Kim examined herself in the full-length tri-fold mirror inside the mission van. This was the first part of her test. Molotov Cocktease leaned against the edge of one of monitoring units in the front, watching her. A couple of Blackhearts were at their stations on the monitors.
Her make-up was flawless. She had worked for an hour to make it look as if she wasn't wearing any. She wore bright red lipstick, which she didn't consider that becoming but Molotov argued that men loved voluptuous red lips, so she wore overly red lips.
She wore a little black dress. It was made of a knit material so that it literal clung to her skin. Kim didn't like the dress either. Unless she remembered to suck in her stomach it would reveal the small paunch that anyone other than an anorexic thirteen year had. And because it clung so tightly she had to wear a thong to avoid the dreaded VPL (visible panty line). Kim didn't like the feel of a thong. She's almost rather go without panties at all but with the dress's tendency to raise up that wasn't a smart option. Still with the low neckline and high hem it did look good on her. She had the legs for it.
The bust too, but Cocktease had insisted on a up-lift bra that all but shoved her boobs up under her neck. Cocktease routinely lectured on how sex was the key to controlling men, and therefore busts should be high and mostly exposed, because that's what men liked. Kim suspected she had dated a lot more men than Cocktease had, with a better idea of what men looked for in a woman.
On her feet Kim had a pair of Victorian-style lace up ankle boots with three inch heels. Do-me boots as the girls called them. These were Blackheart specials with a knife built into the tips and a hypodermic into the stiletto heels. The hypo injected a hypnotic that Cocktease claimed would make any man a hopelessly slave. She went on and on how she had led on Brock Samson for years following one injection of the drug. Kim had no idea who Brock Samson was. She didn't connect the name with the blond giant she's seen several times on the Venture Compound when she'd gone to visit Triana. She'd been introduced but since he was part of those 'other people', as she thought of the Ventures at the time, hadn't remembered his name. And not knowing his reputation as a killing machine she had no idea why Molotov was so pleased at manipulating him without ever having sex with him. It was so obvious that Madame Cocktease despised this Samson fellow, and any other man she had had to work with that Kim had come to think that Cocktease 'swung for the opposite team,' as her classmates in high school would say. For someone who lectured that sex was the key to controlling men and therefore required each candidate for the Blackhearts to go out, pick up a man, screw him and come away with some piece of personal effects to prove it, Kim suspected that Cocktease never had. But it didn't matter what the boss did, only in doing what she required. Gary was going to get the ride of his life tonight. While she was going to pass Molotov's field without having to whore with some stranger.
Molotov came over just then to check over Kim's outfit. Her hand on Kim's shoulder as she turned the girl around to look at her from all sides, made Kim shiver. "You look verry good tonight," Molotov drawled in Russian accented tones. "You well do well on this test, I think. There will be monitors inside and outside the bar so if there is any trouble you can call on them."
Hah! Kim thought. They'll be too busy observing my every move and criticizing everything I do. Rescue me, not likely.
Molotov patted her on the shoulder. "Now go out and show what you've learned," she said.
Kim climbed out of the large van. It was painted brown and had a UPS logo painted on the side so people would not wonder why it was parked there. She walked slowly towards the strip club, partly to get used to the high heels and partly to think about her future. She had heard about the Blackhearts recruiting and joined up for the training in weapons use and hand-to-hand combat. If one's going to be a professional super-villain one needed those kinds of skills. But the Blackhearts were just professional assassins and that was not Kim's goal. She was going to Arch Hank Venture come hell or high water. At some point she was going to have to make a break with the Blackhearts. She just wasn't sure when. According to the course study materials this was the last test before induction into the Blackhearts. Was that the end of their training or were there more advanced courses only for full members of the Blackhearts? If there were no advanced course then this would be as good a time as any to break with the assassins. But if there were advanced courses then she'd want to sample them before making any break.
And just what would the Blackhearts do if she did run away? There had been little discussion of that. The other trainees were all dedicated to becoming assassins. There was no question that they would stay with the Blackhearts. But hints and occasional asides suggested that no one left the Blackhearts alive. Well, she intended to. Maybe not tonight, but soon and ... whatever came of it, she'd face like - a man.
