Six days after the SFIT showcase disaster, Lips paid a social call to Big Boy at the Club Ritz, to discuss the outcome of any new recruits for the Apparatus. In the conference room, he greeted his friend with a warm embrace and sat down on the left side of the table while Big Boy sat at the front as always, wearing a gaudy money-green suit, shirt and tie that competed with Lips' ever-frequently used black suit as the color language of evil. With a pair of tulip cups filled with champagne to start the day, Lips was the one to speak first.
"Have you thought of any more members for the second phase of this benefactor's plan for…the future?"
"The future is me, Lips. I always thought of myself as that. As for the new recruits…"
He trailed off in his speech, trying to think of whatever names he could find throughout his encyclopedic knowledge of the San Fransokyo mafia. Then he remembered some names who had certain connections with Lips through independent work.
"Why not we bring in Little Face, Shoulders and them three other torpedoes you've always been mentioning about?"
"You mean Stooge Viller, Roddy Wilson and the Brow?"
Big Boy nodded. "Extra help means extra protection."
"A lot of other crooks would love to join your league."
Caprice surveyed Manlis, seemingly unaffectionate with the answer as he cracked a walnut with his strong hands from a glass bowl that sat in front of him.
"Which ones? I haven't been keeping up with my e-mails."
"Well there's Mr. Sparkles."
"The guy from The Super Sparkle Challenge Hour?"
"And looks like a child with gold hair and wears a rainbow suit?" chuckled Lips. "That's the guy. Says he's secretly bent on world conquest 'cause everyone thinks his show's a total waste of time."
"Another semi-reality show gone bad," Big Boy muttered. "I also heard he's a super creepy bastard."
"What about the Bonsai Bombers? I hear they're good at tactics and strategy."
"And sabotage," added Big Boy. "Those three are first class pyromaniacs."
"Any chances of them being the cause of the big blow?"
"No reason that I can see."
He kept silent for three minutes until another suggestion came into his mind:
"Fujitas."
"What?" Lips' mind was wandering out the window to observe the weather outside. A few traces of clouds were all that remained of that fateful day.
"Fujitas," Big Boy repeated. "Three of Texie's friends from the red light district. Geishas on roller skates who like to chew on razor blades. They move like koi fish and are as good as samurais, but I'm not sure of wanting them on my side. They work for Yama, and knowin' him, he'd never give me anything."
"Didn't he get arrested a while back for some bot fight?"
"I think so," Big Boy tried to remember. "At least Tracy finally put him in the slammer instead of me for once in his spoiled life."
"Well, who else can we add? Yama's other guys are in the clink, too. It's not like they'd be willing to work for you just because you want to run the city dry."
"See, that's the problem. There's a whole lotta people who are just dyin' to work for me. This room ain't big enough, so we have to find a bigger room to hold our meetings in."
"How many do you want?"
"Thirty. If we get a bigger count, we're gonna have to use the old iron works building on Pier 70."
"That place went out of business thirty years ago. Why there?"
Big Boy pulled out a dark photograph from his right vest pocket and described the details as he handed it to Lips.
"The residence of our benefactor. Wears a mask, black suit, coat and army boots…calls himself 'Lord Deathstrike."
Lips recoiled at the frightening sight of the white mask with four red stripes on the cheeks and eyebrows that connected into a circular square where the nose should be.
"Big Boy," Lips stuttered as he studied the photograph, "I have been waiting long enough to know that…what is it that he wants?"
Big Boy swallowed his throat thoughtfully. "Revenge, probably. I don't really know what it is other than he wants it to be surprise-and it ain't even my birthday. What I want is nothing more than to turn this oyster into a world where everyone is completely different physically and mentally, in grotesque terms."
"Like us crooks?"
"You know what they say, Lips: 'If you are different from the rest of the flock, they bite you.' –Vincent O' Sullivan. And that bite is more than just a bite, its mistreatin' people. When I was in prison, I had that mistreatment, and felt among the other guys in the club like Flattop, Oodles and Pruneface that they all became criminals because they were mistreated for being too ugly, too smart and too fat."
Lips, being a slight heavy-set himself, was nearly insulted. But before he could even shout an expletive at Caprice, Big Boy asked him. "Other than that, how are things doin' here?"
"Pretty fine. Except for Breathless, she messed up the song last week."
"You mean Over the Rainbow? I heard it on the radio and it sounded awful."
"Yeah, she stopped right in the middle of the song. The crowd was lookin' all wierded out 'cause was singing the wrong words."
"You know what went wrong?"
"She didn't feel like speaking to me, so I told Shaky about it and he says that she gets it from his side of the family even though he's her step-father."
Big Boy tried not to laugh. This was definitely against Shaky's point of view on his relationship with the Mahoney family.
Four weeks later from that day on was Sora's annual visit to Hiro's place. He had already made a phone call for Donald and Goofy to pick him up, via Gummi Ship and after a quick goodbye to his mother, Kairi and Riku, he was on his way again, unaware that this visit would soon become a more eventful one. When they approached the Bay of San Fransokyo, Sora could make out two figures from Pier 70 with his senses telling him that Hiro was not too far away.
"Over there seems like a nice spot," he instructed to Donald.
Without further questioning, Donald glided the Gummi Ship to the pier, hovered for three seconds and landed right in front of the Union Iron Works Machine Shop, now vacant and red-flagged after years of long service. Goofy was the first to see Baymax, standing in front of the door with something that looked like a transparent compact made entirely of glass in his hands. He was in fact, very puzzled as to what he could be doing at such a place.
Hiro was also there, about fifty feet away from the robot he had been chasing for twenty nine minutes (or even an hour at least). There was nothing much to see in this desolate area other than Baymax standing in front of the door to the building, a couple of greenery, a few plants, some small wired fences and seven cars parked on the right hand side of the entrance: A light blue Cadillac Escalade ESV, a black 2022 GMC Yukon XL, a red Toyota Corolla, a silver 2018 Audi R8, a green VW New Bug, a pink 1935 Auburn Speedster and a coffee colored Dodge Durango.
