Chapter 29: The Rescuers
"I think you should switch to the dress now."
"I am not putting on that dress. Not until it becomes absolutely necessary."
"But it's just a dress."
"It is pink, and frilly, and I hate it."
"Well, how else are you expecting to enter Gogol?"
"That's what the other box is for."
"The other box? No competent guard will fall for that!"
"That's what you don't seem to understand. I know these men. They used to work for T.H.E.M., every one of them. They are all idiots, as the Masked Marvel has proved again and again. This plan will work."
"The henchmen of Japan are much more competent."
"I'm sure they are."
It was early morning at Gogol, and the guards standing at every door and window were tense. For the past four hours they had stood and watched as a group of nearly a hundred angry Rescue Ranger fans had marched up and down before them, waving picket signs with slogans using clever puns based on the words "Rescue" and "Ranger". The police had refused to arrest them until a decent hour, so Francine had taken out her frustrations on the guards, making frequent circuits of the mansion accompanied by Bud and his manila folder. Once the police and their paddy wagon arrived, however, she returned to the control room, allowing the guards to stop holding in their guts. There was the mysterious matter of the unmarked ambulance driven by Lou, which arrived at the mansion at a perfectly respectable rate of speed, parked in the garage, and was then covered with a large tarp. Lou and his passenger, a commanding woman with platinum blonde hair, disappeared into Gogol, after which any questions asked about the matter were answered with a blank look and the words, "Ambulance? There was no ambulance." On top of this, the mechanical dog was patrolling the grounds, and seemed to have trouble distinguishing between the protesters and the guards when deciding whom to apply its tinny bark to. The guards had been on duty for six more hours than they were used to, and hadn't eaten for those six hours. Now they were stuck watching the lone paddy wagon come and go-there were a lot of Rescue Ranger fans to arrest.
The two guards posted at the servant's entrance were sitting on the ground playing marbles when their sunlight was suddenly cut off. Looking up, they saw a teenage girl wearing penny loafers, cut-off blue jeans, a white tee-shirt, and a white baseball hat. The girl's incredibly red hair spilled out in a ponytail from the back of the hat. Two pink cardboard boxes were stacked at her feet. A tiny radio was clipped to her hip, and two wires led up to buds in her ears, from which the song "I Think We're Alone Now" could be heard.
The two guards quickly stood up and grabbed their rifles, which had been so far away that the girl could have easily grabbed them before they did. "Halt! Who goes there?"
The girl grinned. "Hi! Like, the police sent me, or some such junk."
One of the guards thought for a bit, a process that looked rather painful. "Shouldn't you have a pass or something?"
"Well, yeah, duh, but like, I lost it. I've got donuts."
"Did she say donuts?" the second guard asked, drooling.
"Yeah, they're donuts. The cops sent them to the Empress to apologize for taking so long."
"Well, I don't know..." said the first guard. "We had strict orders not to let anybody in or out."
"I suppose you could ask her..." the girl suggested, looking cute and holding out a cell phone the size of her head.
"BRING ME MY DONUTS-NOW!" screamed the voice of Francine Norton from the cell phone, followed by a loud dial tone.
Sitting at a cafeteria table in Los Angeles, Tress McNell looked over at Jay Cummins as she hung up the phone. "I'm going to get in so much trouble for that."
The first guard sighed. "Alright, you can enter. I'll need to escort you to the main entrance, so you can be fingerprinted and photographed for the log."
"Uh, you don't really have to do all that for a donut delivery, do you?"
"Regulations, miss. Backup regulations for when we have to break the strict orders."
"But the cinnamon rolls will get cold!" Seeing that this got no response, the girl looked around dramatically to be sure they weren't being observed, then continued in a low voice. "I've got band practice in less than an hour-couldn't you see it in your hearts to just let me in? I mean, there's an awful lot of donuts here, and I'm sure the Empress won't eat all of them. Maybe I can let you two split one if you let me in."
"One apiece!" said the second guard.
"Very well. The good ones are in the top box."
The greedy guards reached for the box.
"No, I think it's the bottom," sang the voice of a Japanese girl in the girl's ears.
"Oh wait, wrong box. The top one has all the plains."
"Ew!"
The bottom box was opened.
"They're beautiful!"
"Now, who wants chocolate, and who wants maple?"
"I can't believe those two just sold out their employer for donuts," said the voice of Lain in Carolyn's ear.
Carolyn had stepped into the cook's quarters and locked the door. "I told you they were idiots. Now hold on while I put this thing on." From the top box, Carolyn gingerly removed the pink frilly maid's uniform, like it was made of plutonium.
"YOU IDIOTS!"
The first guard at the servant's entrance was sitting on the ground, rubbing the jaw that had just been punched by Francine. The other guard had been less lucky, and had been knocked out.
Francine rubbed the remains of a chocolate old-fashioned off of her hand. "Come on," she said to Bud. "I know exactly where she's going."
"Hold on," Bud said, removing a piece of paper. "It doesn't matter what you know, your first step is to gather a force of ten guards, then..."
"Give me that!" Francine looked over the paper, titled "So You Couldn't Even Keep a Rescue Ranger Fan Out of Gogol." "Well, at least there are only five steps. Follow me, everybody. Everybody who's conscious, that is."
"Attention, intruder!" announced the voice of Francine blaring from speakers scattered throughout Gogol. "We have the exits covered and are now searching room to room. Surrender now, or face the wrath of Nimnul." Francine switched off the microphone in the Control Room. "Is the script really necessary?"
"Yes," said Bud.
