Codename: TABASCO
The Awesome Background And Secret Chronicles Of Michael Guerin
Episode 100 – Pilot (The Avenger)
Michael looked around at everyone present and took a big breath… "It started in the CrashDown… that day when Liz got shot. When Liz fell, Max jumped up out of his seat and started towards her, and I grabbed him by the arm…"
Max, what are you gonna do?
Max yelled at Maria to call an ambulance, then he tore Liz's dress open, and we saw the blood. I knew right then that nothing was going to convince Max that what he was doing was wrong. So I tried to keep anyone from getting too close and seeing what he was happening…
Hey, get back!
Max kept telling Liz that she had to look at him. Then he put his hand over the bullet wound and healed it. I was freaked out that Max had broken his pact with Isabel and me about not blowing our cover, and I just wanted to get us out of there as quickly as possible.
Keys! Now!
Max broke a ketchup bottle and poured the ketchup over Liz's dress. Then he told her to say that she broke a bottle and spilled ketchup on herself when she fell. He pleaded with her not to tell anyone what he had done, but I knew we were screwed. Our secret was out. I was totally freaking. And to add insult to injury, as I turned toward the door, with Max in tow, I collided with Maria.
"Oh great! Your smelly cedar oil is all over me!"
"You made me spill it! You bumped me!"
"Yeah, fine. Send me a bill. MAX, NOW! Let's go!"
I managed to drag Max out of the CrashDown, but the damage had been done. I wasn't letting him off without telling him what I thought of his indiscretion, and Isabel wasn't about to let him off easy either…
I can't believe this Max. You know, I finally feel like I have a quasi-normal existence and you go and blow it all with one random act of lunacy. Michael, how did you let my misguided brother do this? And stand downwind, for God's sake, Michael! You smell like a damn urinal!
Hey don't turn this around on me. I'm not the one who thinks he's a superhero. And it's not pee; Maria spilled that stupid oil she carries around all the time on me.
I always wondered what that was.
I'll be honest, at first, I was ready to leave town and find some other place to live… I was so sure that our cover had been totally blown, especially when Sheriff Valenti stopped us and questioned us in Max's jeep. But Isabel didn't want to leave Roswell, and Max… he thought we could just crawl back in our shells like nothing ever happened… So in the end, we didn't leave. But things did change… a lot more than most people ever suspected…
Max kept saying that he couldn't just let Liz die, and I understood, but it was my responsibility to keep us safe, and his saving Liz's life put ours in danger. Not just mine, you see… Max's… and Isabel's, too. I was furious about that. But a part of me was glad that he saved her. I'm not sure I can explain that. But what Max did got me to thinking. I still thought he was wrong to put all our lives in jeopardy like that… especially without consulting Isabel and me… but he did it, and that changed everything. Now it wasn't a question anymore of should he do it or not. He did it. Now the question was can we live with it… with a human knowing our secret…
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're being chased or where something's about to blow up or whatever and you want to run, but your legs just won't move, they're like… lead or something? Well, that's kind of how I felt when Max saved Liz. I wanted to run but I couldn't.
I think it bothered me more that I was so freaked out about it than it did that Max had done it. I was not supposed to get freaked out; I was supposed to keep us safe… calmly… and efficiently. I didn't even know who I was back then, but some things were programmed into my DNA or something. Efficiency was one of them. But if efficiency is the main goal, then Nasedo was perfect. He was the model of efficiency. If humans got in the way, he just eliminated them. Simple. No emotion involved. We hadn't even met Nasedo yet when Max saved Liz, but I already knew that that kind of thinking was wrong. The problem is, the difference between killing humans and letting one die when you could have saved her didn't seem very big. In fact, it seemed uncomfortably small. It's just that… I had never given it any thought, so it was a kind of awakening for me when it hit me like that. And it wasn't an awakening that I took easily. It was like waking up with cold water splashed in your face… or having no Tabasco to put in your morning coffee.