Kim entered Nightin'ales and walked across to the bar, selecting a stool at the bar away from anyone else. She had been conscious of the lull in the dull rumble of conversation as she sashayed across the floor. She ordered a martini, which was watery and tasted of cheap vodka. She looked around and couldn't spotted Gary anywhere. It wasn't like him to be late. And she wanted him to be there early so she wouldn't have the fend off all the horny men in the club. Shit, it was her clubbing days all over again. It was true. Life is High School all over again...
Gary turned the shower up as hot as he could stand before climbing in. Ducking his head under the hot spray brought a wave of pain he hadn't expected. He felt the right side of his face and saw his hand come away bloody. He stepped back out of the shower dripping water all over the floor and peered at himself in the fogged-over mirror over the sink. His eyes widen in surprise as he saw a huge bruise already yellowing the right side of his face along with numbers cuts a scraps. He must have gotten beat-up real good that afternoon fighting the Monarch's men. But he didn't remember getting hit. He had thrown 57 at the other henchmen come to kill him and thrown himself on the ground. That must have been it. He's hit the pavement hard; harder than he thought but was so pumped up with adrenaline that he hadn't notice his face smacking against the asphalt.
He couldn't go see Kim looking like this!
But he couldn't stand her up, either. He'd promised he'd come and bruise of not he was going.
He got back in the shower and finished washing. Afterwards he wrapped a pile of ice cubes from the minifridge in a towel and pressed it against his face, hoping the cold would keep the swelling down. He set a timer for one hour and laid down on his recliner to rest. He was asleep so fast he didn't recall putting his feet up.
The alarm brought him out of a strange dream where he was back in the cocoon fighting the Monarch while Dr, Mrs. The Monarch, dressed in the fur bikini of Rachel Welch's One Million BC costume cheered. He wasn't sure who she was cheering for. "Man, that was too Freudian," he muttered as he swung his feet to the floor and got up. He found his old high school graduation suit and put it on. Now that he was getting a paycheck maybe he could shop around for one that fit better, or at least wasn't so out-dated.
He grabbed the keys to Brock's Charger and, after making sure neither Hank or Dean was anywhere around drove out of the hanger it was stored in and turned down the road to the city.
He found a parking spot under a streetlight and sat in the car for a moment getting up his nerve. He didn't like role-playing much. At least the ones that didn't involved Star Wars or Dungeons and Dragons. It was easy to get into those characters. But pretending to be a business with important documents in his briefcase (Gary checked to see that he had remembered to bring along an old, scuffed up briefcase left in the guard shack) picking up some strange girl in a bar... He just didn't know how to play that. Aside from Kim he had never really talked to a girl and had no idea how one goes about picking one up. True, he had kind of picked up Kim that first day they met, but he also understood that Kim had been looking for just about any man that day and it was really the second day that they had discovered that they had things in common and liked being together.
With a grumbled 'here goes' he got out of the Charger and walked into the club.
He saw Kim right away. He almost stopped walking to gawp at her. She was stunning in a dress that seemed to leave little to the imagination and yet spiked imagination all around. She was surrounded by men but was ignoring them with practiced ease. He was going to sit at the other end of the bar but with all those men around her it seemed like it might be a better idea to take a booth.
He sat down and ordered a beer and some fries when the waitress came around. He realized that he hadn't eaten since morning. That was a long time ago. The fries would soak up some of the alcohol, he hoped, because he didn't want to get too drunk too quick tonight. Gary remembered what Dr. Mrs. The Monarch had said earlier that day about the Monarch putting some henchmen around the strip club. That may have been superseded by their attempt on his life later that afternoon but Gary didn't plan to take any chances.
The waitress had hardly left before another woman slipped into the booth. This was one of the strippers. She was emaciated the way heavy coke users tend to be. Her boobs were plastic and mounted high on her chest. She leaned against him and started talking nonsense about not seeing him in a while. He let her go on for a while but when his beer and fries arrived he nudged her and said "Later."
She took the hint and left but Gary had barely finished savoring the taste of the first French fry when another weight eased into the seat beside him. "Buy a Lady a drink?" Kim asked in a husky voice.
Gary waved at his waitress.
Kim was about to say something else when she got a good look at his face. "Oh, my god, Gary," she gasped. "What happened?"
"Slipped in the shower and hit the door," he lied.
"Are you all right? You look terrible."
"I'll be find. It's just be tender for a couple days."
