The next few days were uneventful Triana stayed indoors so there weren't any awkward meetings with Dean. Dr. Venture had pleaded with him to try out some new flying skates but Gary refused, recalled one of Brock's many warning. "Never let the Doc experiment on you!"

Every night he would call Kim's number. Some nights she would answer and they would go out somewhere and have hot monkey sex. Other times someone else would answer and Gary would hang-up without speaking. Once a an older woman with a deep, Russian accent answered, "Do not call this number again," she said and hung up. That was a little disturbing because it suggested that Kim was under observation by someone. Who could it be he wondered. and why Kim, who seemed to be rather an ordinary girl.

Mornings were still too bright and too early by his standards but Gary was getting better used to the rigorous, very Brockian, schedule he'd set himself. He'd done his exercises, run the perimeter of the Venture Compound checking on the defenses and now was in the Venture's kitchen eating some breakfast He was considering a second bowl of cereal when he heard the faint padding of bare feet. Gary turned to see Triana walking in, dressed in an over-sized T-shirt and apparently not much else. Her hair was mussed up and her face, without its usual make-up looked a lot younger than he expected.

She walked past without noticing him and, with the sort of easy that comes from long experience, open a cabinet and took out a cereal bowl. From a drawer she extracted a spoon and laid it on the counter next to the bowl. She walked across the kitchen to a cabinet near the refrigerator. "Hey, who ate the last of the Cookie Crisp?" she asked herself.

Gary looked down at the last morsels swimming in the bottom of his bowl and felt a little guilty, except that this wasn't her kitchen.

She rummaged among boxes Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Special K and Fruit Loops, before taking the Fruit Loops. She opened the fridge and removed a banana and the bottle of milk, taking them back to the bowl. Triana filled the bowl with cereal, sliced banana on top then poured milk all over it. She put the milk and cereal away, not really looking, her eyes half closed with sleep, picked up the cereal bowl and stopped with a jolt as she turned to the table and latest noticed Gary.

"What are you doing here?" She asked with a gasp. The bowl sloshed in her hand, spilling a little milk on the floor. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Eating the last of your cookie crisps, apparently." Gary said. "You're kind of far from your dad's apartment and underdressed to be visiting. Or were you having a sleep-over with someone?" Gary keep a level inflection throughout to make it sound less like a accusation.

"What? No. God, no! How could you say something like that?"

"You look like you just - crawled out of bed, someone's bed."

"Well, I'm not sleeping with Dean, as if that were any concern of yours."

"I don't care who you're sleeping with but as head of Venture Security anyone wandering around the Venture Residence late at night is my concern."

"I'm not sleeping with anyone!" Triana was outraged. "Besides Dean shares his room with his brother. Even if I were thinking of it, I wouldn't do it in front of an audience."

"That would be kind of creepy," Gary agreed. "So is two boys continuing to share the same room at their age. If I were their age I would have moved into my mother's basement so I wouldn't have to share a room.." A thought came to Gary. "You're not - uh - doing it with Dr. Venture?"

"Eeeww! He's old enough to be my father and he's crazy. Dean at least means well. Look," she pointed a spoonful of cereal in Gary's direction, "I'm only here because I had a fight with my dad last night. Knowing him, he'll just pick up it up this morning. So I came over here..."

"I smelled Apology Pancakes as I was coming in."

"I don't care if it's the Fatted Calf, it wouldn't have ended well. Dad just can't let it go."

"You're going to have to see him eventually - unless you plan to let Dean see you in that - uh - nightie."

Triana automatically crossed her arms over her chest, then after a moment sigh and went back to eating.

The silence dragged on. Finally, without looking up from her now empty bowl, Triana said,"Aren't you going to ask what we were fighting about?"

"I am curious. Did you know that silence is a powerful tool in interrogation? People don't like dead air. Wait patiently long enough and they'll start talking of their own accord."

"Is there, like a book, "Henchmen for Dummies?"

"No, but maybe I ought to write one. And you could write one about 'How to live with a Necromancer.'

Triana laughed. Her laughter kind of built up until she seemed on the verge of crying. She stopped with a sob and, still not looking up said, "I told Dad I didn't think I wanted to continue studying magic."