Francine sighed, and then pointed at the display before her. "Well, I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but the guards are the only people in the hallways. The doors are all electronically locked, as are the double doors leading to the west wing of the second floor, where we both know she's heading. At least for now, nobody's in the master bedroom. Why can't we go right there and wait for her to show up?"
"Because that's Step Five, and we're still on Step Three."
Francine groaned.
Carolyn was in fact standing in a hallway, but thanks to a programmer that thought that connecting the security system to the Wired would be a good idea, Francine was only seeing what Lain wanted her to see.
Carolyn stood in front of the door to the second-floor master bedroom, looking about her nervously. So far, her disguise had served to keep the guards from paying attention to her, but she wasn't sure how long her luck would hold out. She looked out the window at the end of the hallway. Loading the paddy wagon were Officers Lee and Murphy, a couple of beat cops. Carolyn used to hang out with them during the long nights when she wasn't sure if the Masked Marvel would be coming home or not. If she failed tonight, she'd have to explain herself to them, not to mention to all of the friends she'd be dooming to spend their lives on the Moon. "How much longer?" she whispered.
"This lock is particularly complex," the voice of Lain said. "In addition, the floor of the bedroom is pressure-sensitive, so I need to have that deactivated, and video loops prepared for the two video cameras so they won't see you enter. All of this takes time."
Finally there was a click, and the automatic door opened itself.
"About time, Mike," Carolyn muttered under her breath as she walked in.
The door suddenly swung back and lightly bopped Carolyn in the nose.
"Don't call me Mike."
Carolyn rushed over to the cage containing the Rescue Rangers. "Thank goodness I found you guys! I was so worried."
"Those are the Rescue Rangers?" Lain asked, using one of the room's cameras to look at them. "They look like any other group of mindless animals."
"That's because they are bound by the laws of this universe. But I'm sure their true personalities are locked inside their brains." She kneeled down and peered into their frightened eyes, as if she could summon them forth by her gaze alone. "If only I could free their minds, find some way so we could communicate."
"I can not, I dare not, help you. There are consequences for every action, and what you ask would be the Reset a hundred times over. Besides, as interesting as it would be to see woodland creatures speak and perhaps even sing 'The Best of Everything', may I remind you that this is not required? You only need to get them to the Dimensional Switcher, regardless of their current mental state."
Carolyn sighed. "True, but where's the fun in that? Besides, as long as you control the mansion's security and use it to act as my eyes and ears, why should I worry?"
"You need to worry that our enemies will do something clever."
At that moment, all power to the mansion was cut.
"Clever? Maybe not. Inconvenient? Yeah, we just hit that."
Seeing the unpowered door swinging shut, Carolyn picked up the cage and made a run for it, but it swung shut before she could get there, the lock clicking.
"Crud! Lain, have you got a Plan B or C? Or J? Heck I don't care, just get us out of here!"
"Uh, most of my plans require Internet access. Or electricity. Yes, electricity is very good to me."
"Any unpowered plans?"
"Well, you don't happen to have a key or lockpick? Failing that, can you get the cage out the window?"
"Ahhh, window! Yes, we have a window! It's too small for the cage, and I don't think I can scramble down from the second floor anyway carrying it. We need a different plan, one that doesn't end with Rangers going splat."
"Well, if the Rangers were in their right minds, they could just ride in your pockets."
"I'll give it a try." But as soon as she tried to open the cage, "Gadget" bit her, hard.
"Ow!" she cried, closing the door. "This had better not be about that 'Chipper' business!"
"Then I'm afraid my usefulness to you has ended. You should escape, then we can come up with a better plan."
"No, I'll take my chances with my fellow fans. You should go ahead and leave, before anybody figures out your part in this."
"Good luck, Carolyn. If I think of any way to keep you from a nasty fate, I will contact you."
"Thanks. Though somehow, that doesn't feel very comforting."
Lain's voice in the earbuds was replaced with New Order singing "True Faith". Carolyn ripped the buds out of her ears.
A few minutes later the door burst open, revealing Francine with a key in her hand, surrounded by guards. "Step Five!" she proclaimed. Bud held up the piece of paper. "A-ha!" Francine obediently read. "Arrest him/her/them!"
The guards sprung forward and grabbed Carolyn, who put up no resistance.
Francine looked up from the page, to see the girl she had once baby-sat, who she sometimes saw as the daughter she would never have . "Why did it have to be you?" she asked in shock.
"Congratulations, Empress," Carolyn addressed her coldly. "You have succeeded in capturing the nefarious QQ."
Francine sighed deeply before resuming her expected role of interrogator. "If you're QQ, then that leaves your fellow conspirator ConMouse. Where's Laurel?"
"Laurel? Should I know a Laurel?"
"Don't play dumb. She was a fan of the Rescue Rangers, she had the technical know-how, and she's gone missing."
"Maybe you arrested her already."
"She hasn't shown up in the reports."
"Maybe she's using another alias."
"Perhaps. Well, boys..."
"Wait! My clothes are in the cook's quarters." She looked like being seen in public with a pink dress was a worse fate than lunar servitude.
"Get this woman her clothes. It would look bad if we appeared to arrest one of our own."
"Thank you."
Three of the guards escorted Carolyn out of the room. Francine walked over to the cage and looked inside, then sighed when she saw the animals in the same state that she had left them. "Bud?"
"Yes, your Excellency?"
"Get the car. We're driving to Hartford."
"You're going to taunt the prisoners? I have a page for that."
"I'm sure you do. Yes, we'll be doing that, but first I need you to take me to the library. I have some arrangements to make."
