vigilante, and her daughter happened to cross his path.
So, he swallowed his bitter indignity, and silently vowed that for what happened to his son, and the destruction of his complex, they would not soon go unpunished.
All throughout the complex, to reach connecting elevators, mother and daughter had to shove their way through floors of terrified humanity, with Anne risking getting trampled on, for her troubles.
Finally reaching, and squeezing into, the elevator that led back up to the living room of Bellow Mansion, Marcie and Anne rode it with a very desperate crowd. When the elevator door opened, the house's foyer was illuminated with sunlight coming through the front doors of the house, which were surprisingly ajar.
Running, the girls exited to the porch, and Marcie glanced down at the faux alligator that she had to fool earlier to gain entry, and saw its smashed head lying inert beside its still reclining body.
This was done by some enterprising guard who realized that to not do so would mean that the gator would close and lock the doors every time someone entered or left the house. With the gator not working, the doors were, now, free from its control and left open for the fearful masses to pour out of.
Marcie noticed that Anne was silent, so, she looked over to where she stood, which was at the top of the porch's stairs, witnessing something. She followed Anne's lead and looked out from that same vantage point onto a sea of utter bedlam.
Scientists, security guards, technicians, engineers, janitors, stevedores, cafeteria staff, and even the dj from the lab's disco fought for entrance into already crowded buses, sometimes, literally getting into fist fights for passage. Those that didn't want to waste time in ultimately pointless combat, sprinted down the side road in a mob.
Another quake reached the girls from outside, shaking them from their fascination of the human condition. They hopped down the stairs and ran, slaloming past pugilists and scared staff workers towards the parked Clue Cruiser, just as buses, now filled to bursting, set off in a haphazard convoy down the side road, as well.
An explosion deep within the mansion announced itself, and the wooden ruin of the old house began to smolder, as smoke started flowing from already broken windows, the facade's colonnade began to topple and crush the porch, in places, and through the haze of the departing buses' dust, Marcie and Anne could see the deadly glow of a raging fire licking the front doors' threshold.
Thankful that no one had thought to steal the car, and with no further encouragement needed, they both jumped in, and Marcie floored the gas pedal, digging out of the parking lot like a hot-rodder, but being forced to slow down, soon after, as they brought up the rear of the bouncing bus convoy, up ahead.
"That was a pretty gutsy play, back there, Mom," Marcie commended her.
"Oh?"
"Quest couldn't call your bluff," she continued. "I knew that you wouldn't hurt Jonny, well, anymore than you had to, but I knew you wouldn't finish him off. You're not a monster."
"Thanks, dear," Anne said. However, in her heart of hearts, if it came down to protecting her daughter, would she kill, without hesitation, without remorse? Destroying robots was one thing, but another person?
She shook such thoughts away and concentrated on what she needed to say, next, while slipping her hand into her baggy lab coat.
"I have to go away, again, Marcie," she finally said.
Marcie's heart jumped in fear of that scenario, and she glanced, angrily, at Anne. "No. Not again. I helped you take down a secret lair because I wanted you back in my life. Don't you tell me that I was just wasting my time."
"No, dear, but it's because we had to stop Quest that I have to go. He's not going to stop until he get revenge for what happened, and I would rather it was me he set his sights on, than you."
"I don't know if you've noticed this, Mom, but you're a girl, again," Marcie reminded her. "Even if you get away, how are you going to take care of yourself?"
"Well, I never said it would be easy," Anne muttered.
"I don't care about that. We beat him twice, now, and we can do it again until the police get a hold of him. I not going to lose you a second time," Marcie said, firmly.
"Then, how about this," Anne bargained. "You come with me. Let me look after you like I should have done, a long time ago."
"You were afraid that you couldn't care for me the way you wanted to, then."
"I know, but I'm not afraid, now."
Marcie could hear the desperation to convince in her mother's voice, along with a strange vocalization, nearby, like a moaning, or a sigh, within the car. She shook her head to dismiss it, for she was far too busy, with the here and now, to place it.
"Mom, I don't know if I can leave with you," she told her with a sad firmness. "Up and leaving, like this, couldn't possibly be the answer, now. Too much has changed in both of our lives, now, to allow it. I have friends, now, and a life with Dad. With Greenman and Quest running around, I have to look out for him. Besides, do you really want something like this be the reason we're together, now?"
Marcie did have a point, Anne had to admit. 'Damn that Fleach logic,' she thought, then quietly answered, "No, I wouldn't." Too much time had, indeed, passed.
Then, Marcie found herself starting to shake her head, once more, this time to fight off a sudden wave of fatigue that began to settle in her mind. She yawned deeply, as she tried to maintain her concentration on the road.