"Are you sure?" Kim reached over to touch the widening yellow bruise. She had a light touch but it still smarted.
Gary took her hand and moved it away. "Look," he said. "I've had a rough day. I'd rather not do this play-acting, OK. We can do that some other time."
"Oh, my god. Shit!" Kim suddenly went pale as she glanced around the room. A woman in the back of the room, dressed all in black had opened her large purse and pulled out a cell phone. She spoke into the phone for only a moment.
"Busted." Kim announced. "look - ah, Gary, I've got to go. I don't know that I'll be able to see you again. But if I can I want to hook up again. OK? You've been the nicest man I've ever know, and I've known a few." She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips and was gone before Gary had opened his eyes.
The woman Kim had stared at a moment before was getting out of her seat. She had the phone to her ear again. A shout from the bouncer told him that Kim had just fled the room. The woman in black was close behind. The bouncer tried to stop her and she hit him with well trained chop to the neck. He was flopping on the ground as Gary jumped over him and run out into the parking lot.
Kim, and the woman in black were no where to be seen
He ran down the block hoping to catch sight of either Kim or her strange pursuer but all he saw were a number of black jumpsuited women piling out of a parked UPS truck. They split into teams heading in all directions. Blackhearts. Why would Kim be a target of the Blackhearts he wondered.
He walked back to the parking lot where he was accosted by the bouncer who told him he was going back inside to pay his bar tab or else. Gary popped him on the chin, laying the bouncer out on the driveway. It felt good to hit something. Then he dragged the man to the sidewalk and tucked a twenty into his palm since the man was only trying to do his job.
In the Charger Gary drove around town for an hour or so, looking for Kim. He saw a lot of teams of Blackhearts running this way and that but of Kim he saw nothing. She had evaporated into thin air.
Eventually Gary gave up and returned to the Venture Compound, parked the Charger exactly in the same spot from which he had taken it so many times in hopes that Brock Samson, whenever he returned would not notice that he had been using it. The two hundred miles he had put on it would be more of a giveaway than it being parked slightly different from where Brock had left it.
He was too absorbed in his thought to realize that the lights were on in the guard shack until he went to flip the light switch up and realized that it already was.
"I'm dead," he thought then realized that it was only Dean Venture waiting for him.
"Gary I can't sleep," he began.
"Dean, whatever it is, I can't deal with it now."
"But this is important."
"I don't care. I just lost my girlfriend, I think, and I don't even know why. I'm a just little too confused to give a rat's ass about your problems."
"You got dumped? That sucks." Dean commiserated.
"I'm not even sure I got dumped. We were having drinks and all of a sudden she says 'I gotta go,' and she's gone. Apparently being chased by a Blackhearts assassin or something. Get out of the recliner, that's mine!"
Dean got out of the chair and Gary dropped on to it in a limp pile. "Talk to me in the morning," he told the boy, closing his eyes.
"No! I came out here to get an answer and I'm not leaving until I get it, damn it!" Dean sputtered. Gary opened his eyes and looked at the boy. He stood before him hands clenched at his side, almost trembling with fury. He considered the chances of Dean just going away. "OK, what the hell do you need to know?" Gary said with a sigh. He tried some deep breathing to calm his nerves.
"Why did you call me 'Highlander'?"
"I never called you Highlander." Gary answered absent-mindedly. Right after the words were out of his mouth he remembered that he had - and why.
"Yes you did. It was that time last year when you were still working for the Monarch. You and your buddy, the tall guy, were chasing after Hank and me with a sword. You called me Highlander and was trying to cut off my head. I looked up Highlander in the Internet today when we were at the library. It was a movie about an bunch of guys who were immortal and could only die if someone cut off their heads. And if they did they would absorb all the power and knowledge of the other. So calling me 'Highlander' is a very weird yet very specific thing to say. Are you saying that I'm immortal? That I can't be killed?"
Gary licked suddenly dry lips and wondered how he was going to answer this. "I was just messing with you," he hazard. "Of course you can be killed."
"Well, what about that time, it must have been two years ago when you took one look at me and almost fainted? Were you messing with me then?"
That must have the time shortly after he and 24 had blown the boys across the highway with a loaded shotgun. Finding them alive after having clearly killed them had been a shock. Yet, at the time he had never thought about the boys being cloned.