When Hiro came over to Baymax he was flabbergasted to see Sora, Donald and Goofy after a four week absence.
"What are you doing here?" he asked them.
"My weekly visit," Sora replied. "What are you doing here, Hiro?"
"I was following Baymax here with my core microbot."
Baymax turned to his new master.
"I have found where this tiny robot wishes to go."
"I told you, it's broken, dumba-"
Before he could insult his brother's last work, Hiro grabbed the petri dish and carefully observed the movements of the microbot to see that Baymax had not proved him wrong. When he moved the dish eight degrees to the right, the microbot moved back into the northward position and when he rotated the dish back to the previous position, Hiro could only assume that the bot was trying to lead him inside the facility.
He darted his eyes upward at Baymax, making sure that his instincts were right and continued his way to the door, only to discover in his right hand was a lock held by a chain coiled around the door handles.
"Locked."
Sora summoned his Keyblade, ready to break the chain.
"Can I use my Keyblade?"
"You see those cars over there?"
Hiro pointed Sora in the direction of the cars with his right index finger.
"So?"
"So, that means that somebody or some people are inside this place," Hiro fretted. "If we use your Keyblade, the sound a chain breaking will alert the people inside that we're here. We have to be sneaky."
Baymax looked up.
"There is a window."
The party of five looked up to see two openings on the right wing of the building, one in the center bottom, the other above it.
"And the only way to get up there is if we climb," Goofy stated. "But how?"
"See the crate over there?" Donald pointed to his dim-witted accomplice to the grey container. "We can use that."
It was easy for Sora to make his way up into the building with a strong jump, pulling Goofy and Donald inside as they jumped as well, but not for Hiro. His size and lack of expertise in aerobatics did not put forth a strong leap into his legs, so he used Baymax as a ladder. His shoes stomped over the robot's squishy head as Baymax dictated a symptom for climbing.
"Please exercise caution. A fall from this height could be fatal or lead to bodily harm."
Hiro grabbed hold of Sora's right hand with his left, pulling him in. He looked left and right, taking the surroundings.
It was dark on the eastern and western wings of the building, with only the light of the sun coming in through the sky lights in the center of the interior. The catwalk, which spawned throughout the majority of the machine shop, was rusted and slightly crooked in despair. Chains and titanium cables held the catwalk together, having lasted a century and a half of preventing the platforms from falling down. As Sora helped Hiro to his feet, the younger male went over to the stairs leading down to the ground floor, where he could hear a gruff voice in the distance.
"I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here today. To give a warm welcome to our benefactor, Lord Deathstrike."
The sounds of hands clapping pealed throughout the shop. Hiro gripped his hands on the iron railing of the catwalk, leaning his ears closer as he removed the microbot from his right hoodie pocket. The core was still trying to break free, leading Hiro into the direction of the east wing.
Sora, on the other hand, had gone back for Baymax. Just as he had successfully pulled the robot's upper body inside, his inflated waist had been caught in-between the window frames. With his head now resembling the anther of a daisy, all Baymax could say was a quick and silly "Oh no."
Hiro shushed the android, waving his hands wildly, but Baymax lifted up his left index finger and replied, "Excuse me while I let out some air."
Sure enough, Baymax was beginning to shrink, followed by a loud squelching of helium being compressed out of his body. Hiro remained clam, frozen in his position while Sora and his two friends tried not to laugh at Baymax's pitiful attempt at flatulence humor. After eleven seconds, Hiro asked impatiently,
"Are you done?"
With a final squeak, Baymax dropped the finger and replied, "Yes."
As Hiro dragged the rest of Baymax's thinned body onto the catwalk, Sora could hear the voices from downstairs as well.
"Hush," said a female voice. "I thought heard a balloon deflating."
"Probably just the AC, Crewy," replied a nasal sounding voice.
"Or the wind," came a mush-mouthed voice.
Baymax lifted his left index finger again.
"It will take me a moment to re-inflate."
Hiro, not wanting a repeat of attracting the occupants' attention, gestured his hands to lower the volume of Baymax's air pressure as he whispered, "Fine just keep it down."
Baymax complied, and he sucked in the air from a vacuum in his internal system at a quiet volume, used in the event of getting around tight places in a hospital. Sora followed Hiro down the stairs with Donald and Goofy on tiptoe, as the gruff voice grew louder and louder with every step they made.
"We've got a problem with organization, we're all split up…and that's bad business. While we're divided, the cops can keep us under control, but…use your imaginations. We take down this big company, see? Each of us here at the table, are enlisted to perform the crime of the century, which makes Lord Deathstrike the boss, and me the consigliere."
"Why him?" asked another voice.
"Because he and I have a vision, and that the future is in our hands."
When Hiro reached the other side, he looked from afar to see an object or two silhouetted by a transparent curtain of tarp. It moved as though it were alive, or rather, a person leaving his perch. Uncertain if the tenants of this abandoned complex were trained in self-defense, Sora readied his Keyblade as did Donald and Goofy with the mage staff and shield and Hiro hid behind the young man, should the occupants attack him. They walked slowly to the tarp on quiet feet, with no sounds other than the voices that were getting much louder than before. It seemed to Hiro that the source of the voices were originating from the sheet.
Sora looked left and right, being certain to make sure that no one was watching them. When they reached the block of tarp, Hiro leaned in, narrowed his eyes, and carefully observed through the aquamarine-colored fabric that looked blurry, but clear. Inside the tarp was a small factory of some sort, with two crane arms manufacturing something from a large canister behind them. The arms moved to the angle of a conveyor belt, placing the object down as they went back for more. Hiro followed the belt where it led outside the curtain, dropping the objects into oil drum and when he got closer, Hiro's eyes were almost beginning to deceive him.