The truth is, I still wasn't ready to accept it, not totally. It seemed easier to say that what happened to Liz was no fault of ours and therefore no responsibility of ours, so what if Max was head over heels in love with her, he didn't have to save her, especially since it endangered all of us as a result. It wasn't the same as killing her, right? But a part of me was saying that it was. And it was driving me crazy. That night I tossed and turned in bed, and my mind kept replaying what had happened in the CrashDown. Over and over, in my dreams, I kept seeing myself drag Max out, and I would look back as we went out the door and see Liz lying there dead and Maria crying her heart out over her body and… and I would feel empty inside… cold… and emotionless. I was the Terminator… no heart, just very, very efficient… I was Nasedo.
Since I wasn't getting much quality sleep anyway, I decided to go for a bike ride in the dark and clear my head. I sneaked out of the trailer quietly, being careful not to wake Hank, but he had been drinking earlier, so he was probably in a stupor anyway. Once on the road, I drove all the way through Roswell and then headed towards Las Cruces on Highway 285. I remember I passed Madame Vivian's. I don't put much stock in fortunetellers myself, but I know some people who do, and I could just hear Madame Vivian trying to explain how I was a robot without a heart and then she would hum that Oz song, 'If I Only Had A Heart.' I put some distance between myself and her place as fast as I could. Twenty miles down the road, I spotted a rest stop and decided to pull off and try to relax. It looked dark and relatively deserted, and that suited me just fine. That's what I needed to clear my head.
I was lucky. There was nobody else there but me. I noticed that there was only one light burning, and it was way out near the highway. The others all appeared to be burned out, so the place was dark and quiet. I could relax in peace… listen to the crickets chirp… whatever… and get my head in order.
Trouble is, nothing ever goes exactly the way you plan it. About forty minutes after I parked my bike and found a nice place to lie down in the grass and watch the stars, an old pickup truck pulls into the rest stop. This thing must have been made by Thomas Edison… or was it Gerald Ford? Well, anyway, whoever made the first car… You know what I mean. The engine was clanking and grinding like it was on its last legs, and if that wasn't bad enough, these two guys get out and start arguing real loud. I tried to cover my ears, but it was annoying, and I could still hear them yelling insults at each other. I wasn't paying too much attention to what the insults were about until I heard one of them say, "If that cheap whore at the restaurant hadn't got in the way and taken your bullet for you, you'd be makin' love t' maggots right now. I've still got three bullets left. And one of them has your name all over it… unless you come up with that money… tonight!"
Okay, now they had my attention. I lay there quietly, but I was listening now.
"I don't have the money. You need to give me some more time. That's all I'm asking, for a couple of days. I can pull a job. If I'm dead you're not going to get anything."
"Except satisfaction," the first man said gruffly, "I might settle for that in your case."
"Come on, man… a day! Just gimme a day! I'll pull a job… I'll go back to Roswell… knock off that restaurant we were at. They won't be expectin' it, not after that little waitress got it this morning."
"What if you get caught?"
"I won't."
"How do I know that?"
"I'll kill 'em all… I'll leave no witnesses. You happy? There's got to be enough money in that place to cover what I owe you… MORE!"
The first man nodded slowly, thinking it over. "Alright… but you take care of 'em good. I don't want no surprises."
"No surprises," the second man promised.
"Would this count as a surprise?" I asked, stepping out of the shadows behind them.
Both men spun around and stared at me. Alright! I know! I said that we shouldn't get involved in human affairs. I said that we shouldn't blow our cover. I said a lot of stuff. But fate or something just wasn't going to let me have it my way.
"Buddy, whoever you are, you just bought yourself a one-way ticket to hell," the first man said, pulling out his gun. I raised my hand at the same time as he pulled the trigger, and the bullet exploded in the air. This apparently shook them up. I guess it wasn't what they were expecting. The man with the gun fired off two more shots at me, emptying his chamber, but again the bullets exploded as soon as they left the gun barrel, just like the first one had. Panicked, the other man ran and jumped into the truck. Apparently, he no longer felt that it was necessary to wait for his 'friend.' Thanks to a little electrical interference, though, the truck refused to start.