"Since I...yawn...have to be with Dad, why...yawn...don't you stay with us?" Marcie counter-offered between more yawning. "Who knows? Yawn...Maybe you two could get back together. Wow. Why am I yawning so much?"
Anne smiled and slowly shook her head at her daughter's hopeful, if unlikely, offer. "I love you for asking, Marcie, but I couldn't stay. I love your father, but I'm not in love with him, anymore. Tell me something. Is he still as cheap as I remember?"
Marcie frowned in disappointment. It made sense to ask. It was a question that was pivotal to her decision.
Something in her wanted to lie, and say that he was a changed man, worthy of reconciliation, but Marcie knew what it was. Her inner child, still clinging to the fairy tale of a happy, nuclear family. She had to prove to her mother, and more importantly, to herself, that her maturity could weather such a storm as divorce, and its bittersweet aftermath.
"Yes," Marcie quietly answered, in turn. "More than usual, these days."
"That's why I left him, Marcie, but I want you to always know that the one good thing in our lives, that connects the both of us, is you, and I think that's far more important."
Marcie gave a weary smile, as she fought to keep her eyes open. Her parents' love still existed. Even if it wasn't perfect, it was more than enough for her.
"It...yawn...doesn't matter. You're..." Then, Marcie's unconscious head lolled and fell on the steering wheel, just as Anne quickly reached over and stamped her small foot on the brake.
She then reached over to the spot between both seats, and picked up a round object the size of a small orange, that she had secreted, its tiny speaker emitting the sound of a human continuously yawning.
Anne pulled Marcie up off the wheel, so she could lie upright in her seat, and sleep more comfortably. Afterwards, she removed the protective buds from her ears.
"Yawn Grenade, my latest invention. But, you'll always be my greatest invention," Anne proudly whispered, before giving her sleeping daughter a gentle kiss on the forehead.
Sadly, she realized that she hadn't done that in a very long time.
The sound of a passing truck, roused Marcie from her sleep. With a yawn and a sustained stretch, she awakened to see the open wetlands road that she traveled though, earlier.
The car was parked off to the side, and when she turned to regard Anne, in the passenger seat, it was empty.
"Mom?" she reflexively, called out, opening her door and stepping out to look for her.
Standing by the front of the VW convertible, Marcie could smell, and then, see, the column of black smoke, like a singular thunderhead in the blue sky, rising from the ruined mansion's direction, a dire marker to the continued destruction of Quest's underground base.
She looked up the road, scanning for any small figure walking in the distance, but the road was clear of all but passing cars and trucks. A look down the road proved to be no different, there was no one there.
Marcie never felt so lost. She wanted to call out to her mother, again, up and down the road, not caring if there was no one to answer. She could feel her inner child suddenly grip her maturity in a chokehold. It wanted to shred her world of self-control to pieces, and then hurl those pieces to the four winds, in a panicked fit. Where was Mom?
Her mother was all alone, now. Fending for herself against a madman who, no doubt, was simply biding his time, licking his wounds, and waiting for her slip up somehow, somewhere. She might have even had a ghost of chance, if she was an adult, again, but as a child, Marcie believed that her chances would be halved, at best, unless she was extremely savvy and street-smart.
But chances didn't matter with Marcie, now, anyway. She just wanted her mother safe and near her. And, again, that wasn't to be.
She could go to Daisy with her misery, and she would understand, or, at least, try to. But the one shoulder she wanted to cry on the most wasn't there, either.
Sick with hammering worry over her mother, Marcie reentered her car. That was when she noticed it, while wiping errant, unwanted tears from her eyes.
The old, fat folder her mother had been carrying with her. She hadn't seen it with Anne after their escape from Hadji, or after they evacuated with everyone else, which meant that it was left behind, and while she was asleep, Anne must have returned to her lab in the doomed complex to retrieve it.
If there had been a reason for such an action, Marcie was too shocked at her mother to see it. To risk her life, just for an stupid old folder filled more with pipe dreams than anything else, made Marcie so angry, she wished that their roles had been reversed, so she was the mother, and could give Anne a well-deserved punishment.
Not knowing why, she reached over and opened the folder, this time, hastily titled with the words, "My Legacy," in black marker, and sifted through its dog-eared contents, trying to understand why Anne did what she did.
As Marcie looked at another scribbled formula and another scrawled blueprint, she could gradually see the crazed passion of a thinker, of an inventor who didn't let failure deter her, in those pages. She couldn't help but proudly think of Anne as some determined young woman mixing test tubes in Man's Lab.
