Operation Glitterberries
Interlude 02: Melody Powers, fictional agent of the Farm.
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Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.
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'What the hell is going on?'
I was understandably worried about why I was being directed to Manson's office in the middle of a class. The quack usually waited a couple of weeks to start bothering with the self-esteem issues, and since Daria and I had been in the podium she had stopped harassing us, probably because this time Daria might direct her attention to either her or Li instead of her sister.
Even then this was the last thing I wanted right now, esteem or not esteem right now I'm far more interested in cutting classes' altogether and heading to Daria's.
"Jane, I'm Captain Burns of the Lawndale Police Department Major Crimes Unit and I need to talk with you about Daria."
All that was gone from my mind when the man came in and said those words.
In the time I had been incarcerated in this gulag the police had never come inside no matter how crazy things become. Once, when Daria asked about why the security crazy Li hadn't filled the entire school with security guards I told her about how the cops once came to LHS to arrest a couple of guys who had the bad luck of being confused in the security tapes for some vandals who graphitized one house in Crewe Neck.
I was yet a year away from High School thankfully (or maybe not, my previous classmates were even worse than the ones here) but legend says that when one of the guys was about to get a wallet from his pocket the cop somehow thought he was getting a stiletto and ended hitting him with his truncheon, and then hit the other guy as well. To make matter much, much worse, and that was a hard feat to accomplish in the first place, the English Class and its teacher were leaving the classroom at that very moment with a lot of Black and Latinos which ended seeing two white cops hitting two black honor students there had been a lot of screams and threats, until one of the psycho cops decided to get a little space by waving his gun.
Whenever he shot it to the air on purpose as the students said, one of the kids tried to take it and it had gone off as his partner declared, 'personally I believe all the morons there equally screwed it up'. People were outraged and calling for the head of the cops who open fire in a crowded school even if thankfully all the shots were too high and hit the ceiling. The right move would have been to hang the cops from the highest tree ASAP, but the chief of police backed them hell and back and a couple of days later they were back in the streets.
The protests didn't wait, and when one particularly large silent march was opposed by a picket of one of those weird racists churches from the south the riot control police went and 'suppressed' both the troublemakers and the peaceful protesters alike. From then things become scary enough that classes county wide were canceled and Trent, usually laidback and without a worry in the world had us barricade ourselves on mother's kilt.
Later I discovered via Jodie that when Chief Wiggum asked the governor for the National Guard he, fearing a second L.A., instead send an aide with strict orders to fire all people even marginally involved in the fiasco and to make any concession to the protesters before the situation went even more out of control.
That was the reason cops aren't allowed inside school, and why did Li, who under normal circumstances would have stayed a paranoid social studies teacher for the remainder of her career, is nowadays the principal just because of her Korean lineage. In fact the whole reason Jodie was studying in LHS instead of one of those expensive private schools like Fielding was a favor that her father did to the Mayor who used her and Mack as the poster children (literally, she saved one of those posters as a joke and displayed it whenever she felt Jodie was a little too aloof) of racial integration of the city.
But right now that doesn't matter. This is about Daria.
"Wait, did something happen? Is she okay"
"We don't know. She was seen last time leaving her house at seven yesterday and since then nothing. We are hoping that you know where she is right now."
"Since yesterday? She didn't ask her 'rents permission? I mean, she said that the trip was bad, but not that bad for her to leave without telling them something."
"When did you saw her?"
"Dunno, about seven and a half maybe quarter to eight. Trent found her walking towards the house so he gave her a lift." 'What the hell happened with her family?'
"Trent, who's Trent?" I answered "My brother, one of his gigs was a bust and as he came back home he saw her walking and took her to Casa Lane," now that I answered the cop I added a question of my own, "I might not be a lawyer like Mrs. H but I know that you usually don't make such a fuss over someone missing, much less before a day is over."
The cop took half a second to think how to answer. "Daria accidentally ingested some nasty hallucinogen berries during her camping trip and right now she is a danger to herself, is she still in your home?"
"Now that just bull, I've seen my sister on a bad trip, and yesterday Daria was nowhere like that. She was acting a little weird but I can tell you now that the pink elephants and giant bunnies stayed home. Now what the hell is going on? Cops don't come inside school even for weed dealers. Did Mrs. Morgendorffer put you up to this? I can't think of anyone else with the pull to call a rent-a-cop to harass my friend."