He buried his hands into the container, carrying with them a pile of twenty familiar objects…
"Hiro?" Sora asked suspiciously. "Are those…?"
"My microbots?"
I guess they were fireproof after all. Hiro was relieved that his invention had not suffered a total loss after all, but still, he could not help but wonder the existence of these new ones after the rediscovery of the core.
Hiro looked up, letting the microbots fall delicately from his hands as he saw twelve sets of thirty six containers in separate rows. With that amount, Hiro could only estimate that whoever was making these knockoffs had a total of twenty million microbots. Almost an additional eighteen million of the ones he lost in the expo disaster along with Tadashi and Professor Callaghan.
"Someone's making more?"
Hiro was becoming more frightened by the second and his eyes darted left to view a map-a map of San Fransokyo littered with technical drafts and designs. A few notes and a clipping from the Tribune were plastered all over with push pins as thin lines of red tape crossed over the map as though they were painted with blood. Over where the Financial District was supposed to be, a blueprint of some type looking like a large Ferris wheel was pinned completely over it, with a white sheet of paper printed with the logo of a red sparrow pasted directly under the blueprint.
Sora walked closer towards the map, gaining a closer look at the blueprint, which read "portal device". Then his head turned to another part of the quarantined section where the voices appeared to coming from. He walked silently over to investigate, Hiro followed after him and Donald and Goofy resumed their crusade on tiptoe. A small part of the tarp was open in the middle, Hiro peeked inside and edged gingerly closer to see a large white plastic table with over twenty nine seats occupied by none other than Big Boy Caprice and a few memorable faces wearing colorful, wide-lapelled clothes.
Several faces at the table he recognized (almost all of the ones that did not have their backs turned on him) were a lot of odd ducks, starting with the dark eyed man with dyed auburn hair and natural black eyebrows who wore a mustard-colored suitcoat and fedora with a matching necktie, a black and white striped dress shirt with yellow suspenders that drew a red stripe down the middle and was holding a cigarette in his wide mouth: Stooge Viller.
Stooge Viller left his wife and daughter Binnie ten years ago in search of gold with his sister Maxine. He served as an early member of the Apparatus to frame several law enforcers and bank accountants for producing counterfeit money. A confident pickpocket that he was, Stooge was soon found out by the future Mrs. Dick Tracy when she accidentally discovered evidence that would testify against Viller when her then-boyfriend had fallen victim to the counterfeit frame-ups. It was also during his time out east that he was the man responsible for the murder of Junior Tracy's biological father Hank Steele after extorting him out of half of his fortune in a mine shaft.
Frank Foley, codenamed "Shoulders" was known for his broad shoulders with wavy blond hair and a misshaped left ear. He wore a dark turquoise suit and fedora with an ochre colored shirt lined in black pinstripes and a zebra striped necktie with circular designs. On the outside, he appeared to be a dim witted brute, but on the inside he was a suave manipulator who took advantage of almost every female that crossed his path. He was a "fixer" and looked as dangerous as green rainbowed meat; and right now he was looking forward to breaking someone else's neck. His leading role in the attempted hijacking of the airline flight to Washington had earned Dick Tracy his heavy bashing from Wendy Wichel, but his most notable crime came in form of a girl named Themesong, a street singer who was daughter of his henchman Roach. Shoulders planned to have the girl distract a crowd of people by serenading them in a street corner, while Roach picked whatever he could find out of their unsuspecting pockets. Again, he was foiled by Dick Tracy and spent a grand $5,000 on bailing his right hand man out of prison and his little girl out of juvenile court.
The man known as Roddy Wilson sat next to the Mole on Big Boy's left hand side of the table. He was so called "Rhodent" because of his round, ratty face, with slick black hair, a pointed nose, a whiskery mustache and small eyes that decimated his vision (even though he proved to be an excellent marksman). His outfit consisted of a purple derby, with a matching suit and necktie and around his waist was a belt buckle that resembled a mousetrap. His blind parents had been unaware of his involvement in swindling store owner E. Kent Hardly out of five thousand grand until his annual visit three years ago had shocked them when he stole $400 from his father's blindfold in order to pay his associate Hillis back for demanding a larger cut of the Hardly fortune. He then spent the next month in drag to overlook the development of the Hardly case through the Daily San Fransokyo Tribune and opened up a talent agency with hired killer Halffa Millyon when the case went cold. Rhodent was also involved in a relationship with Mousey Rattner, the owner of a pet store who was said to have ears that were as round as an actual mouse, but she was more interested in small animals like mice and white rats, training and raising them to best of her advantage.
George Grissom AKA the Brow was also a Neo-Nazi known for his heavily ridged forehead. He wore a blood red suit and fedora with a dead black shirt and a tie with red, black and white tiger stripes. In addition, he lacked ears and had thin blond hair that was barely noticeable and it made him look bald from a distance. The Brow's main occupation was sabotage, monitoring ships and leaking confidential information to the black market and he started out as an enforcer for Lips, by extorting protection money from newsstands during the Boris and Zora Arson crisis. He crossed paths with Dick Tracy and the singing duo May and June Summers five years ago after the Big Boy case where he offered them a well-paying job in the shipping business and if they did not perform a satisfying result, he would break their wrists and threaten to his use his deadly invention, the "Spike Machine" to drill holes into their legs. The sisters ran errands for the Brow, but his plans were dashed when the duo betrayed him and rendering him unconscious, threw him into the Spike Machine at the warehouse where they had been held captive. Fortunately for the Brow, he recovered and got out with only a single scar to his forehead from the spikes and got away just before the Summer Sisters called the police and confiscated everything he left behind. For this, Brow kept a low profile before he was invited to join the Apparatus.