"Who are you?" the man with the gun yelled.
I had pulled my T-shirt over my head to disguise myself. It wasn't much, but I had to do what I could do with what I had… and the pants weren't coming off! I guess I did look weird; I definitely felt weird, looking through the arm of a T-shirt with the shirt pulled down over my head, but it protected my identity, you know… It protected US. So I said…
"I'm the Avenger."
I don't know where that came from actually. It just popped out. I think I thought that I was avenging Liz… and what they had done to us, to Max and Isabel and me, and I just said I'm the Avenger.
"Avenger? What… you're like some kind of superhero or something?"
"Something, yeah."
"Come on, man!" the second guy yelled, "Let's get out of here! This guy is spookin' me! I can't start this thing. It'll start for you."
"It's not gonna start," I said confidently, "I've taken care of that."
"What did you do to it," the first man asked.
Without speaking, I raised my hand, and the truck burst into flames. The guy inside dove out the door, then the truck exploded.
"A little of that," I said, lowering my hand back.
"Who are you," the first man asked again, looking even more addled than before, "What do you want with us? We ain't done nothin' wrong."
"You used bad grammar," I said totally seriously.
It's a good thing my face was hidden, because I cringed as soon as I said it. I don't know what made me say it. I wouldn't even try to explain it for all the Tabasco in Roswell. But when he spoke, Mrs. Biederman, our old English teacher, popped into my head, wagging her finger… "Double negatives are bad grammar, young man. If you want to ever be somebody in this world you must not use bad grammar." I shook my head and put her out of my mind. There would be time for shrinks later.
"So what… you're like a teacher or something? Bad grammar is a crime now?"
"Shooting a waitress is a crime," I replied.
The man stared at me, his eyes filling with panic. He knew that I knew. I waited to see what his reaction would be. It didn't take long… He charged at me, picking up a branch from the ground to hit me with. It wasn't smart, but I guess he didn't see any other options at the moment.
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"Sheriff Valenti, Roswell Sheriff's Office… How can I help you?" Sheriff Jim Valenti listened for a few moments, his eyebrows arching slightly as he listened… "Okay, I'm on my way. We can handle it from here. Thanks for letting me know."
Valenti hung up the phone and grabbed his hat, slapping it onto his head with a simple practiced flip. "Hansen, get your hat and gun. We got a disturbance out at a rest stop on 285 a few miles outside of Roswell."
"Is it in our jurisdiction, sir?"
"It is now. The State guys usually patrol that area. They got the call, but they have no one nearby at the moment. It's close to us, so I said we'd check it. You ready?"
"Yes, sir. Can I ask what kind of disturbance, sir?"
Jim smiled. "Maybe we'd better get there and see for ourselves. I'm not sure I trust the report."
"You don't trust the state police?"
"No… yeah… I mean, not them, whoever reported it to them. We'll probably get there and find out it was all a prank… just some kids havin' a good time making some crank calls. Wouldn't be the first time."
Hansen nodded and closed the door behind them.
Jim pulled into the rest stop and looked around. The first thing he noticed was the burning truck, then he noticed that a bank of lights on one of the light poles was sparking incessantly, and he saw the two men… dangling from the arm of the light, thirty feet up, by the backs of their pants. He pointed, and Hansen looked up.
"I guess there was a disturbance after all, huh, Hansen?"
Hansen nodded, his mouth open in disbelief. Jim stopped the car near the pole, and he and Hansen got out.
"See if you can still get a license number off of that truck, Hansen. ARE YOU TWO OKAY UP THERE?"
"GET US DOWN!" both men yelled at the same time, struggling momentarily then becoming still again, fearful that their belts and pants would not hold if they continued to struggle.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Jim yelled back, "How in thunder did you get up there in the first place? Can you climb back down the same way you got up there?"
"We didn't climb up," the first man yelled down, "We were lifted up… by some kind of power or force field or somethin'… some guy who called himself 'The Avenger.'"