"I can't tell you."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't" Gary told me.
"It's my dad isn't it. he doesn't want to be embarrassed by my tell-all book."
"It goes higher than your old man. It goes all the way up to the top. They don't want you publishing your book."
"Why? What could there be in my book that would be that shocking?"
"It's not up to me. They flew Brock Samson in to tell me I got to stop you from writing this book."
"Brock was here and didn't stop in to say 'hello'?"
"He was telling me that he'd kill me if I didn't get you to drop your book. I don't think he was feeling very warm and fuzzy just then." Gary paused, considered what he should and could say. "Look, if it were up to me I'd tell you want the deal is but they say it would drive you and your brother crazy? So I can't."
"Drive me crazy?" Dean echoed with a bitter laugher. "There are guying shooting at me nearly every day. People don't know try to kill me! I've being chased by monsters from under the earth, under the sea, from outer space, alien dimensions, from the future, from the past! I don't think there is anything that could be so shocked, so much more shocking that that, that it would drive me crazy!"
"Dean, it's not up to me. I think you're right. I think you could handle this. But they also said it could bring about the end of civilization. And that part kind if made sense."
Dean laughed bitterly. "I'm more of a threat to myself than I am to civilization!"
"Go to bed, Dean. I can't tell you anything about this and I'm tired. I want to sleep. Maybe things will look different in the morning."
"It's the clones, isn't it. All those helper clones Pop was going to surprise Hank and me with come Christmas. Just think what a mad dictator could do knowing that he could grow an army of fanatical clones in his laboratory..."
Gary half rose out of his recliner at that. There in a nutshell Dean had guessed it. But when Dean didn't say any more Gary realized that he had still failed the make the final connection - that he was one of that army of clones his father had been growing like mushrooms in his basement lab.
"You know I don't actually have to put that in my book," Dean said. "It could be something I'd know and I don't have to tell." Dean sounded hopeful. "I have got to learn every thing there is about me, and pop and grandpa Venture. What happened to mom and everything. But I guess I don't have to put them into a book. Do you think your bosses would be happy if I kept up my research but didn't write anything down?"
"You'll have to get your father on board with that but..." Gary shrugged his shoulders. "I was just told to get you to not publish a tell-all book. If you're willing to not publish it, then I'm happy. I'll run it up to HQ tomorrow. Now get the hell out of here so I can get some sleep!" He folded his arms and rested his chin on his chest. "Turn the light out when you leave ... and set the lock. I'm tired of having visitors."
Moments later Gary heard the lock turn on the door but it was some time before sleep caught up with him.
The point to sleeping in your clothes on a recliner in front of a security monitor board was to be able to respond to an emergency at a moment's notice. It helps if you're not dead-dog tired and only had a couple hours of sleep.
Gary's first respond when the alarm started sounding was to roll over and swat at the non-existent alarm clock on the non-existent night stand that once stood beside his bed when he still lived at home. Only when his hand thumped against the side of the recliner instead of on the clock did he actually wake up. It took a moment for him to recall what a code 5 was (fire alarm on the grounds) and where building 14 was (half way back of the compound) but he was out of the chair in seconds, ripping off the suit coat and tie (it was a clip-on) he was still wearing The pants and dress shirt would have to take their chances, but he did take time to kick off his dress shoes and lace up his combat boots. He made a quick call to 9-1-1 then, grabbing the large fire extinguisher from the floor beside the door, he raced out into the night.
As he got to the distant building he saw what seemed like a large creature dragging a burning branch towards the woods that terminated not far from the building itself. The creature seemed to hear Gary's running, dropped the branch it had been dragging and vanished into the woods. Was that Triana's walking tree he wondered, and what was it doing with the fire?
He paused at the corner of the building to talk in the whole picture of the situation. There was a large pile of brush laid up against the side of the abandoned manufacturing building. It was burning merrily due to some kind of acceleratant, probably diesel fuel from its smell. But the fire hadn't really set into the wood yet, it was mostly burning off the oil. Branches lay scattered around the burning brush pile, each pulled far enough away so that the flames, not drawing any heat from the burning pile, were quickly dying out. Which meant, to Gary's surprise, that the walking tree thing or whatever it was had been trying to put out the fire. Why would it do that? To keep the woods from catching on fire?