Next to Lips on his right hand side was his second in-command, Leonard Finny. He was nicknamed "Little Face" for obvious reasons, and it made his head look like the size of a prized watermelon. In addition to his primary outfit, which consisted of a black fedora with an orange coat, a red shirt, a black, white and orange striped necktie, orange trousers and black shoes; he had blond hair that was short on the sides and swept back to the front. He was considered to be a longtime ally of Big Boy and Lips who often reprimanded his underlings whenever an assignment went awry. Ironically, he would get a similar just dessert when he tried to hide from the cops in a cold storage facility and nearly lost his ears to frostbite.
The rest of the occupants sitting at the table were trading silent looks of suspicion and semi-displeasure at each other while everyone's eyes were on Big Boy as he spoke grandly to his fellow kings of crime in a turquoise pinstripe suit with a purple shirt and a black necktie.
"Let me put it this way: Humanity has fallen a long way since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. A disgrace to dignity that has befallen on more recent times. For example: I am having my breakfast at the Fairmont this morning…and what do I see? I see the most awful sight of some smart kid getting bullied by three older kids and their father for no reason other than he's…just, smart. And now I ask why? Just because some guy who's smart, fat or this case, ugly nothing to scorn about, because they're human just like us."
"Well it worked the Elephant Man, and that other guy, uh…Rocky Dennis?" Flattop asked as his repertoire of notable people with physical diseases was starting to shut down on him.
Big Boy frowned.
"That was a long time ago. People have changed since then," he resumed. "If they can't see it, they might as well be rubbed out, killed and punished for discrimination no matter the size."
"Wouldn't that have us sent up the river in retaliation for crimes against humanity?" asked the Brow in a fearful tone.
"Sometimes you just have to take a risk," Big Boy said. "Like what we're doin' right now. Before we get into the gory details, I'd just like to say that Alistair Krei is no longer under my protection. He has betrayed us."
Looks like Callaghan was right, thought Hiro as he continued to listen.
"In the meantime," Big Boy continued. "We'll get the parts we need for this portal and knock him off fair and square. Once we get rid of Krei Tech and all of its other companies…we will own this town."
"I say we kill Krei now," the deep gravelly voice of Pruneface resounded through the area.
Big Boy turned to face him.
"Excuse me?"
Lorenzo Prunesti's hideously creped face greeted him back with a sour expression.
"That's what I say."
"I say you say nothing. I say: 'You get behind me, we all profit; you challenge me, we all go down!' THERE WAS ONE NAPOLEON, ONE WASHINGTON, ONE ME!"
Hiro and Sora moved ten steps away from the tarp, hoping that they were far from Big Boy's hearing range.
"Who are those guys?" asked Sora pointing his right thumb at the curtain. "G-men?"
"Almost every hood in town," whispered Hiro. "Big Boy, Flattop, Pruneface, Johnny Ramm, Ribs Mocco, Coffyhead, Sketch Paree-"
"Hiro?"
Hiro looked around; the voice could not have come from Sora, but instead, came from Baymax, who was standing right behind Sora. The older male turned his head counterclockwise and nearly jumped as he shrieked in surprise.
"You almost gave a heart attack!"
"My hands are equipped with defibrillators," Baymax replied.
He held his hands up to his shoulders, placed them together, rubbed his palms three times and when he opened them up again, there were two glowing circles emitting a pale blue from the vinyl skin of his palms.
As he said "Clear," his hands were closing in onto Sora's chest, but Hiro pushed a stunned Sora away from him on his right and held up his hands against Baymax's defibrillators in protest.
"Stop, stop, stop! It's just an expression."
Baymax's defibrillators were three inches away from his patient before he understood and lowered hands, shutting them back to normal. Unfortunately on his part, the criminals heard his cries of distress. Texie Garcia reached into her handbag, pulling out a Mauser C96 Broomhandle with a stripper clip and a 9mm caliber.
"Good thing I bought my gun," she said quietly.
"Told you there was somebody listin'," Crewy Lou muttered to Itchy.
The larger firearms carried by the criminals were hidden under the table, Big Boy loaded the magazine of his Black Army Colt 1911 and left the tent to investigate. Breathless Mahoney, who had been attending the meeting with no other day operations to do, waited in the shadows. Pruneface wielded his Karabiner 98k with strong arms, Influence retrieved his AK-47 Type 2 from under the table, Oodles chambered his Glock 17 and Spots whipped out a Beretta 92 from his right vest pocket. All four followed Big Boy out from the enclosed section as Laffy got out his Walther P99 and whispered, "Hey, wait for me!"
Outside, Hiro, Sora, Donald, Goofy and Baymax heard the sound of footsteps accompanied by a vibration in Hiro's left hoodie pocket: the core microbot. Hiro picked it up and saw that it was quivering uncontrollably as it tried to escape from its prison made of glass. The sounds of screeching and objects forming were heard from behind as Hiro looked slowly up at Sora, then at Baymax, who looked over Hiro's left shoulder and said softly "Oh, no," in return.
Hiro turned around to see a swarm of microbots rising up to ten feet from the containers, followed by Big Boy and his posse.
"Well what do we have here?" he asked inquisitively. "A punk kid, a rock star, a duck, a dawg and a giant balloony. You know you shouldn't be here, 'cause you picked the wrong spot to start your own gang."
"I was just…leaving!" Hiro took this as a definite warning and he ran away from the mobster with Sora and his animal friends of two species. But not before he looked back and saw Baymax moving at a turtle's pace of two miles per hour. He was about twenty feet away when his feet skidded to a stop and he threw his hands down in frustration.
"Come on!"
Baymax took his time, waddling like an innocent baby penguin unaware of the dangers surrounding him (or in Baymax's case, right behind him).
"I am not fast."
"Yeah, no kidding!" Hiro chuckled nervously as he rushed over to retrieve his brother's robot. Despite Baymax being a machine that was only capable on the reliance of a computerized programming, he reminded Hiro too much of Tadashi, and he could not bear to leave him behind as well. Baymax looked down at Hiro as the young genius grabbed his right arm and dragged him to where the trio of foreigners were waiting for him.
"After them, men!" Big Boy shouted. "They're gonna squeal on us to the cops!"