Then, the reason, as cold as death, and as warm as life and love, impaled Marcie through her confused, sad heart, with its diamond clarity.
"My legacy," said the reason, with her mother's voice, possibly the last thing she would ever say to her. "Now, your legacy..." It didn't matter if none of her inventions worked, Anne's folder would be the inspiration that would strengthen her, now.
In the end, Anne always knew what Marcie wanted to be. She was a scientist, body and soul, and Marcie, gladly, was one at heart. And because it all came from her mother, she could, one day, become a great scientist, in her own right.
Marcie didn't know if the word "gift" could do the folder justice, as she chuckled mirthlessly at the thought that between both of her parents, it would be the one who spent the least amount of time with her, that would understand her the best.
Velma would have loved her.
'Once again,' she sadly thought, as she started blankly beyond the windshield. 'The two women who matter most in my life are gone.'
Alone, with her worries and thoughts of Anne Fleach, Marcie quietly wept.
"Where were you?" asked a very stern Winslow, after Marcie entered the living room, that early evening, and ran into him, there.
She was worn out from all that had happened and the drive back home. In the back of her mind, she knew, somehow, that her father was going to find out, and maybe thinking so pessimistically may have brought that about. One thing she knew for certain was that when she was interrogated by her father, she somehow found the necessary strength to stand, face it, and regret, or fail to defend herself, and then, regret.
She would never have believed, however, that it was her dedication to school protocol that would betray her, in the end.
"Your teacher called and told me that you weren't at school today," Winslow continued. "She said that she wouldn't have called at all, except that she was concerned when one of her students, with a near-perfect attendance record, by the way, didn't show up. So, where were you?"
She debated lying to him, but what could have she have said that could excuse such a studious person, like her, from not going to school? Considering the fact that family was in the center of this, however, she decided to honor that.
"I was looking for Mom," Marcie admitted.
The surprised look on Winslow's face opened the door to years of affection and disagreements in his eyes. "Your mother?"
Marcie picked up on the soft emotion in his voice, a good sign that he was more nostalgic than angry at her. "Yeah. I tracked her down to Gatorsburg. She says hi, by the way."
"Why did you do that?" he asked, confused. At the moment, he had no reason to think that she would ever need to be back into his life.
"I ran into her a few days ago, so I decided to see her, again," Marcie confessed, couching it by not giving away too much information. "That was okay, wasn't it?"
"Y-Yes. That was fine," he said. How could it not be, he figured. Why shouldn't she know more about her mother? Any issues that had arisen were between Anne and himself. "But you should have told me about this, first. I...would have wanted to talk to her, too."
Marcie gave a small nod. She would have liked to have seen that, as well. See the chemistry that brought those two together, in the first place. Hear them laugh and reminisce about their favorite songs, and remind her about their time raising her together in the little time they had. Things that she couldn't enjoy, now.
"She's not there. She had to leave. On business."
"Oh." The sound of his disappointment was heart-wrenching, but he soon pulled through it and asked, to change the subject, "How did she look?"
So caught up in the thoughts of happier times with Anne, and being so quick to answer, Marcie blurted out, "Oh, she doesn't look a day over..." Then, she hesitated. She couldn't possibly tell her father that his ex-wife was now young enough to his youngest daughter.
Not being able to think out of the corner she just faux-pas herself into, she just concluded, by saying, "Well, you know how we girls are about our ages, Dad."
Winslow simply shrugged it off. Women will have their secrets, surely. "I guess so. Anyway, go wash your hands. It's time for dinner."
"Okay."
Marcie gave a grateful sigh and schlepped towards the stairs. So far, there had been very little drama, of late, and she liked it that way. But now that she was back home, the matter of the park still hung in her mind, as well. She might not have wanted to have it passed on to her, but it didn't mean that she wanted to see her father lose it, either.
"Oh, are you going to call the police about what Greenman's doing to your park?" Marcie casually asked, not seeing the emotional tripwire that she just clumsily snagged her foot into. "I know calling the sheriff for help is the last act of the desperate, but-"
"It's not my park anymore!" he snapped at her. "Greenman said that he'll use what you said in court to help win his trumped up lawsuit against me, if I didn't give my park to him. Remember?"
Marcie's stomach jumped, just as her heart sank. She just realized that she had thoughtlessly brought this up, and in so doing, screwed up. But, now was as good a time as any to confront and figure out the depth of Greenman's scheme.
"I do," she said. "But when did I say all of these things that Greenman said I did? Before that day in the office, the last time we saw him was during that dinner he invited us...to." The pieces began to fall into place so hard, Marcie thought she would go deaf.