Gary scurried from smoldering branch to smoldering branch poofs blasts of diatomaceous earth on each flame before turning to the main pile and hosing it with larger blasts of the flame-proof dust. He was just stomping out the last embers when another alarm sounded through his wrist two-communicator. another fire, the relay said, at building 7, which was way on the other side on the compound. Gary grabbed up the fire extinguisher, hoping there was enough charge left in it to deal with this fire. He was half way across the vast open field between buildings 14 and 7 when he realized that he was being played for a chump.
The fire at Bldg 14 had been set to draw him away from the Guard Shack. The fire at Bldg 7 was, undoubtedly set to draw him yet farther away from the obvious target - The Venture Residence! The shooter had come back and this time intended to make her hit up close and personal.
Gary dropped the fire extinguisher where he stood and turned back to the Residence. As he ran he tried operating the two-way communicator, "Doctor Venture! Doctor Venture! Wake Up!" he screamed. "This is a Code 1 emergency! Code 1, get in the Panic Room! Now! Get the boys in the Panic Room!"
There was no reply from Dr. Venture. Did that mean he was already dead? Or had Gary simply screwed up with the communicator, in the dark, while running. It would be time to find out soon enough.
He could see a light coming from a general workshop area. It was where the Panic Room was located. The room was steel plated and impregnable, except for the door out of the room. That was armored but it was a door, a weak point in the overall defenses of the Panic Room. If he were trying to get into the Panic Room that's where he'd attack.
There was an outside door to the workshop but it was supposed to be locked and in any case any good foe would have barred the door, so Gary didn't stop or slow down as he neared the door. Instead he threw himself bodily against the door, ,hoping to crash through it. For once he was glad of his 250 pounds (OK, maybe more like 270) pounds weight.
He hit the door with a jarring thud. The panels rattled in their frame but held. Gary barely had time to think "shot," when the bullet-proof glass in the window, exploded out of its frame and he oozed through the small opening to land on the floor on top the spiderwebbed but still intact bullet-proof glass. He didn't have time to make mental notes about improving the building security later.
He clawed his way back to his feet and staggered towards the door of the Panic Room. The shooter was there, just as he expected, carefully packing the putty-like C4 explosive around the lock on the door. She had already packed the two hinges with putty. In he center of the door was a small square box with three leads coming out. Two were already pushed into the C4 on the hinges. The third, for the moment, dangled freely.
The shooter was just beginning to react to Gary's arrival as he hurled himself at her. Later he would recall how oddly she was dressed, in a tight-fitting black catsuit, with a blue T-shirt over it and a grey ski mask and white running shoes. The ski mask made sense since it protected her identity but the T-shirt? And why ruin the effect with white shoes?
But at the moment he was too busy trying to grab the gun she had pulled out of a large, cloth satchel and was trying to aim at him. He got one hand on her arm but with the other he had to fend off her clawing hand. They wrestled with the gun for a moment, rolling over and roll on the floor. Suddenly the gun went off. His hand had twisted hers, causing the finger to press down on the trigger. The finger was jammed there and the automatic fired round after round until its clip was empty. Thinking the threat from the gun was over, Gary let go of that hand and tried to pin her to the floor, She slapped along side the face with the hot, empty gun. The flat steel barrel sent sparks flying through his vision and m momentarily stunned, she slipped out of his grip.
"Hey!" Doctor Venture had been watching the fight through the glass in the Panic Room door. "I just had that floor repaired! That's coming out of your pay!" he shouted.
"Ah, Dad," Dean was looming over his father's shoulder, "he is trying to keep us from being blown up."
"He's doing a lousy job of it. Brock would have killed that assassin in ten seconds."
"Brock's not here," Hank was on the other side of their father.
"And we get stuck with inferior goods. Colonel Gathers is going to hear about this," he said, referring to the Director of the OSI.
Through blurry eyes Gary saw her fiddling with the ski mask. Someone during their struggles it had gotten turned around so the eye-holes no longer faced front. When she couldn't find where the eye-holes had gotten to, she ripped the mask off and charged after Gary who was picking himself off the floor. He barely saw the foot coming in a ground kick in time to turn sideway and let it slip past, a hard hit to abdomen but not the knock-out punch it could have been if it had connected with his chin.
He turned the twist into a full spin and threw himself at her when he again was facing her. They fell against the door in a pile. He was trying to get her in a half-Nelson when his eyes clears for a moment.