Hiro, Sora, Donald, Goofy and Baymax raced for the door with Pruneface, Influence, Oodles, the Mole and Spots in hot pursuit. Hiro released Baymax from his grip as the robot went back to his normal pace of speed. The boy threw the right side of his body at the door before realizing that it was the same door that was locked.
"Kick it down!" he ordered to Baymax.
Baymax tapped his right foot at the door.
"Punch it!" Hiro pantomimed a right cross.
Baymax obeyed and his right hand curled into a fist. He threw a right jab at the door, only to succeed in pushing his body four millimeters away from his target.
Why couldn't Tadashi build a battle bot just for me?! Both Hiro and Donald groaned in exasperation. But, of course, what did he expect from a "non-threatening huggable design"?
Sora summoned the Kingdom Chain in his left hand.
"Shall I use the Keyblade?" he asked.
Before Hiro could answer, a bullet from the Mole's Kel-Tec P-3AT zipped in between them, and he along with Pruneface, Spots, Oodles and Influence were closing in on them, followed by a river wave of twenty million microbots, swirling carefully in-between the criminals to avoid throwing them off their feet. Hiro quickly moved behind Baymax as Goofy, Donald and Sora gave the duo a head-start. The microbots crashed into the wall, mimicking a vicious fluid of streamlined designs and symbiote webbing unlike the way Hiro controlled them. Pruneface, running a bit too fast for his own good, crashed his nose into the wall and directed Influence at the five intruders. Influence complied and fired fifteen bullets from his AK-47 at Sora, who used his own cat-like reflexes to deflect the bullets with his Keyblade.
Hiro continued to push Baymax down the open area of the warehouse until they came across a water pipe attached to the floor. Baymax's sturdy feet tripped on the pipe and he fell face first with Hiro leaping over him and his feet were dangling in the air, completely stuck in a walking motion. As he landed his feet, Hiro went back for the robot and was pulling him by the right arm again, using the vinyl body to shield him from the microbots and the bullets coming their way. Hiro was so afraid by this experience that he did not notice Baymax's head being rammed into by an overhead pipe connecting to the one on the floor.
At last the party of five reached a dark shady area where they came to a narrow corridor. Sora, Donald and Goofy went first while Hiro pushed the robot from behind. Baymax began to experience his first moment of claustrophobia as his body condensed into a boxy shape from all the air compressed within his internals.
Sora reached the other side of the corridor to meet the mulberry-clad figure of Mumbles, who turned his head just in time to see Baymax pelting his body the floor.
"Therheis!" he shouted as Hiro closed the door to the corridor, but just as he was about to barricade it with a lever, the microbots forced the door open, bouncing Baymax towards an underground vent on his tushie and the weight of his upper body forced his head into the entrance, his feet still moving in the air in a pendulum fashion. Hiro and Sora saw this, as well as Itchy on the catwalk, ready to shoot them like sitting ducks with a Thompson M1.
"Move it!" Hiro shouted to Baymax as he scooted himself against the robot's rubber skin.
Itchy was only able to get a good shot of Hiro's right shoe's heel before he disappeared into the vent. Then came Johnny Ramm with his round drum PPSh-41, a Christmas gift from the Arson siblings. He fired at the animal duo, but Donald shouted "Reflega!" while Goofy used his shield to throw the bullets off course into the ceiling, creating fifteen miniscule rays of light caused by the damage as Donald pushed his way into the vent and Goofy went in last.
Hiro took the lead, rolling his body into a wall and instructing Baymax and his party to keep on following him like a soldier leading his fellow men through a waterlogged trench. Baymax crawled on all fours as Sora, Donald and Goofy did the same. When Hiro reached a trellis leading to the outside of the vent, he shrieked at the sight of seven microbot colonies flowing downwards in a mixture of an oil spill and dark chocolate ice cream being dispensed out of a machine. Looking through the grate, he was even more shocked at the sight of Shoulders, armed with a Luger pistol in his right hand.
"Freeze, sucker!" was his shout as he fired a bullet into the grate, but the narrow openings of the grate only hindered the bullet from reaching its target. Shoulders was flanked by the Brow with a CZ 27, Rhodent with a gold plated Colt Anaconda and Stooge with a .50 caliber Desert Eagle.
Hiro rotated his head to the right to see another path leading west.
"Come on! This way!" he called to the others.
Brow fired his revolver, only to have his bullet strike the steel structure of the grill. He looked over his back, noticing that Baymax's overweight structure, complied with the flow of microbots were causing the tiles of the vent to rip off from the screws that held them down. His fellow men pointed their guns hastily at the floor in different directions, for the five intruders were going much too fast for them to catch up to. The microbots went right, finding a dead end and headed left to where Hiro was pulling Baymax's right hand out from the vent. Sora and his animal amigos jumped from their underground route, running after the cowardly boy and his puffy robot down an alleyway of crates, boilers and steel girders, the microbots following them at close range and Baymax looking back for full awareness of their presence.
Once the party of five had set foot on a steel plate, the wave of microbots had caught up to them, creating a violent geyser eruption that catapulted the group back to the catwalk near the window where they came from. Sora landed first on his spine with Donald and Goofy crashing into him in a faux group hug, Hiro and Baymax landed on their chests with the droid's right arm shielding Hiro from further harm, as per his protective programming. Hiro lacking Baymax's right arm up with his own, looked right, then left and released a slight gasp from his vocals at the sight of Flattop Jones with his prized Chicago typewriter. He was aiming the muzzle at Hiro's nose with a sharp breath of his pug nose.
"Don't even blink," he threatened.
"Do you always carry an old school gun with you?" Hiro asked in an insensible hint of Flattop's civilian status.
"A gangster always carries the signature Tommy gun with him."
"There are other types of guns, you know."
Flattop pressed the muzzle closer into Hiro's right nostril.
"What are you doing here and how'd you find us?"
Hiro's voice got serious-and cold.
