I posted Chapter 2 before watching 'This Year's Model' again to confirm the name and appearance of the magazine owner. His hair is dark brown, not red, and his name is General Buck Conroy. I made both corrections the next day, but I'm embarrassed about it anyway. (Can you tell I'm the ultimate Daria nerd?)
Chapter Three: Reconnaissance
"How do I look?" Melody asked.
Jane took a break from staring at the wall and turned around. Daria's alter ego was anxious to get moving, but not enough to run out the front door in a nightshirt. She had changed into a dark jacket over a white halter tee with a pair of hip-hugging jeans that had seen action just once before. The outfit wasn't scandalous, but it offered a clear outline of her friend's body. Why would Daria hide legs like that? Moreover, why couldn't Jane stop looking at them?
"Well?" Melody's eyes narrowed.
Jane flinched and stepped back, in no mood for another involuntary chiropractic session. "Great! Um, really good. You'll knock 'em dead. Well, not literally. I mean, I hope you don't. Even though it's, like, your job and stuff, but…"
She was babbling. Fortunately Melody wasn't listening; she was dumping out Daria's backpack and filling it with some emergency supplies like matches and a flashlight. What a mess this room was. "Didn't they send me anything useful along with you? Like a piece?" she asked sharply.
"Er, a, um, a piece of what?" Jane stammered, her mind still elsewhere.
"A gun, you idiot! You pull the trigger and it kills things! Like the reds we're going to be dealing with tonight. Jesus, didn't HQ vet you at all?!"
Jane crossed her arms and glared. "They didn't hire me to commit mass murder. I make art, not war."
Melody rolled her eyes and slung the pack onto her shoulder. "Well, they hired me to get the job done. That's why I'm the operative in charge and you're the double agent assisting me. And you'd better have what it takes out there. At least tell me they gave you firearms training." She grabbed a rubber band and thrust her hair into a ponytail.
"No guns."
"What, your motherland can't afford those anymore?"
Jane swallowed hard, trying to think of how to put this. Melody was as ruthless as Daria described her, and what she said next could determine whether Lawndale became a yuppie burial ground. This place was a real drag sometimes, but it was still home.
"I mean no guns on this mission, Powers. HQ wants to keep it as clean as possible. No killing either. If necessary, we incapacitate. But no mixing and matching." Jane gave herself a pat on the back for remembering some of the vocabulary from Daria's stories. If only she knew how personal those stories must have been.
Melody massaged her forehead with both hands. "Those bastards. How do they expect us to put down a revolution if—"
"Just listen," Jane said. "We're not talking 1917 Russia here. It's not an armed revolt. It's a small group of…insurgents I used to be a part of. Their job is to observe, report and try to lead some red-blooded American kids astray."
"So now they're sending me to put out fires."
"You can't choose your assignments, Powers. Just between you and me, I hear that a few milquetoasts at the agency disapprove of your methods. They think you can't buy bread at the corner store without leaving bodies. Pull off this little stealth mission and you'll prove 'em wrong."
Melody seethed for a moment, staring out Daria's barred windows into the sunset. So even the agency was against her. It was hard enough leading a solitary life, closed off from all the poor dumb fellow Americans she fought to protect. Now her superiors were taking her for granted as well.
She wanted nothing more than to take it all out on the red-shirted deserter slouching next to her. But that would only give them more ammunition to use against her. Besides, the Lane girl was kind of cute. Not that Melody really noticed or anything.
Finally she seemed to pull herself together. "All right, orders are orders. But if they're packing heat, you're my shield. Let's move."
Jane breathed a sigh of relief. As Melody eased open the bedroom door and scouted the hall, she grabbed her dragon pendant from the floor. Who knew, she might get a chance to use it before too much damage was done.
"We could sneak out one of these windows if they weren't barred," the spy muttered. "Paranoid commies."
"I think we can get past your—um, Daria's parents. Just try to act…you know, like her."
Melody blinked and stared into space for a moment. "How does she act again?"
Jane wondered how far removed the two personalities were. Melody seemed to remember some specific events from Daria's life, but the broad strokes were another story.
"Just don't say much. If you have to say something, try to sound bored and sarcastic. But I'll do the talking."