"Kim!" he shouted.
"Gary?" the shooter shouted back. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, still struggling to get free.
"I work here!" he said. "What are you doing here?"
"You never said you worked for the Ventures?"
"You never said you were trying to kill them. Why?"
"I went on a date with Hank Venture." She slipped out of Gary's hands and sprang to her feet. Gary got up as well, making a point of standing between her and her toolkit.
"You're going to kill him over that? Everybody has a bad date once in a while. That's no reason to kill them!"
"Isn't it, Gary. Isn't?"
"No. No, it isn't."
"For me it is. All through rehab the one thought that kept me together, that kept me going was that someday I would be out of there and finish killing Hank Venture! If I don't kill him I have nothing to live for!"
"Not even me? Is this why you ran out on our date tonight, so you could lay your traps while I was looking for you in town?"
Kim looked confused for a moment, apparently having forgotten about it. "That had nothing to do with this. Well, it forced me to accelerate my plans but. Look, I made a bad deal and it kind of blew up in my face. Once I decided to become a super-villain I needed some quick training in the basics - guns, explosives, hand-to-hand combat - so I joined the Blackhearts Assassins league..."
"Your Conflict Resolution Systems?"
"Doesn't assassination resolve conflicts? I thought it was pretty clever." Kim and Gary were at this point standing rather casually amidst the debris of their earlier flight. Arms crossed, arguing like lovers rather than killers.
"You know if you wanted training the Guild offers a wide range of Introductory Classes in villainy."
"There's a guild for super-villains? Well it's too late to worry about that. I signed up with the Blackhearts and to graduate you have to seduce some stranger, take him to bed then steal something of value from him. I thought I could use you. That was what the whole role-playing things was all about. But when I saw how beat up you looked I forget all about you being a stranger. The Blackhearts observer must have spotted that and ratted me out. So I had to run. I didn't mean to leave you in the lurch like that. Because, honestly, Gary you are the nicest man I've ever met.
"You realize that the only way you'll get to Hank Venture is over my dead body?"
"Gary it doesn't have to be that way. All you have to do with turn your back for a moment."
"I can't do that.
"Not even for me?"
"Kim, not for you, not for my mother, Dr. Girlfriend or all the women in the world. When I left the Monarch I made a vow to turn my life around. To be the good guy. To do something of value for the world."
"You worked for the Monarch? Cool."
"I work for OSI now. My job is to stop super-villains. Even the one's I'm in love with."
"If you loved me you'd do it?" She said.
"If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to do that," he replied. "Anyway, why Hank? It's not like he's much of a challenge. I mean, there are so many other super-scientist hanging around that could use a good Arching. And would give you a better run for your money."
"Hey Pop, what's going on," Hank, inside the Panic Room was asking. "I can't hear anything."
"It would appear that your bodyguard has been dating your assassin," Dr. Venture replied tartly.
"She's pretty hot. I wouldn't mind dating her."
"You already did, doofus," Dean said over the top of his father's head. "That's Triana's girlfriend, Kim. We went on a double date that one time when Phantom Limp tried to kill us. We were stuck in the bathroom and Brock broke in all naked and bloody..."
"Oh, yeah. Man's she's hot. Do you think she'd go out on a second date."
"No, Hank. She's trying to kill you. Apparently over the first date," Dr. Venture interjected. "I don't think a second date is going to happen."
Dean was fumbling in his pants pocket. "What are you doing?" Dr, Venture asked exasperatingly.
"I've got to call Triana about this."
"It's three o'clock in the morning. I don't think Dr. Orpheus's daughter will want to be woken up at this hour to be told we're all going to die." Dr. Venture was explaining but Dean wasn't listening.
"Hey, Triana, guess who's in town?" Dean said excitedly. "No, Kim! Yeah, she's back. She right here... We're in the panic Room. ... No, Kim's outside...Uh, because she's trying to kill us, I guess. Say, maybe you could talk her out of that, you know, seeing how you're best friends and all that... Ok, great. Later."
"Triana's coming over to talk to Kim," Dean told his father.
"Great, more collateral damage. While you've got that thing out, how 'bout calling 9-1-1 and ordering up a bomb squad. Just in case Hank's trollop isn't willing to listen to reason..."