"How come?"

"The more I learn about magic that less I want to know. It's like that phrase, 'some things Man was not meant to know'? That pretty much sums up magic. Besides, I think I was stampeded into it."

"By your Dad?"

"No, by his mentor, The master. More like the Prince of Lies."

"Your father is mentored by Sa..."

"Don't say!" Triana said sharply. "It's hard to explain but just don't say that name. The Master' is good enough."

"Like we're not supposed to say 'Voldemort'?"

"It's complicated. Any," she hurried on, "when we moved here Dad opened a gateway to the other realm so he could visit his Master. Only, for obscure reasons, he had to put it in my closet. He never told me about it. And he never did anything sensible like take that room for his bedroom. He just put in the gateway and let me use the room. For years I was afraid to enter my own closet."

"Was that why you wore the same clothes all the time."

"Partly. - I guess Dad figured that since only a magic-user see the gate that it would be OK, little thinking that I might be a magic-user. I don't know why it never occurred to him. Mom's a magic-user and he's a magic-user. Two recessive genes always gets expressed.

"Anyway, one day I accidentally wander into the Other Realm and meet The Master, only he's made himself up to look like a middle-aged Dean Venture - potbelly, bald spot and even more prissy than he is now, claiming to be my husband. This, the master says, is my future - marriage to Dean Venture - if I don't do something about it now. And since I was obviously a magic-user I should begin studying magic with my mother.

"It all seemed to make sense at the time but lately I got to thinking that - marriage to Dean was never in the cards. I like Dean. He's a nice guy. But I like him as a friend, and only as a friend. I can't imagine who would ever think Dean and I were made for each other..."

"Outside of Dr. Orpheus, Dr. Venture and Dean," Gary suggested.

"To hell with them. Anyway. The point was that the future The Master was warning me about was one that was never going to happen."

"Fate can be very tricky, Gary observed.

"Yeah." Triana got up and took her bowl to the sink, rinsed it out and set in the strainer to dry. "The more I studied magic the more I realized how much it has messed up Dad and to an extent, Mom. I don't want to be like either one of them. I just want to be like a normal person."

"So, what - Community College?" Gary asked.

"As if! I don't think Dad has the money. In any case I don't know what I want to major in. I was thinking of getting a job at Target or maybe some record store for a year or two while I figure out what I want to do. I kind of like the idea of record promotion but I don't know."

"You're kind of like Dean. His father wants him to go into the Super-Science game like him but Dean doesn't want to."

"That's a scary thought. I think I know more about science than Dean does."

"He wants to be a writer, a journalist. His "Venture Home News" is kind of a fun read. Maybe he's got something there."

"He ought to write a tell-all book about his dad. That's where the money is. You want a cup of coffee?" Triana asked.

"Couldn't find the coffee-maker."

"It's that over there."

"Why does it have an oscilloscope on its front?" Gary wondered.

"Apparently once the sine wave stabilizes it's ready to produce the perfect cup of coffee."

"Show me how to use it." The machine was a lot more complicated that any coffee machine had any right to be, but drawing from a hopper of coffee beans it produced an amazingly tasty couple of coffee. Just breathing in the aroma made Gary jittery. Or maybe it was standing so close to Triana and being acutely conscious that there wasn't much under the T-shirt she was wearing.

"I'm guessing you have maybe five minutes to get out of here before Dr. Venture follows the smell of coffee down here," Gary advised.

"Any advice from your life as a henchman on how to deal with an angry dad?"

" 'Always watch your back'?"

Triana drained the rest of her cup. "Well, wish me luck." She put the cup in the sink and left the way she came. four minutes and thirty-eight seconds later Dr. Venture wandered into the kitchen wearing tiny zebra-print briefs. "Two milks, two sugars," he ordered. "And I like my eggs sunny-side up."

I didn't sign up to be a short-order cook, Gary thought as he opened the fridge. He was going to have to read over his contract again to see exactly what he duties were.