Jane strolled down the stairs, trying a bit too hard to look casual, while Melody crept warily behind her. Jake was nodding off in front of the TV while Helen jabbered away on her cell phone.
"Hi and bye, Mrs. Morgendorffer. Going to the dance. Be back later. See ya!" Jane breezed through the kitchen with a wave.
"Okay, have fun g—Daria? You're wearing that outfit to a school dance?" Helen shook her head and sighed.
"National security, ma'am…er, 'Mom.' You wouldn't understand." Melody said coolly. Somewhere along the way she had also donned sunglasses.
Jane quickly pulled her out the front door and shut it behind them with a sigh of relief. So far, so good.
"All right. Which way to the school?" Melody tapped her sneakers on the sidewalk impatiently.
"First we go by my place. I have an…associate who can transport us there, no questions asked. Assuming he's woken up by now."
"How convenient," Melody muttered suspiciously. But she turned and followed her down the shadowy street.
Ω
Things would not be so convenient for Charles Ruttheimer the Third, dateless lothario of Lawndale High. He had spent so much time spiffing up his gaudy vintage Chrysler that he was late for the dance himself. But with a few more hours to spare and Barry White looping on the CD player, he thought nothing of trying to pick up two familiar girls on the way.
He rolled up alongside them and honked the horn. "Oh, laaadiiiies!"
They turned away quickly and kept walking. He knew they were just playing hard to get, though. Feisty!
"If it isn't the lovely, leggy Miss Lane and the mysterious Miss Morgendorffer!" he called out. "And dressed to kill, at that. Rowr-r-r-r!"
"This is your 'associate?'" Upchuck thought he heard Daria growl.
"That's Chuck Ruttheimer, and he's more of a dis-associate. Just keep walking."
True to his unsavory nature, Upchuck wasn't giving up. "Perchance you prime specimens of femininity are headed to tonight's scintillating salsa. Care for a lift?"
"Only if we can pick you up here on our way back," said Jane. "But really, Upchuck, this isn't a good time."
"Time is of the essence, Lane," Daria said. Her voice seemed much harder and more…sultry than usual. There could be only one reason why a delicate flower like Daria would suddenly be talking like that: she wanted him. Grrrr, thought the hapless boy.
Upchuck put his finned chariot in park and sidled up to them. "I'm afraid I must insist. I cannot allow you ladies to make such a journey alone at night."
"Shut the hell up and we've got a deal," snapped this strange, infinitely hotter version of Daria who had suddenly dropped into his life. Upchuck nodded obsequiously and hurried back to the driver's seat as they jumped in the back. Well, Daria jumped and Jane merely slumped, groaning something to herself as she slammed the door. But one willing female was better than none—which was usually how his nights turned out. Perhaps lady luck, the most fickle of all women, was finally on his side!
Upchuck wished the drive to school was much longer, but in only a few minutes they pulled up to the parking lot. Daria peered through the windows as if she were studying the whole building—or, rather, scouting it. Another unusual tendency for the brilliant little waif.
"Thanks," Jane muttered grudgingly as she reached for the door handle.
The locks clicked. Upchuck slowly turned around, waving his pointer finger at them. "Not so faaaast…we still have to discuss the method of payment for my services."
"Upchuck, I swear, if you don't—"
"Quiet, Lane. What payment, Ruttheimer?" Daria snapped. "And what kind of Eastern European commie name is that, anyway?"
"I ask merely a touch of your lips upon mine…to cement our loving union forever. Have we a deal?"
"Whatever," To Upchuck's astonishment and Jane's disgust, Daria lunged between the front seats and kissed him full on the mouth. Time seemed to stop. Her lips were so soft, yet they caressed his so roughly…impatiently. Mrrrrowr. He forgot to close his eyes the whole time. He was sure he had suddenly died and ascended to heaven.
Unfortunately, he was just visiting. Daria broke the kiss and leaned back with a disappointed pout. "Hmph. I was wrong. You don't kiss well enough to be a foreigner."
She promptly slammed his forehead into the steering wheel, hard enough to honk the horn. Upchuck saw stars, and barely had time to ponder what the hell was happening before her arms tightened around his neck and everything went black.