"I think she's Gary's trollop, pop," Hank corrected.
"She wants to kill you. I think that takes precedents."
"I can't believe you picked me up just to get in closer to the Ventures," Gary was saying, angrily.
"I didn't pick you up for that. I didn't know you worked for the Ventures. If I had I would have kept out of sight just in case you suspected me. I picked you up from the first because I liked you. You were straight, honest, friendly. I've been surrounded by so many liars, cranks and psychos for so long that it was such a relieve to find someone I didn't have to be on my guard with. I wasn't stringing you along."
"And all the times you were attacking the Ventures you never noticed that I was their security officer. I can't believe you didn't know it was me."
"I never saw your face. Either you were too far away or had your back turned towards me,, or you had those stupid leaves covering your face. You could have been any over-weight security guard. Not that you're fat or anything but, you know what I mean."
"Kim!" It was Triana calling from the busted door of the workroom. She was wrapped in one of her father's old robes. She looked excitedly into the room before finding her old girlfriend and Gary in a stand-of outside the Panic Room. She could just make out Dean in the window of the door waving at her. "What are you doing?" she asked but never got an answer.
At the first sound of Triana's voice Gary eyes flicked off Kim to see where Triana was. "Stay out of here!" he ordered and in that moment of distraction Kim threw herself into a roll under Gary's legs, ending up next to her tool satchel. Her hand snaked into and came out with a modified TV remote. She waggled the device in Gary's face as he turned to grab at her. "I'm going to do it!" she laughed and pressed "enter."
The world exploded.
OK, maybe just a small part of it. The explosion from the two primed C4 charges threw Gary across the room. He slammed against the wall with a heavy, spine-crushing thud. An instant later something soft but heavy crashed into him, knocking out what little breath was left in him. He slumped to the floor thinking "Brock..." He was unconscious before he could finish the thought, that Brock would be pissed at him for failing.
Triana had ducked behind the door the instant she'd seen Kim come up with the detonator. The blast tore through the doors, tearing them off their hinges. When the sound of falling things ceased she looked in. Counters near the blast zone had been ripped from their mounting and flung about the room. Farther away from the Panic Room the blast had sweep everything from the countertops and piled them up in a mound along the rooms walls. The door to the Panic Room itself was bent and twisted, held in place by the deadbolt lock that Kim had not had time to prime. She caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of her eye. Gary lay slumped on the ground, bleeding from numerous cuts. On top of him was Kim. Hair half blown away, her clothes burned off over half her body. She was bleeding profusely as well.
"Dad!" she screamed.
"Pumpkin?" he materialized in a cloud of sulfurous gases. "Are you hurt?"
"Kim's dying!" Triana found she was crying. She hadn't cried since she was eight. "Do something."
"There's nothing within my power to do," he said sadly. "However she is not dying. I do not sense the ingathering of morbidity that accompanies death."
"Stop talking and do something!" Later Dr, Orpheus would realize that it must have been a moment like that when his wife had decided to leave him. When he had stood by and done nothing. Because when magic wasn't involved he didn't know what to do. Stung by guilt and Triana's plea he summoned up all his magic and teleported all the towels from their apartment into his hand. He started handing them to Triana who wiped off some of Kim's blood, then wrapped the towels around where the blood was still leaking.
In the Panic Room Dr. Venture shook his head and slowly got to his feet. He was surprised to find himself alive and reasonably intact. He surveyed the damaged to the room. The storage shelves had been knocked over, spilling more junk everywhere. He found the boys under one of the shelves, lying still, looking pale. He pulled the shelf off them and felt for a pulse on Hank. "Live, damn you," he groaned, "I can't replace you anymore!" His fingers were so jittery that I couldn't tell if he felt a pulse or not. "Come on, come on. I've sold my soul to the devil too many times already for you to die now."
"Hey, Pop, what's up?" He turned to see Dean sitting up. His eyes were still a little unfocused but he was smiling his usual goofy grin.
"Are you OK?" Dr. Venture asked.
"Oh, I'm fine. We're indestructible, you know."
Dean never saw it coming. Venture's eyes bugged out and his lips pulled back from his teeth, his hand rose and felt with such force that Dean was thrown against the wall.