Gary was out in the back field later that morning, rewiring surveillance camera when Hank and Dean wandered by. Hank was wearing a trench coat despite the summer like weather, and a brown fedora. A whip was tied to his belt. Gary hoped that he wouldn't offer to demonstrate his skill with the whip. Dean was wearing his brown pants and vest, with a striped shirt and an elastic cuff on one arm holding back his shirt cuff. On his head was a green celluloid visor, the kind book keepers were wont to wear, say, back in the twenties. In his hand was a steno pad and a pencil.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions for the Venture Home News." Dean explained.

"No comment."

"But I haven't asked any questions."

"Doesn't matter, my answer will all be the same: 'no comment'."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"No."

"Ah, come on, Gary, you gotta answer some questions! How can I run an interview with Venture Co's new head of security if you won't answer any questions?"

Gary shrugged. He was on a step ladder that leaned against a tree. At a level with his head was a small camera. A short length of wire descended from it. Nailed to the tree was the rest of the cable. Gary had already stripped the insulation from the wires inside the two sections of cable. Now he snipped a four inch length of coax wire from a small spool then stripped each end, then stripped the insulation from each of the exposed wires. Careful to match the red, black, white and green wires to their mates he first twisted the short length to the cable nailed to the tree, wrapping each one in electrical tape as he finished.

"Whatcha doin'?" Hank asked.

"Fixing the security camera. Someone cut the cable leading up to the command center." Gary started attaching the wire from the splice to the lead coming from the camera.

"Was it me?" Hank asked.

"Nah, it was probably me. See those broken branches up there?" Gary pointed high up in the tree where it looked like a large weight had come smashing down. "I recall one time jumping - well, being thrown - out of the Monarchmobile into a tree. The idea was to cut the wire to the camera so the rest of the assault squad could climb over the fence undetected. My wings were supposed to brake my fall, but no one thought to tell me that they worked. So I kind of crashed. And by the time I finished thrashing through the tree, found the camera and cut it, Brock already knew we were here. That's when I met 24. He and I were among the few survivors. Spent a week together in the trauma ward."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"Dean, do you really want to give all your enemies ideas on how to get into this compound?" Gary asked.

"But I need something big, something to lead the new issue." Dean was petulant.

"Don't you have anything else?"

Hank had become bored and was practising with his whip. So far he had avoided slicing his head off, or Dean's or Gary's. Still, at any minute Gary feared he would try to wrap the tip around a branch and swing off somewhere. Not that: A) it was easy wrapping a whip around a tree branch and B) afterwards they don't come loose, He knew. He'd tried. Damn never broke his neck. Which was the sort of think he was supposed to prevent the Venture Brothers from doing.

Dean was thumbing through his steno pad. With a sigh he said, "The only other thing I've got is that Dad's play was rejected by another agent. That makes 8 for 8."

"You'd think he'd get the hint," Hank said from the ground where he'd fallen after getting tangled up in the whip.

"He hasn't favored me with a copy of it yet," Gary said as he whipped a final layer of tape around the splice. With the two-way he dialed into the web cam in the Guard Shack and saw that the monitor for this camera was now receiving a picture. And this time it was right side up. Once before he had crossed wires and the picture had come in upside down. He had had to tear it all apart and do it again.

"It's no favor." Hank continued. "Why he makes out granddad to be some kind of monster. No way is that true!"

"Word around the Cocoon was that Jonas Venture, Senior was a bit of a monster. It's all well and good to want to be a Boy Adventurer like Rusty, but what kind of a father drags his kid around the world into all sorts of danger. I thought fathers were supposed to protect their children, not get them killed."

"Was your father like that?" Dean asked.

"I didn't have a father," Gary answered before remember he wasn't going to tell Dean anything.

"Were you a Virgin Birth, like Zohepshut?"

"Or Jesus?"

"Neither. My dad run away when I was two, that's all."

"Is that what lead to your life of crime?"

"Life of crime? I was a henchman for the Monarch! We hardly ever did anything."

"Can I quote you on that?" Dean asked.

"Dean, my life was boring, OK? My dad ran away when I was two, maybe theee. Mom worked in a department store and had a succession of creepy boyfriends.

"I joined the Monarch when I got out of school just to get away from all that."