"I was here for the microbots you're ripping off."
Flattop's lips turned into a petite smile. His eyes darted right for split second as if he had seen something, or someone, out from the ominous shadows.
"Then why don't you ask him over there?"
His arms motioned to the right end of the catwalk, where Hiro saw a figure standing alone with the eeriness of a dark spirit threatening to spill a dim entity all over the warehouse.
The figure was completely unexposed of bare skin, for he was dressed in a jet black trench coat with four buttons on his right hand side. He was also dressed in a black jumpsuit with a ten inch zip fastener down the middle, black gloves, white ankle wraps darkened with powder and black ninja boots. The only source of bright color was found within his face: A white Kabuki mask with four blood red lines going up and down on the sides and yellow eyes. As if summoning an evil spirit of Japanese mythology, the figure lifted his arms and hands to the level of his chest and dropped them back down into fists of rage to reveal a flow of microbots gripping onto the railings like an octopus' tentacles.
Seeing the figure walk slowly towards him in a homicidal way, Hiro lifted Baymax to his feet, knowing that the window where they came from was not too far away, pushing Baymax from behind as he shouted.
"Come on! The window!"
They bounded over the trio of foreigners and it was Sora's sharp eyesight that caught Flattop aiming the Tommy gun at Hiro and Baymax. Just as he was blasting away at Baymax's back like a party favor, Sora used the reflect spell on himself and threw the Keyblade like a Frisbee at the Tommy gun. The teeth collided with the muzzle, pushing it with great force. Flattop, surprised and hands losing their grip on the trigger, watched his Tommy gun fall from the left side of the catwalk, the drum breaking free upon impact.
"You're dead, you son of a bitch!" he shouted.
The anvil-headed hoodlum turned his head to the Kabuki mask and aimed his left index finger at the five intruders, three of them having already left the building by jumping over the other two and leaping to the safety of outdoors. Hiro and Baymax, however, weren't so lucky. For the second time, Baymax's inflated body was halfway through the window like an overweight Winnie the Pooh blocking a rabbit hole and Hiro's nose had rammed into his buttocks, bouncing him back from the window. There was no time for Baymax to deflate and he could only look back at the Kabuki mask slowly approaching him with more microbots on the way.
"Oh, shit!" he shrieked out loud.
Hiro was so frightened, that every nerve in his body looked like it was going to collapse at any minute and his face was knocked with fear, eyes wide, mouth open and eyebrows raised. Quickly returning to action, he pushed Baymax with his right elbow, then again with a stronger reinforcement with his right arm. Baymax not making progress in budging any further, so Hiro placed both of his hands on Baymax's bottom and shouted:
"Suck it in!"
But when the last word had been released from his voice, Baymax budged by three meters, and the balance of his position had thrown him over the window, holding on to Baymax's left foot for dear life while Baymax's upper body from the stomach down had taken the place of his behind. Hiro looked down, thinking twice about Baymax's warning of the fatal fall from such a height as Sora, Donald and Goofy shouted from the ground with open arms gesturing him to let go.
"Come on!"
"You can do it!"
"Jump!"
"I can't!" Hiro called back. "I-I'll break my neck!"
Still fearful, he called for Baymax and the robot asked his name in return, puzzled as to where he was. His head looked behind his right, then back to the catwalk as he saw a flow of microbots stampeding directly towards him. Covering his face and chest with his arms, Baymax could feel a slight poke as though he had been stabbed and the further momentum of the microbots pitched Baymax right over the edge, slanting his body towards his back and causing Hiro to release himself from droid's leg.
Screaming with his hands open, legs up and hair blowing wildly in the rush of the wind, Hiro braced himself for the end and as he continued to plunge in what would have been his premature death, he was thought to have heard a familiar voice.
"Don't worry, Hiro. Everything will be alright."
Tadashi?
Hiro's eyes looked back, praying that it would be his brother (or perhaps the angel of death taking his appearance), but instead, it was only Baymax with his arms wrapped around him. With Baymax's protection, his rubber body bounced off the rusted tiles of a shack attached to the warehouse, somersaulted in midair and finally landed smack dab on Baymax's back. The spur of the impact released the robot's arms, flipping Hiro up by four feet and landing on his behind with his back turned to Baymax before Newton's Law of Gravity could be broken.
Sora rushed over to help Hiro to his feet.
"Are you okay, Hiro?"
"Yeah, I'm alright, but I think my butt's sore" Hiro's reply was groggy as he gestured his left hand back to the window where they fell from. His behind was not as sore as he thought it was.
"I thought I saw Ta-never mind, let's get out of here!"
He grabbed Baymax's right hand, dragging him away from the dangers of the remaining criminals with their firearms and the party of five ran as fast as they could down the street in search of a nearby police station. Hiro was certain that Dick Tracy was an expert on the criminals he had seen behind the tarp, and if he was the one responsible for throwing Big Boy and his malefactors in jail during his five year career, he could do it again. But Hiro was uncertain as to whether or not the authorities would believe such a wild story like microbots and men in Kabuki masks.
Flattop watched them leave from the window, cursing to himself that he would have shot at them like a sniper had his Tommy gun not fallen from his hands. Big Boy rushed over to the catwalk with Crewy Lou, trying to calm the hot-headed hoodlum down with the assistance of the Kabuki masked man.
"Let 'em go," Big Boy placed his right hand on Flattop's left shoulder. "It's still a free country."
"But they'll just go runnin' off to the cops!" Flattop exploded.
Big Boy found no cause for alarm.
"Who knows, maybe they won't bother us anymore."
"Not unless if we move out," said the man in a distorted voice under the Kabuki mask.
"Right you are, Lord Deathstrike. Tracy and the guys in blue ain't got nothin' on me if they believe him. I don't think anyone's gonna take a kid's story pretty seriously. The same goes for his own kind of misfit pals."
He addressed the others from the catwalk in a loud voice.