"Don't every say or think that again," he snarled between clenched teeth. "You are not indestructible. You are the easiest thing in the world to kill. Never forget that. When you died there's no coming back, no second chances. You have to live every day of your life as if it was the only day you'll get. Because...because..." he stopped, suddenly exhausted, drained by his sudden rage.
"Because what, Pop? Is it something about what you don't want us to know."
"Who told you there was something I didn't want you to know?" Venture demanded.
"You did, Pop, when you told me I couldn't write that tell-all book."
"There's nothing. I'm not hiding anything from you." he got up and walked over the Panic Room door and tried to push it around so they could out of the room.
Hank was sitting up by now. He stared in amazement as the welt covering all of Dean's face. "Why, Dean? Pop has yelled at us a lot but he's never hit us before."
"I think I'm going to cry for a little while."
"You do that. I'm going to see if Gary and that hot lady killer are OK." He patted Dean on the shoulder. "Remember, bro. We're Team Venture. We can do this.
Gary opened his eyes to the smell of burnt nitrates and the sound of weeping. Kim lay in his lap, buried under a mountain of towels. Except for a gurgling rasp that sounded like a puncture lung she was as still as the dead. As his eyes regained their focus he could see Triana kneeling because them holding Kim's hand.
"Why did she do it?" she whispered.
"You knew Kim?" Gary asked instead.
"She's my best friends all through high school. She was the greatest."
"High school? She's your age!" Gary was stunned He had always assumed that Kim was close to his age. She certainly acted that way. "You never told me you knew Kim," he said.
"Of course I did. I was always talking about Kim."
"You maybe just talked about this friend you had. You never mentioned her name."
"I thought she was still in Florida with that holyroller group."
"And I never said her name to you because I figured you weren't interested. If one or the other of us had said something we might have avoid all this."
He lay there for a moment too winded for long conversations. "Someone call EMS? he asked. Triana nodded.
"When did she get all messed up about Hank?" Gary asked.
"I didn't know she was," Triana said. She sucked up the mucus in her nose and looked up at Gary. "It was maybe two years back. Dr. Venture wanted the boys out of the house that night so he volunteered to pay for a double date. It didn't go well, Hank and Dean being who they are, but I don't think it was that bad. But then we met this woman with a really deep voice..."
"Dr. Girlfriend?"
"I think that was the name on the card she gave Kim. She thought Kim already was a super-villain and suggested Kim hook up with her." Triana laughed humorlessly. "Kim thought she was hitting on her. If you can imagine that."
"Let's leave the bitch out of it."
"Anyway I remember Kim saying she was going to do it, and Hank would be her first victim but I never thought she meant it."
"She said it was the only thought that got her thought rehab. Crap. The first time in my life I ever had a girlfriend and she wants to kill the guy I'm hired to protect."
"That sucks. Say, I think I hear the ambulance."
"Go and direct them here. I think we'll be OK for that little time."
While he waited Gary stroked her blood-soaked hair. A dysfunctional childhood and a life-time of henching left him ill prepared to comfort someone. But while she didn't speak or open her eyes her breathing, which had had a kind of panting quality to it slowed down to a slow but regular pattern.
He thought about the future. It didn't look pretty. Unless something changed it would end with him either killing her or Kim killing him.
Eventually four women in ill-fitting surgical scrubs came into the room wielding a Gurney. They bustled around Kim: shining a light into her eyes, taking her pulse and blood pressure, fixing a pulse-oxy clip to one of her fingers. The woman carefully peeled away the many towels wrapped around Kim and taped compressed over the cuts that still oozed. Finally they fitted a neck brace around her head before lifting her onto the Gurney and piloted it out of the room. In all that time they didn't so much as look in Gary's direction.
With several gasps of pain he finally forced himself to his feet and staggered over to the door. Triana was starting there watching the woman load the Gurney with Kim into the ambulance. They piled in after her and the truck started off.
Triana turned away and was startled to find Gary standing next to her, covered from head to heels in blood, much of it his. "They didn't take you with them?" she asked, confused.
"Those weren't EMS techs," he replied. "Did you notice that they were all woman and their clothes didn't fit. Those were Blackhearts. Probably waylaid the real EMS people and stole their clothes as well as the van. Kim said she was running away from them."
"Will she be all right?"
"If they wanted her dead she wouldn't have left this compound alive, so I think she'll be alright.
"What about you?"
"I'll live. That's what henchman do. We live."