"I thought you had to be, like, eighteen to join the Guild of Calamitius Intent."

"They're super-villains. What part of 'obeying the law' do a super-villain follow?' Gary rolled his eyes. "They are a little more particular about sixteen year olds and younger - because of child labor laws and protective services. The Guild tries to avoid entanglements with local governments." He paused and considered. "Ok, the Monarch did kidnap me when I was fifteen. I was on a school trip to Washington, DC at the time. But he had to let me go because of my age. Called it an unpaid summer internship as I recall. So I kind of already kmew about the Guild and all that. - But my life was still boring!"

"What did you do while you were with the Monarch - besides kissing Dr. Girlfriend?" Dean persisted. He'd been scribbling notes while Gary talked. From what Gary could see as Dean flipped pages it looked like shorthand. When did he ever learn that he wondered. Teaching Beds. God knows what all they taught the boys.

"That part of my live if behind me. I don't want to talk about it." Gary was getting angry.

"Did she slip you the tongue?"

"Dean have you ever even kissed a girl? What do you know about kissing?"

Hank said. "I had sex with a girl - I think - but I don't know who?"

"Trust you to forget the important detail," Gary said. Turning to Dean he demanded, "Give me that," and took the steno pad out of his hand.

"Kissing Dr. Girlfriend was the most amazing thing I've ever done. It took a lot of nerve to do it. And I certainly thought she was kissing back - but it meant nothing to her. It was all part of some game she and Monarch were playing to see how crazy they could make me. So now she'd dead to me. Do you hear me - dead! And if you ever print a word of this I - Will - Kill - You!"

"But you're our bodyguard!" Dean protested.

"Not a word or..." Gary drew a finger across his throat. He threw the steno pad back at Dean.

Gary turned back to the ladder, pulled it down. Carrying it in one hand and grabbing a tote with supplies with the other, Gary started off for the next camera on his list. Dean seemed on the verge of tears. He felt guilty about that. He wanted to make up for that, then remembered something Triana had said that morning.

"Hey, Dean, here's an idea. How 'bout instead of writing stories about other people you write about yourself. Something like "The Life of a Boy Adventurer?"

"More like The Life of a Crybaby," Hank suggested.

"Hank you keep out of this. I've seen how you react when the Monarch attacked. It's not something to be proud of."

"Dean Venture - A Life! I like it," Dean shouted. "I'll do it. I can interview Pop and Brock and..."

"Can I be in your book?" Hank asked.

"Write your own book!" Dean said possessively and started running back to the Residence.

Gary worked on the surveillance camera till noon, then knocked off for the day. There were a lot of work to do to get the Venture Compound back to the state it ought to be in. He had all summer to finish the job. So why rush it. Besides some of the cameras needed internal parts. He made up a list of supplies and went to hit up Dr. Venture for some cash.

He found him in a small lab filled with electronics. Along one side was a small shooting gallery where a blackened mannikin wearing a charred camo uniform stood. "Say, Doc," he began "I've been checking inventory and have made up a list of parts we need to order. I've got the pricing and everything ready for your approval."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here - stick you finger here and tell me what you feel?"

'Here' was a red laser pointer light about six feet from its somewhat oversized projector.

"I'd like to keep my fingers, if you don't mind."

"What do I pay you for-"

"Actually you don't - pay me - the OSI does."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. There's nothing dangerous about it. See!" Doctor Venture ran his hand around the red light until at the last moment he accidentally touched the light. Gary saw the spot of red dance on his fingertip for only a second as the doctor, with a loud scream, convulsed, throwing himself across the room, landing hard against the wall, before collapsing.

Gary ran to Venture's side and placed a figure on his Carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. With a groan the Doctor pushed his hand away. "I'm all right," he said angrily and struggled to his feet.

"What was that thing?" Gary asked.

"My paralysis ray gun.. I ought to make a fortune with this, if I can get the bugs worked out."

"What the hell! It nearly killed you!"

"One of the bugs. I'm using a microwave laser to create a conductive path through the air then pumping 50,000 volts down the plasma conduit. Just enough to stun the target without injuring them."

"So it's a wireless Taser?"