"Oh, no!" she deduced with some difficulty. "It's hard…to remember, but I think...we might have been drugged."
Winslow gave her a look of doubt that would have faltered the faith of a priest, but she continued.
"I mean, I think I saw you fall in your dinner, I mean, your *face fell into your dinner. Boy, that still sounds strange with me talking about being drugged, and all, but if I was drugged, too, then maybe, I...might have said things that I didn't mean to say."
Considering what he, now, knew about Greenman, her father decided to give Marcie the benefit of the doubt, but she wouldn't get off the hook that easily. "But you did say them, Marcie."
Marcie fumed within. What part of the word, "drugged" didn't he understand? "He had to have given me some sort of truth serum. It's the only way."
"Maybe, Marcie," Winslow countered, his voice heavy with his own personal suspicions.
"What? You think I wanted that to happen? I would have had to take sodium pentothal to do what I did to you. I love you, Dad. You know I would never consciously do anything to hurt you or the business."
"And yet, his tape recorder says different."
Inside, Marcie was furious at his stubbornness. She was beginning to see why her mother left him. Why couldn't she get through to him? "I don't care about his damn tape recorder! Why won't you believe me?"
"You watch your language, young lady!" her father warned with a point of his finger. "Besides, it was obvious that you, at least, thought those things about me, haven't you?"
"Yes," Marcie slowly admitted. The truth serum did release those things she had been hiding. "But, only because it's true. I'm sorry, Dad, but you are cheap. Even Mom thought so. That's why she left you."
"Is that what she told you?" he asked, his indignant edges beginning to soften, again.
"Yes."
"Look, Marcie, it never hurt anyone to save money." Winslow sighed in explanation. "What other people, who don't work as hard as I do, call "cheap," I call "thrifty," "frugal," and "economical." Your mother never ran a business. She came from the big city and only had her career, in the police force, to worry about. She never understood my sacrifices."
Whether because it was getting to painful to relive, or just simple regret, Winslow stopped himself from dipping too deep into his failed marriage. The present needed his attention more.
"But, it doesn't matter any more," he muttered. "We'll just have to survive somehow. I just hope that the next time someone invites us over for dinner, you won't say anything that will have us living in the street."
The unfairness of that stung her deeply. "I don't believe this," Marcie yelled from the staircase. "That crook Greenman practically told you that he tricked you, and even you said that you didn't think that you were responsible enough to run the park, anymore, and you're coming down on me? I told you that I was sorry for saying those things. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to take over when I die, all right?" blurted the words that Winslow had only hinted at, for so long, like some gentleman who didn't want his private desires and fears broadcasted for others, or even family, to know. "That's what I want you to do!"
Marcie hung her head low. She knew that his admission made him feel vulnerable, and perhaps, needy, but she had to remain resolute in her own desires. If a scientific mind was Anne's gift to her, than, surely, stubbornness, was his.
"I told you. I don't think I want to do that, Dad," she said, softly. "I have a life that I want to live, too."
"To be a scientist, like your mother?" her father asked, in a huff.
Marcie hardened. After all that passed between the two of them, Anne deserved a defense from that. "If that's what I want, what's so wrong about that?"
"You're not siding with the parent who took care of you the longest, that's what's wrong with that!" Winslow said.
'Was this what my folks went through when they argued?' Marcie thought, trying to reach him, still. "It not about sides, Dad. I love you. Isn't that enough?"
"You just love your mother more, isn't that right? You're so selfish, Marcie," her father said, his tone, stabbing a bitter dagger of ice through her. "A son would understand."
Marcie stood stunned, and her head, out of shock, slightly shook on its own accord. She felt as if she was looking outside of herself, as if reality was a second language to her, replaced by a world of paternal hate. She couldn't try any longer. He had won.
"I'm sorry you...didn't get what you wanted," Marcie said, sadly.
Without another word, Marcie ran upstairs, drained from the events of the day, but vigorous or tired, she didn't want to waste anymore time with a man who knew he was tricked, yet still treated his daughter so cruelly.
In her bedroom, she pulled some clothes from out of her dresser drawers, grabbed her laptop and her picture of Velma, and, angrily, threw it all in a suitcase. One call from her cell phone, she had planned, and she would leave him, alone, with his beloved self-pity.
In the past, she privately prided herself in the thick skin her childhood had granted her, in never being too emotional. But now, she found tears still welling in her eyes, and her heart cracking apart, again. Those weaponized words hurt too much for her to shrug off, this time.
She didn't think about what she would have to do the next day. Tomorrow would take care of itself.
All she knew was that if Winslow Fleach had no place in his heart for her, then she would be damned if she had a place in her heart for him.