The guy hesitated but didn't seem as angered as I expected him to be after my mouth overran my brain. "Jane, Helen and Jake Morgendorffer as well as their other daughter are right now in a hospital in Oakwood still under treatment for the hallucinogen berries. Daria ran away two days ago and yesterday one of Mrs. Morgendorffer's employees went to her home for some documents needed for the missing person's report accompanied by an officer and were assaulted by Daria shortly before going to your house. If she's still in your home we can pick her up and put her in a hospital before she does something irreversible."
"Are you kidding me? Daria is incapable of hurting a fly, denigrating it to the point that it would lay in the ground into a fetal position and wait for death? Sure, no problem. But physically doing serious harm to a human being? No way!"
"This is no joke Miss Lane; she injured two EMTs in Oakwood plus yesterday's injuries. If she's in your home then we might be able to stop this without any violence, but if you keep stalling you'll do this worse for her and for you. I don't really want to take you cuffed top the station, and not just due to the political nightmare it would cause, but believe me, this is serious enough for me to do it anyway." The glint of steel in his eyes was more than enough to convince me of the sincerity of his threat. "She was gone in the morning before I wake up, I was hoping that she went back to her home, but no one picked up the phone and she didn't come to school."
"Any other place she can be, maybe another friend of hers?"
I shook my head. "No, she is not what I'd call a socialite; she is in speaking terms with Jodie, but not much more than that."
"Okay let me do a call." He then went to a corner of the office and took his cell. I couldn't exactly hear what he was talking about, and before I could ask he asked, "Is there somebody at your house right now?"
"Probably Trent, he is either practicing with the guitar or taking a nap, so knock loudly." He nodded and went back to his phone I hope that he doesn't wakes up with his usual, 'I don't know where that weed came from officer' excuses, with a real cop that will be… bad. Then after a few more words he hanged and turn towards me, beating me to the punch with an explanation. "I sent detective Green to get a statement from your brother, told him to knock loudly as you said. Now why don't you tell me how was Daria when she arrived your home yesterday?"
"She didn't look high if that's what you're asking for, although I wouldn't put pass Daria to be history's most lucid junkie, she just looked tired and a little hurt…"
"Hurt how?" He interrupted. "She looked tired and bruised, and she was favoring her right side."
"EMT's said that she had bruised ribs, she was supposed to have them X-rayed just in case." Now the way Daria moved yesterday makes a lot more sense. "Bruised ribs, seriously?" 'Why I didn't see that before?'
"Yes, and that's why is imperative we find her as soon as possible. Now, how was she acting? You said she wasn't high but was she acting weird in some other way?"
"She was hungry and tired, I mean really tired, as if she was falling asleep while talking to us, and she also looked somewhat fed up about the trip, even if she did try not to show it and put a nice face about it, so I let her sleep in my sister's room for the night."
"So you saw nothing weird?" With those words all the small inconsistencies of my friend came to light "No, you don't understand, Daria is not someone who bother to put a positive spin on stuff like this and her face is always the picture perfect of a poker face. Is just not her." Right now I couldn't stop talking even if I wanted, the irregularities I chalked up to exhaustion coming to the fore one after another. "When I took her to Penny's room to sleep she started undressing in front of both Trent and me, and she's a prude, she wouldn't do that in front of me, and she almost faints every time Trent talks to her, she would die before showing that much skin to him. And this morning I found that she cut her hair in the bathroom."
Then a memory of last night's conversation intruded my mind. "And then there was the fact that when we asked about the camping trip she acted more normal, with sarcasm even more biting than usual. But for a moment I saw in her face something different… I swear to God that I saw rage; I don't mean anger, Daria is annoyed with her family most of the time, and from time to time they do manage to get her temper out to light, but for a blink I could see fury there."
The cop looked at her with a sad expression before answering her unsaid question. "For what the Morgendorffer family can tell us the trip itself was somewhat unremarkable until their intoxication. She was able to lock her sister in the car and then she herded her parents into a relatively safe part of the forest, it seems that they also engaged in vigorous, umm, intercourse while Daria was forced to keep an eye on them to prevent them to wandering or otherwise do something dangerous…" Jane had to laugh at that, "Daria's parents bonking on each other while she was forced to do voyeurism? This material is going to last me to the next century."
Then the rest of the cop's explanation came in and any thought of teasing went out of her mind. "It was trying to restrain her parents that Daria bruised her ribs. As for what happened later, I can only speculate. From what we got from a couple of 911 calls from her as well as the encounter she had with Miss Morgendorffer's secretary she now believes that the effects of the berries on her family are due to torture by a third party, and that her mother's state was due to rape rather than consensual sex. Frankly, we need to find her before she finds whoever she believes to be guilty, or she might really kill someone."