"Well, yes, but the wireless part is patentable. The police will snap this up by the millions."

"You do know that Tasers kill people?"

"They do? Crap. Maybe I should sell this to the army as a death ray..."

"Yeah, maybe. Anyway, Doc, about these expenses..."

"Have you looked at my bank account lately? Butkiss. That's what's in my bank account. Butkiss. I was hoping to get the kinks worked out on this little baby and get it to market before the taxes are due next year."

"Maybe you ought to consider something less ... aggressive," Gary suggested.

The doctor grunted. "How many amps does it take to kill someone?"

It was Gary's turn to shrug. "One, two? I don't know."

"But if I don't put a lot of power into it the beam doesn't travel more than six feet before dissipating."

"Maybe that's good enough. You know, if you are looking for something to put on the market you might want to look into a better armored conduit for cables. I've been rewiring a dozen or more camera that had their cables cut over the years. They all had armored conduit but all it takes is a big pair of bolt-cutters to take them out. I was thinking of something like interlocking ceramic cones for force protection with a protective overcoat of kelvar or maybe carbon fiber. It ought to be as flexible as metal conduits but harder to crush and get at the wires inside. That's the sort of thing people would want more than they would a death ray."

"My old man made a fortune selling death rays!" the doctor snapped.

"Whatever. Anyway all I wanted was approval on this order..."

"I told you, there's no money!"

"Ok, then, I'll be going."

"And when you go crying to Col. Gathers - oh, I know your type - tell him I'm still waiting for the rent he owes for using my #4 assembly hall all last year. I sent a bill already. He knows what I'm talking about."

Back in the guard shack Gary spread out this list of supplies and went over it, scratching off things that weren't critical, adding things that could be improvised with. He got it down to forty dollars worth of hardware supplies. He folded the list and stuck it in his shirt pocket, checked his clothes in the lavatory mirror and decided everything was clean enough for a trip to town. He considered called Kim and see if she was free but the last time he'd called that Russian woman had answered and it seemed wise to lay off for a couple days before calling again. So he took the keys for the X-13 off the hook instead of the Charger's.

He was coming out of the hardware store with his bag of supplies when he heard the sound of gunfire. It sounded close and it sounded like it was moving in his direction. A police car had stopped at the intersection and Gary could see the officer in the driver's seat inside twisting his head, trying to find where the shots were coming from. His partner leaned over and said something to him. After a moment the driver rolled up his window and pulled into the hardware store's parking lot, parking out of sight behind a large truck.

That's interesting, Gary thought. This must be some Guild sanctioned operation for the police to knowing turn a blind eye to it. Idly he wondered what it might be about, but as long as it didn't involve the Ventures he didn't care.

He was turning to go to the car when a man ran into him. The man was in his 50s, a little overweight, very much out of shape and out of breathe. He was dressed in an expensive suit. He clutched at Gary's clothes as he bounced off the former henchman. "You got to help me!" he pleaded as his legs gave out and he started sliding to the ground. They're after me - my wife, my girlfriend, a bunch of crazy ladies. They're trying to kill me and the police won't do anything about it. For the love of God, help me!"

A wife and a girlfriend? What a schmuck, Gary thought. But the man had the look of an innocent civilian. He shouldn't be the target for a Guild operation.

"Do you want to live?" Gary asked the man.

"Of course I do!"

"Then come with me and do exactly as I tell you!" Gary thrilled to be using dialog from one of his favorite movies.

He lead the man a few feet down the block. The hardware store had taken over a stretch of old small stores to make one large building. The doors to the old stores had been blocked off but the recesses for the doorways remained. He pushed the man into one of the recesses and told him to kneel down. "Make yourself as small as possible. Don't move. Don't make a sound. Try not to even breathe," he instructed, then turned and stood in front of the huddled victim.

"You've got your ass in my face!" the man complained

"Do you want to live? Then shut up!"

Gary pulled the receipt out of his shopping bag and pretended to study it. From time to time he would pull something out of the bag and examine it, tapping the receipt as if comparing what he held in his hand with what was printed on the receipt. He kept this up for a minute or so.