"Flattop! Crewy! Everyone, back to the club! It's time to put phase two into action!"
Officer Daniel Gerson, age forty five, dark hair, brown eyes, medium build with a Brooklyn accent and a beat cop's uniform had been recently employed by the San Fransokyo Police Department eight months ago during the time of the Jerome Trohs and Mama case, to which by then he had previously worked at a dog shelter and played an integral role in identifying the breed and ownership of Trohs' dog Tip to the police. As a reward, given his profession in criminology during his college years, he was offered a job at the Bayview Police Station on 201 Williams Avenue. Gerson accepted, but soon realized that police work wasn't as exciting as he had seen on cop shows and Nick Carter dime novels once he had received the position of a desk sergeant and although he seemed like a kind man who was very supportive of Dick Tracy and his Crimestoppers, he was too lax to make a really top-notch policeman. His job was made more difficult under the watchful eye of Chief Brandon, whom he owed for a promotion on the day of his retirement. With only a few months to spare, he had saved enough money to support his relatives, including a will signed by his late grandmother.
It was 4:35 PM when Hiro, Sora, Baymax, Goofy and Donald rushed into the building like madmen, the youngest of the pack panting breathlessly as he rang the bell on Gerson's desk three times with his right hand.
"Sir, excuse me, hello? I'm here to see Detective Tracy about a crime I've just witnessed."
"Tracy's not here, well not in this room at least," Gerson replied, looking dissatisfied as he noticed the young lad. "But if you've come to report a crime in progress, you've come to the right place."
"Thanks for the obvious tip," said Sora, crossing his arms. "Can we just cut to the chase?"
Gerson obliged. "Can you tell me about what was stolen first?"
Hiro began.
"Well, it all started after my last bot-fight. Tadashi wanted me to attend the Institute of Technology, so I made these miniature flying robots called microbots…"
Hiro chose his words about the events leading up to his discovery and described the clothes and facial features of Big Boy, his gang of gruesome lowlifes and the man in the Kabuki mask with care while Gerson documented his words on the Krei Tech monitor.
After ten to twenty minutes, Gerson issued the final draft of the report.
"Okay, let me get this straight. Big Boy Caprice and a man in a Kabuki mask attacked you with an army of 'miniature flying robots'?"
"Microbots," corrected Hiro, as he held the petri dish frantically in his hands.
"Microbots," Gerson repeated, typing in the word with careful fingers.
"Yes!" Hiro tried to make a point by pointing his right index finger at his temple. He had figured out that the headband used for the microbots had to be located somewhere inside the Kabuki man's body.
"He was controlling them telepathically with a neurocranial transmitter!"
Gerson just stared at Hiro with tired eyes, his left eyebrow was raised in a questionable position and it appeared that he not taking Hiro's story too seriously.
"So Mr. Kabuki was using ESP to attack you and these other three and Balloon man?"
The trio of foreigners said nothing, but Baymax took a six inch piece of tape from a roller sitting on the desk. Looking over to his left arm, he inflated until three holes, caused by the microbots that penetrated his arms during the final act of the escape, blew from his elbow creating loud whistle noises that screamed like banshees. He covered the holes vertically with the long piece of tape and repeated the process with his right arm, much to Hiro's distress. Sora could only cover his ears at the loud volume of Baymax's helium. Any louder and he would have definitely popped like a balloon.
Why couldn't Tadashi build a more quieter robot with armor like every other bot in the world?
His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of Gerson.
"Did you file a report when your flying robots were stolen?"
Hiro dug his hands through his hair, overwhelmed and agitated by these events. His response was rapid.
"No! I designed them to be fire-proof, I thought they were all destroyed in the explosion, and now they are fireproof!"
"We saw it, too!" Sora protested, gripping the desk with his gloved hands.
"Yes!" Hiro joined in on the agreement. "I know it sounds crazy, but Sora, Donald, Goofy and Baymax were there too!"
He gestured his open right hand at Baymax and trio of travelers.
"Bayman, tell him!"
At Hiro's command, Baymax pointed his right index finger in the direction of the ceiling and said, "Yes, officer, he is telling the truuuuuuth."
But as he said the last word, the pitch of his voice went deep and his speech started to slow down. His upper body began to tilt forwards and limp like a hunchback trying to raise his voice.
"What's wrong with you?" Hiro asked in surprise.
"Loooooow battery."
A battery logo with an inch of red energy appeared on Baymax's chest. It seemed to Hiro that Tadashi had taken his advice about changing his lithium ion battery with super-capacitors, which could de-charge faster than the former. Even so, Baymax hiccupped and his optical began to open and shut with an electronic chuckle.
"Try and keep it together, big guy!" Donald shouted and he pushed his hands against Baymax's chubby stomach. Goofy and Sora helped while Hiro kept his eyes on Gerson, who was still unfazed by Baymax's action. Due to his high amount of artificial intelligence supported by his energy source, Baymax began to malfunction without the power needed to fully compensate his programming.
"I am healthcare your personal Baymax," Tadashi may have not intended Baymax to slur upon a loss of energy, but his speech was starting to short circuit.
At last, Gerson could not accept Hiro's wild story as a reliable source, he rolled over to the other side of his desk to retrieve a clipboard.
"Kid, how about we call your parents and get them down here?"
Hiro threw his arms up in frustration. "WHAT?!"
My parents are dead, you insensitive jerk. So is my brother.
Frustrated, he left for the door with Sora, Donald and Goofy carrying Baymax out the door. Baymax reached for the tape roller, foolishly pulling the tape out from the roller.
"Write your name and number down on this piece of paper and we can ho-"
Before Gerson could finish his sentence, all he could see was the center door closing and a tape roller being dragged from his desk.
As if on cue, Dick Tracy appeared from the west wing of the building, having had his own time of a difficult discussion with Chief Brandon about a string of robberies that had occurred over the last month. He noticed the tape roller sitting by the door and looked at Gerson with hooded eyes.