"Here's the license number, Sheriff."
"Good work, Hansen. Ever hear of anyone calling themselves 'The Avenger'?"
Hansen nodded. "There was an old comic book character by that name, I think. Then there was a movie that starred Sean Connery and Uma Thurmond, came out around 1998. Then there was the Toxic Avenger, the Veggie Avenger, the…"
"I get the idea. All right… How are we going to get these guys down from up there?"
The previously 'burned out' lights sparked brightly again several times then eerily returned to darkness, eliciting howls from the two men. "Hurry up!" one of the men yelled down, "We're gonna get electrocuted up here!"
"Sheriff, look!" Hansen bent down and untied a swatch of cloth from around the bottom of the light pole. "There's something written on it."
"Let me see. Hold it up in front of the car lights so I can read it."
"Yes, sir."
These two planned to rob the CrashDown tonight and kill anyone there. The gun is in the garbage can beside the men's room. Check it for fingerprints. Check their records, too. It's the gun from the CrashDown today.
Jim looked up at the two men dangling thirty feet above. Suddenly, he did not feel any hurry to get them down.
"I'm going to make a call from my squad car. You guys… just hang in there… up there… whatever… and keep doing whatever it is you're doing."
"Sheriff, get us down… NOW! Or I'll sue you and your whole department!" the first man yelled down belligerently.
"He's kidding," the other man yelled, "Please get us down!"
"Hansen, check the garbage can by the men's room. If you find a gun, be careful not to destroy any fingerprints."
"Yes, sir."
Jim walked over to his car and picked up the mike. Several minutes later, he walked back over to the light pole. Hansen was standing there with the gun, a 'Saturday Night Special,' wrapped carefully in a handkerchief. He showed it to Jim, and Jim nodded then looked up at the two men hanging from the lights…
"There's a fire truck on the way."
"How long till it gets here," the first man asked impatiently.
"Twenty minutes… maybe. Just hang in there. Oh, and the state police are on their way, too. They think they may know you two. Seems you have some pretty long records… including murder. I'd say they're going to be very happy to get you down."
Both men groaned. There really wasn't much else they could do now, in light of their situation.
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"He glowed! He glowed like he was atomic or somethin'," the accomplice said breathlessly, as the state patrol officer handcuffed him and shoved him into the patrol car. "And he had this power force field or something. He blew up our truck. And… and he stops bullets… in the air! He stopped Ralph's bullets! He blew 'em up as they came out of the gun!"
"Shut up!" the first man said, as the officer stuffed him into the car beside his accomplice. "Don't listen to him. I never saw that gun before. This was all a setup."
"Sure," the patrolman said, pushing him into the car and closing the door before turning to Jim…
"What did you see, Sheriff? Was there another man out here? Could someone else have done this?"
Jim shook his head and blew out a long breath of air. "I didn't see anyone else. When we got here, whoever put them up there was long gone. But someone had to do it. We owe a big thanks to an individual or individuals unknown somewhere out there it would seem."
"You don't believe that plutonium man super hero stuff do you, Sheriff?"
Jim laughed. "Not a chance. They're trying to set up a case for an insanity plea or something… at their trials."
The state police officer nodded. "That's what I figured, too. Good work, Sheriff. I'll see to it you get some kind of commendation for their arrests."
"Having them off the street is thanks enough," Jim replied with a grateful grin, "Take real good care of 'em."
"You know we'll do that."
As the highway patrol car pulled away with the two men in it, Hansen looked at Jim curiously. "You didn't tell him about the note."
Jim pulled the swatch of cloth out of his pocket and held it up to his nose, sniffing it curiously. "No, I didn't."
"That wasn't an oversight… was it, sir?"
Jim shook his head. "This was a piece of somebody's T-shirt once. I would very much like to know whose. We're gonna make a date with the lab guys to have a closer look at it… chemically if need be."
"What do you think you'll find, sir?"
Jim's eyebrows arched, and he stopped and turned to face Hansen. "Maybe… The Avenger."
End of Episode 100
tbc…