Eventually a woman ran up to him, tall, slender, maybe even anorexic. "Citizen, did you see a man run past here?" she asked. Gary shrugged. She was dressed in a black catsuit with a plunging neckline. The only hint of color was a red heart on the left breast. Stiletto heels were on her feet. Clearly a Blackheart. Gary wondered if she was the mysterious assassin trying to kill the Venture brothers.

"I'm looking for a man, middle-aged, average height, a little overweight, in a well-made brown suit. Are you sure you haven't seem him?" she demanded.

"Look, I've been checking my receipt," Gary assumed an angry tone. "I think I've been screwed on a some of these prices and I'm trying to figure out which. I thought I saw someone running over that way." Gary waved his arm vaguely to the right. "I don't know, he added. Lying works best, he had discovered, when you lie the least.

The woman ran off in the direction Gary had indicated. She disappeared up the street Gary admired her ass. It was disappointingly skinny and flat, almost boyish. "That woman needs to eat some meat," he said out loud.

The man he had been hiding stirred. "Can I get up now?" he asked.

"Not yet," Gary told him, turning back to his receipt. Presently other woman were running past, tall, short, black, Asian, white, blonde and brunettes. One even kind of looked like Kim. He waited another minute until he was sure all the Blackheart on the mission had gone past but letting the man get up.

"What was that all about?" the man asked, still breathing heavily from his run.

"I thought you would know," Gary told him.

"Haven't a clue. I wax having lunch with my girlfriend when my wife showed up and started yelling at me. She grabbed the steak knife off my plate and tried to stab me but my girlfriend somehow got it from her. Then she starts trying to stab me with the knife. So I started running."

"Those were Blackhearts, an elite, all-women assassination group. They're very expensive so I don't think your wife hired them because you were cheating on her. Do you work for a defense contractor, maybe are in charge of corporate secrets?"

"I own my own business. We're doing quite well. But it's nothing to do with the government."

"Come with me." Gary lead the man in the direction away from the Blackhearts. He ducked through alleys whenever he could. "How long have you known your girlfriend?" He asked.

"A month, maybe two. It was love at first sight."

"More like sex on first night. That's an old Blackheart ploy. They use sex to lure men into their schemes."

"Brenda? You're saying Brenda's an assassin?"

"You got money on you?" Gary's meandering path was leading up to the bus station.

"Some," the man, naturally was hesitant to say how much.

"Good, you'll need it. Give a hundred now," Gary lead the way into the station and over to the waiting area. "Take off your coat and wad it up. They're looking for a man in a brown suit, so you can't keep wearing that suit. Take off the tie, unbutton your top button and roll up your sleeves. Try to look like a man in casual clothes. Wait over their while I get your bus ticket.

"I can't leave town now. I've got some important meeting to take."

"If you stay here the only meeting you're going to make is with the grim reaper."

Gary left to get the tickets.

He was back in a few minutes. He dragged the man out to the loading area. "Here's your ticket to Chicago. But you're not going there. In Toledo you're going to get on this bus-" Gary handed him a second ticket. "- which goes to Nashville. but you're not getting off there either. Somewhere in Kentucky get off the bus. I recommend the town of Deer Lick. Nice place. Not so small that a traveler would stand out but not so big that the Blackhearts would have an operative there. Stay there for a week. Whatever you do, don't use your credit card. They'll be on to you in a second. After a week think about going someplace and starting a new life. You come back here and they'll just finish what they started. Got that?"

"I can't believe this is happening to me."

"No one ever sees it coming," Gary assured him.

Gary watched the man board his bus and waited until the bus had left the station. He casually strode back to the X-13. He felt like a boy scout who had done his good deed for the day. On the other hand I gave the departing business man a 20 percent change of still being alive by the end of the month. All the advice he had given him was good ("Maybe I ought to write that book on henching," he thought) but the chances of the guy following everything was slight. That took too much discipline and people who got involved in Big Time Crime rarely were disciplined. Still he had done what he could. The Blackhearts weren't actually a Guild affiliate but they ran in something like the same waters. Screwing up one of their operations was almost like screwing up the Guild and as a former henchman Gary liked to screw with the Guild whenever he could.