Author's Note: To clarify something about the current setting and other circumstances as this chapter opens: Control Freak recently zapped Raven and Beast Boy into the world of a film noir production from around the late 30s or 40s. I haven't decided what the title of the movie is, but it's not a "real" movie you could find in a video store. However, as will become more apparent in the next chapter, the movie seems to have points in common with The Maltese Falcon (the classic version with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor), just as Control Freak's beloved "Warp Trek" series (which he was raving about in his first appearance) presumably had a lot in common with an obscure little thing which we call "Star Trek."

Raven remembers exactly who she is and where she came from, but for some reason Beast Boy's mind has become totally immersed in the role of Brad Bolton, the tough-talking private eye who was the lead of this black-and-white film. Presumably Control Freak deliberately picked a film in which the action hero had the initials B.B., and then programmed his remote to program Beast Boy into thinking he was that action hero. (I'm working on the theory that Beast Boy is extremely susceptible to hypnotism and the like, as evidenced by how easy it was for Mad Mod to keep zapping him that way in the episode "Detention.")

Of course my primary motive here is to give Beast Boy a chance to say things to and about Raven that he would be exceedingly unlikely to say if he were in his right mind. (I considered various other genres when deciding where the two would end up after Control Freak zapped them, but finally decided I was in the mood to try writing something in the voice of a hard-boiled detective of the old school, and thought it would be particularly amusing to cast BB in that uncharacteristic role.)

That's my motive. The villains presumably have different motives for leaving two Titans stranded inside an old movie for the time being. Okay, I admit Control Freak's motive is probably very, very simple: Blackfire batted her eyelashes at him and asked him to do it—so he did! After all, we already know he has a crush on Starfire, and Blackfire strongly resembles her sister, except for such tiny differences as darker hair and sociopathic behavior. Blackfire's own motives in this story are still mysterious, though. (Give it a couple of chapters and we'll be seeing her again.)

Chapter Eight: Checking in at the Office

From the case files of Brad Bolton, private eye.

I couldn't make heads or tails of this weird dame with the hood who kept calling me "Beast Boy."

She could fly through the air and carry me along as freight, but I just plain don't believe in witchcraft.

She had a pair of gams that wouldn't quit, and the way she showed them off you'd think she was a showgirl up on the stage when the chorus line is doing its big number in a musical comedy.

I swear she didn't know how to flirt, though. What kind of showgirl can't turn on the charm to soften a guy up?

Or maybe I just wasn't worth the trouble? Naw, that was silly; I'm always worth the trouble!

Had to be that she just didn't have much practice. She'd said something about growing up on an island. Maybe one of those tropical spots where people wear less clothes so they don't keel over from heatstroke? Maybe she'd attended a local girls' school run by nuns and still didn't know much about dealing with guys?

One thing I was pretty sure of: She hadn't been hired to spy on me. If my latest client's rivals—or any other enemies I'd attracted over the years—had wanted to plant someone on me, they might send a real hot tomato, but they'd make darn sure they coached her with a nice simple story that I might actually believe without thinking twice. They'd want her to call me by my right name, too. All this junk about "you're Beast Boy and we know each other well" just hurt her credibility—which meant she was probably sincere when she said it.

Sincere but crazy? Maybe.

Or she had me mixed up with some other ruggedly handsome galoot? Another serious possibility.

But deliberately lying in order to impress me? Forget about it; the lies would have made more sense!

Thinking about all this helped keep me from tossing my cookies while we were flying through the air to the Wein Building. Apparently she knew her way around town pretty well; she didn't need to ask me for directions. We touched down, soft as feathers, on the roof.

The door leading to the top of the stairwell wasn't locked—maybe somebody had been doing some maintenance. Not that it mattered much—I had a duplicate key for that lock just in case, although the owner of the building was blissfully unaware of that. Anyway, I led Raven down to the third floor where I had a two-room office.

I'd left the front door open in case anyone wanted to sit and wait while I was out. Nobody had, but there were a few letters on the floor which the postman must've shoved through the slot. I crouched to scoop them up and then remembered to hold the door open for the young lady. She strolled in and studied the area, but there wasn't anything to catch her interest for long.

The outer room had a desk for a secretary, but there was no one sitting behind it. My latest girl Friday had quit just yesterday, saying something about too much violence in my line of work. I swear, some of these modern city girls get rattled over every little thing. A country girl who'd grown up using rifle and shotgun wouldn't throw a fit over a thug storming in and pulling a handgun on me, as happened the other day. Hey, it wasn't like he'd managed to fire it at anything before I broke his wrist and loosened his teeth, so why all this guff about "excessive violence"?

I didn't bother to tell Raven about my labor retention problems. I just told her to grab a seat anywhere if she was tired (there were an old couch and a couple of wooden chairs in the outer office, besides the swivel chair behind the secretary's desk), and then I unlocked the door to my private office.

Instead of trying the couch, she just followed me in and started talking about how there was no time to waste in getting out of "here" and finding out what Control Freak and Blackfire were up. I'd never heard of those guys and didn't much care what they were doing, but I didn't bother saying so right away.

There was still an embarrassing vacancy in my shoulder holster, so I used another key to open a cabinet and took out a Colt .45 to replace the gat gone astray. While this Raven dame kept chattering about the whole world around us being an illusion, I cracked open a box of cartridges and started filling a clip. As dad always used to say: A gun without ammo is like a horse without legs.

After I was properly heeled again, I sat down behind my own desk, reached for the letter opener, and started on the mail.

Raven didn't like that. "Are you listening to me?"

"No, I went completely deaf five minutes ago." (My way of hinting it was a silly question—I was a detective and nobody else was hanging around my office at the moment, so what else would I be listening to?)

"You could at least look at me when I'm talking to you." Yep, she definitely sounded miffed.

I glanced up at her for about two seconds—just in case fleeting eye contact would make her feel better—before returning my gaze to the phone bill I'd just opened. "Lady, if you expect me to just stare at you constantly to make it clear I'm hanging on your every word, you ought to get a job on stage and send me a ticket to the performance. This is the real world and I've got a business to run. Nobody's paying me to worry about your troubles, so count yourself lucky I'm even listening with half an ear while I do a few chores."

She looked very annoyed—okay, so I was glancing at her pretty face again in spite of my big talk about having better things to do—but she actually took several seconds to think things over before she replied this time. Then: "Okay, so you don't remember we're friends. So you're worried about making ends meet. So you charge for your time when strangers want you to do stuff for them. I can work with that. What if—"

She was interrupted by the sound of someone in the hall, just starting to rattle the knob on the outer door. It wasn't locked, but sometimes it sticks a bit.

I think Raven turned into a black shadow—leaving her hooded cloak behind—and slipped right through the wall between the two rooms to get out there before the person in the hall got the door open. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense, but that was what it looked like. By the time I had slid out from behind my desk and made it into the front room to greet the newcomer, Raven was already seated behind the secretary's desk and was looking very serious and businesslike.

The door opened to reveal a gent with the sort of figure that would make Santa Claus look undernourished.

Author's Note: I've already written part of the next chapter, but decided this was a convenient breaking point. After the next chapter, we'll probably switch back to the "real world" for a bit to see what's happening to the other Titans now that Raven and Beast Boy have mysteriously vanished from beyond their ken.