"Make a note, Danny, they waved their right to a phone call."
"Have you been listening?" Gerson turned to Tracy.
"Almost every word of it, but I didn't want to reveal myself to Hiro just yet."
"I hope you know where he is 'cause he just left."
Tracy cocked his head to Gerson.
"Thank you, Danny."
And he rushed to the door.
Outside, Sora, Goofy and Donald tried to tame the wobbly robot by holding him up from his stomach. Hiro stood behind in need of an extra balance.
"I have to get him home to his charging station," Hiro said to Sora.
"You sure your aunt won't mind?" Sora asked him.
"She will as long you won't tell her."
"Can he walk?"
Baymax was sounding more intoxicated by the minute.
"I will scan you now!" he shouted, pointing his left index finger to the south. Then he was standing on his right foot and as he said, "Scan complete!" Baymax tipped back and landed on his behind, hiccupping the word "healthcare" with what sounded like an infectious laughter before his arm slumped back into a dormant mode.
Another voice came into his hearing.
"Hiro?"
It was Detective Tracy with the tape roller.
"I think your robot friend forgot this."
Hiro took the tape roller and placed it in his right hoodie pocket, then he did his best to explain the situation to Tracy.
"You wouldn't believe what we just saw! There was this man in a Kabuki mask and-"
"I heard most of it, kid," Tracy silenced him.
Hiro showed him the microbot core in the petri dish.
"I have proof as well."
Tracy took the dish into his hands and meticulously studied it with his keen eyesight. It was legitimate.
"Seems real authentic," Tracy replied, handing the dish back to Hiro. "But I'll need more evidence than that."
"More?" Hiro was reaching a dead end. "But I saw them, even Flattop Jones was there!"
"This is the San Fransokyo Police Department, we can't go chasing after criminals without the proper basics of solving a crime: we have to be watchful, examine a large amount of evidence, interrogate witnesses and file a warrant for their arrest."
"But Tracy-!"
"Would your brother want to have me sued for false arrest?"
Hiro looked down, mumbling, "No."
Tracy smiled. "Good, you know I've had some doubts about Flattop, Big Boy and his current status recently, but one slip-up and he's back in the slammer."
Instead of a rebuttal, Hiro sighed, "Okay."
Tracy looked at the three familiar figures of Sora, Donald and Goofy and bid them adieu with a tip of his yellow fedora. Then to Hiro, while putting it back, he said.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an early dinner with Tess and Junior and you should be heading home right now. Come back when you have the evidence."
Then he struck off on foot, down the long avenue.
If something had occurred to him about Hiro's words, it would be that Big Boy's charitable campaign that began after his release from prison had been nothing more than a façade of resuming his criminal organization in a different way. As he walked a few blocks north of the police station, he could not help but wonder about the legitimacy of Hiro's report, though he was certain that he would discuss the matter with Chief Brandon and the Crimestoppers tomorrow morning.
His way aboard a trolley took him to Calzone's Italian Restaurant on 430 Columbus Avenue, which provided a steady stream of Italian descendants of the Lanza crime family as a local hang-out spot. A taxi cab passed Tracy as he drew level with the restaurant, camouflaging his trench coat and fedora for a split second before he entered the door. The moment had almost made him embarrassed, but he put it down to the fact that he didn't like attracting the attention of the public.
Tracy found his wife and adopted son at a table far in the back among a usual crowd of modernists. His sharp eyes took in her red coat and black beret while Junior wore a black newsboy cap black jacket, red shirt, caramel brown trousers and black sneakers. Without Tess noticing, he sat down in front of her at the very table she been saving before her eyes could meet Tracy's with surprise.
"How long have you been waiting?" he asked her.
"Twenty minutes."
"I've been out for twenty three."
"How was work?" Junior asked before Tess could in her usual manner.
"Well," Tracy said as he searched the menu for a spaghetti dish. "Chief Brandon and I just speaking about a few robberies that had been reported since last month and then I see Gerson talking to Hiro Hamada and four other guys about microbots and Big Boy and some guy in a Kabuki mask. He even shows me this black object that looks like a thimble, only smaller and I tell him that he needs more evidence then that-"
Before Tracy could say anymore, a waiter with black mopped hair and a white shirt with black trousers came to their table.
"Bonjourno, what can I start you off with?"
Tracy directed his right index finger at himself, Tess and Junior.
"I'll have a seared scallop, she would like the bruschetta and the kid here will have a bowl of spaghetti."
The waiter jotted the choices down in his docket.
"Very good, signore."
The dinner proved to be very quick, so quick that Tracy was resuming his conversation about Hiro in the car on the way home.
"And so while his balloon friend starts leaking air, he tells Gerson that Big Boy, Flattop and a lot of other crooks are hangin' out at the Union Iron Works Machine Shop near the pier," he said to Tess without looking at her, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Sounds to me like Gerson obviously doesn't know the younger brother of SFIT's most dedicated inventor," Tess replied subtly.
"That guy always thinks of everything as a prank," Junior butted in politely. "One time I tried telling him that aliens were attacking the city and he just said nothing."
"That's true," Tracy said in discomfort. "But I've known Hiro for five years and the only way he could have come up with this story is by putting his brain to good use instead of bot-fighting."
"Does his aunt know?" Tess asked quietly.
"He didn't say, all I heard was his interview with Gerson, he did mention Tadashi though. I doubt that even his late brother could have taken this story seriously."
"If it was Hiro who died instead of Tadashi," Tess pursued the idea. "Would you have believed him?"
"How should I know?" Tracy muttered unenthusiastically. "He's dead."
"You'll let the others know about this right?" Tess asked and her husband nodded. "And poor Hiro, I guess the only consolidation is that you're always on the case."
This time Tracy rotated his head to Tess and smiled at her for two seconds before turning his eyes back to the road.
Junior slumped in his seat, he was looking forward to having a sleepover at the Lucky Cat in hopes of drawing a confession out of Hiro.