While I was reeling from the shock his phone rang, this time I didn't even put any attention to the chat, I was still reeling from shock. It took the cop's hand on my shoulder to get back to the living world. "Let me give you a ride to your home, and we can continue the conversation there okay?"
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'I hate this part.' After getting out of the school I took Jane to the car and drove her home in complete silence. I think that after what I told her she wouldn't like to do small talk, and by now Green will have a good feel of his brother, so I reserved the second round of questions for later.
Finally we arrived to the house, and although it could do with a hand of paint or two it was too open, and too bright to be a crack house. That was always a good sign on my book. As soon as the car stopped the door opened and a thin male with tattoos on his arms -thankfully not gang related as far as I can tell- and something on his face that might became a goatee in a few month, upon seeing him Jane went to his side as fast as fast as she could. I stood back for a moment, seeing and listening.
"Janey, are you okay?" The concern was evident despite his comparatively relaxed attitude, another good sign for everyone involved.
"I'm fine Trent, but have you heard about Daria?"
"Yeah, bummer; should have seen something was off yesterday."
Then I decided to let myself known. "Trent Lane? I'm Captain Jeffrey Burns. Could we take this inside?"
"A Captain? This is no good." He said as he moved aside and left the entire entourage in. "Wish I could differ." I added with a sad smile.
Inside I could see Green, as relaxed as always with his jacket off and showing his bulky body, a little too much fat in there, but still more than capable of throwing a man from one side of a bar to another. He didn't bother to stand and just gave a lazy wave with his hand.
"Do you want anything to drink? I think we still got some cold beers in the fridge."
"I could use a glass of water." Although I would love to have a beer it will have to wait after hours, probably after this mess is over.
"I'll help you Trent!" Jane said in a hurry, and pushed his brother into what he guessed was the kitchen. Green send an inquiring look to which I responded with a slight nod so we let them get inside undisturbed.
"What do you think of the boy?" I asked as soon as they were behind the doors. "He's a stoner, a slacker, careless enough to leave the door open while sleeping, and got some fun things to say when I woke him up but he is willing to cooperate, and let me search the house for the gun, I have to turn a blind eye for a little pot but other than that just a lot of auburn hair. What about the girl?"
"Fast on the uptake, wary of me but not as much as someone with something to hide, but she did recognized something was awfully bad with her friend and, once I hammered just how serious is this, willing to tell me everything."
"So, soft?" The experienced detective half asked half recommended me, and I agreed.
"Soft." This time there would be no 'Good Cop, Bad Cop'; the kids were feeling more than enough guilt without help and the best way to keep them from covering something was to make them understand it was for their friend's safety.
Before we could arrange the finer points of the questioning the two siblings returned from the kitchen with two glasses of water, a can of Ultra Soda and a beer.
"So Trent, can you tell me where did you found Daria? ..."
The expended the next half hour talking about the previous night, he didn't learn anything new although it gave him an accurate picture of both the missing girl and her friend, so it wasn't lost time. Then he decided to wrap it up and ask the last of the questions in his mind.
"… Finally, just one more thing; Daria used the name Melody Powers for her first 911 call. Does it ring any bells?" He didn't hold his breath, that name was clearly an alias, and not a good one. But then, just as Trent was shaking his head in the negative, Jane lost all her color.
"Melody Powers, are you sure?" Before he could answer in the affirmative she kept going. "Of course you're sure. No way in hell you'll get that name otherwise."
"Okay Miss Lane, what's the deal with the name" Green asked, as puzzled as me about the sudden reaction to a made up name. She took a long sip of her soda, probably gathering her courage before answering. "Melody Powers is the name of one of Daria's characters. A liberated James Bond arm candy that she invented for a school project she was forced to participate. She ended liking her so she has been writing a few more short stories."
It took me a second to understand the movie reference, but once I did I didn't like it at all. "James Bond, Shaken not Stirred James Bond?" The shy nod from the girl was enough confirmation. "Okay, think the school kept a copy of the story? We need it to see if there are any buttons we don't want to push or a clue where she's hiding."
"No, Li buried the story after the café's fiasco but she does use me as a sounding board and I keep copies of her finished stuff upstairs." She bolted from her seat and went upstairs, and I followed to her room.
Once there she went through some papers in her desk, passing one or two to me before going back to sorting the mess there.
There was a lot more reading material I expected. Some of the pages were filled to the brim with small cursive letter, some other only had a paragraph or two, with the rest of the space occupied by pencil drawings of different people, all of them either shady, brutal looking or just plain glamorous. Most prominent of all were the sketches of who he recognized as an older, glassless version of Daria and a half colored one of Jane with a large scar covering her face.
Falklands, Iran, Cambodia, Hungary, Turkey, the Golan Heights… 1982, 1947, 1973, 1957… I recognized some of the events, but not all of them, and they were spread for nearly fifty years of history. And the girl implied this wasn't all.
"So clip notes. What do I need to know? And don't lie to me, your face tells me I have a lot to worry about."
"You must understand that the first story does not count. That was just a way to get to Mr. O'Neill after Daria was roped into the Café Lawndale thing, so she wrote a femme fatale spy story with lots of guns, blood and a topless scene." She said as she passed me 'Where The Future Takes Us', as crumbled at it was I could still read a part of it and the phrase 'twelve dead Russians, five dead Chinese, three or four dead Cubans' didn't exactly fill me with optimism about our chance of a peaceful resolution.
"This was just a way to rile up the jocks that were there but frankly we didn't expect for them to actually riot, at least not to riot against communism. Hell, Daria actually told me that this is the first her stuff is popular with guys our age, even if for the wrong reasons. So she started to really work on her, giving her a background, getting her personality beyond a 'Kill Them All' sociopathic attitude, stuff like that.
"About her background, just how long it is, I see here decades worth of history."
"Well, there are so many crappy moves the old U.S.A. and the U.R.S.S. did during the Cold War that Daria couldn't decide on a timeline, I was thinking about doing a Frankenstein and having her just change brains with an unwilling victim every few years but she didn't want to lose the rest of the cast, especially those that wouldn't be able to afford it, like my character. Freedom Fighters just don't have a good health plan nowadays." She said with a smile; for the amount of material they probably expended days talking about it. Then it hit me like a freight train.
"Wait, your character?" I grimaced, 'I don't like the sound of that.'
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be the Jacaranda, sexy Spanish revolutionary; either an ally or an enemy of Melody, mostly depending of which government I'm trying to top at the moment."
"Well, at least she didn't confuse you with an enemy yesterday, so I guess that the big scar on your drawings was of some use." I felt bad the very moment I gave that particular commentary, but it is necessary for the girl to understand at a conscious level just how dangerous is her friend right now. "And by the way, does your brother or anyone else is a character? We might need to put them into protective custody or at least warm them if that is the case."
"Damn, let me think. Okay, Upchuck… Charles Ruttheimer the Third, he's not there directly but there are two generations of Chuck Ruthless who are info brokers who Melody pays in rare art, hookers and drugs. Don't look at me like that, it is quite within character." I suppressed the urge to sigh as I searched the correct sheet between the papers already given to me, I knew of both father and son, having harassed two of his favorite female officers a few months ago and they did look and act just as garish as the drawing suggested.
"Also Brittany and Kevin are supposed to be part of a PMC under Mack, I mean Michael Jordan Mackenzie, but we were just starting to brainstorm them and Jodie so I don't know where they will end or how, for mercs she has been using Buck Conroy's macho men. We haven't used yet any teacher, DeMartino is probably going to end as a disgruntled vet as he fits the type all too well, I want to throw Miss Defoe a bone and put her as part of the Jet Set but that's just me, Barch is too neurotic even when compared to DeMartino so maybe as a berserk killer? Mr. O'Neill would probably die the death of a thousand cuts if he tried to fight his way out of a wet paper bag, and Bennett is going to end as a CIA analyst. Manson, Morris and Li were supposed to be the big leagues villains, but once more Daria didn't have too clear of an idea of which paper they would get before all this mess."
'Great, half a dozen students and virtually the entire staff of Lawndale High can end as collateral and I don't think I can get uniforms inside the school.' Politics were decided on that point at the state level, and even Jackson would not be able to press for it unless we can demonstrate a clear and present danger to them. 'Maybe not even then…'
'Time to wrap this up' I thought as I gathered the papers and got one of my calling cards. "Okay Jane, Green and I need to go to the station but we're getting a patrol to do its rounds in the neighborhood. If you see Daria call us and do not contact her, no matter how much you want to, she's armed confused and regardless of how lucky you were yesterday she might lash out and hurt you or herself. If you remember any other useful information you can call at these numbers no matter the hour. I'll try to keep you informed."
With that we leaved the house.
I sighed. 'I have a lot of stuff to read.'
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Sorry for the wait. I had/have the mother of all Writer's Block.