The Origin of MASK
Chapter 3: A Potential Toy Tie-In, Part 3
By Qweb and/or Jelsemium
"I also know where we'll do the recharging, Alex. And it's another trip down memory lane. Remember Dad's old bomb shelter?"
Alex looked up in startlement. Certainly he remembered. He'd met Matt's father when he installed some computer equipment in the shelter that had been built during the panic-stricken early 60s. It was a few years later that Alex, a young man and a recent immigrant from Britain, had worked for Trakker upgrading the facility into a workroom since the shelter was now considered a rather silly idea.
The room was buried deep in the hill laughingly called "Boulder Mountain." Local people said that after passing through miles of seemingly endless Nevada desert, the small, rocky hill must have looked like a mountain to the settlers coming through. They agreed that Boulder Hill was a much more accurate name, leading to the confusing difference between the names of the town and the "mountain."
To reach the shelter, one had to pass through a tunnel, which, Alex nodded in recollection, started in Trakker mansion just behind the wall he was looking at. In fact, the computer room was built into the start of the tunnel and wasn't actually in the house at all.
"Yes, that would do it," Alex said. "It has its own power source, and I presume you've updated the equipment there."
"I hoped you would take care of that, Alex," Matt said. "You've got a free hand in creating us a war room."
Bruce frowned.
"But the rabbit never builds a one-way burrow," he protested.
"Now that I understood," Alex said. "It might not be safe to have the tunnel run straight from the war room to the mansion."
Matt held up his hand. "Peace, gentlemen. I have anticipated you. I recently purchased the Boulder Hill Gas Station."
"That old relic!" Alex scoffed. "It's been a money loser from the day it opened."
"That makes it exactly what we need. We don't want a lot of people hanging around there, if it's going to be the secret maintenance facility for our organization. It's perfect, Alex. It's built into the mountain and it would hardly be any trouble at all to extend the tunnel to reach it. That would give us our escape route in case of trouble."
"And it will keep our group from tracking up the carpets in the mansion," Alex said deadpan.
Matt made a face at his old friend who frowned at another thought.
"You know, we really need a name for this group," Alex said. "All this 'team' and 'organization' stuff is wearing."
"Any ideas?" Matt asked.
"MASK!" Scott exclaimed.
The boy had been busy with a pen and a sheet of paper. Now he held up his second contribution to the war effort.
The paper read: Mobile
Armored
Strike
Kommand
"Now I know why you only got a 'C' in in spelling," Matt sighed.
Scott frowned at his work.
"Oh. But it doesn't look right with a 'C'," he said when he saw his mistake.
"Anyone who spells 'tracker' with a double 'K' has no right to complain," Alex said. "I like it. It's short and to the point. MASK."
"And it certainly identifies our most outstanding feature," Bruce said, patting Lifter affectionately.
"MASK it is," Matt said, to Scott's delight.
"Now about that war room …" Alex said.
Matt didn't approach Hondo MacLean for a couple of weeks, not until the underground headquarters was complete and the armored command post cum maintenance yard was hidden behind the sleepy exterior of a renovated Boulder Hill gas station. The station itself was ready to open for business as soon as someone was hired to man the pumps.
Four masks were complete and another three stood half-assembled on Matt's workbench waiting for components that had been ordered from separate, top-notch research labs in which Trakker Enterprises had a small interest.
When Matt and Bruce went to visit Hondo, they took two of the masks with them as part of their sales pitch. They also took the new, tangerine orange pickup truck, which had been the first vehicle off the MASK "assembly line," because it required the fewest structural modifications.
It was nearly 4 p.m. when they pulled up to the school in the pickup which Bruce admiringly called a "hot, little firecracker." They expected to find the place fairly deserted, though they knew Hondo would be working late after coaching the basketball team.
But Matt and Bruce were surprised to see a small crowd gathering out front, looking toward the roof. Bruce followed the general upward gaze and grabbed Matt's arm in alarm.
A boy in his teens, dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt, straddled the railing at the edge of the flat roof. His eyes were wide and glazed, and his wild gestures seemed about to hurl him from his perch.
He faced a broad-shouldered black man who was dressed in a gray sweat suit, which was apt, because he was sweating fiercely. That was the only sign of his tension, however. He kept his manner calm and his voice low as he tried to talk the frenzied youngster into stepping away from the edge.
"That's Hondo," Matt said in a low voice as he edged Firecracker around the corner, out of sight.
"Looks like he needs some help," Bruce suggested, touching the mask in his lap.
Matt gave his friend a tight smile in response.
"Come on, Tommy," Hondo said in his deep, smooth voice. "We can talk about it. Whatever the problem is, we can work it out."
The boy shook his head violently and swung his other leg to the outside of the railing.
"No, there's no use. There's not one thing wrong. Everything's wrong. My parents found out. Dad threw me out of the house and I don't have any more money so I can't buy any more stuff and Duffy won't give me any more credit. Nobody cares whether I live or die. Why should I?"
The boy thrust himself away from the railing as if doing a swan dive toward the pavement two stories below. The crowd screamed and fled. Hondo lunged toward the railing and bent far over, feeling his fingers just brush the boy's sweater. Too late.
The man hung there, looking down at the scene of imminent tragedy. The moment was indelibly printed on his memory. The crowd ran. The boy seemed to float in mid-air. Seemed to? And, standing firm at the edge of the scattering crowd, were two figures who looked like space creatures in a science fiction movie. One masked face stared at the boy. The other tilted his face up and …
Hondo cried out and staggered backwards as a blinding light blotted out the scene. A light like a thousand flash bulbs that had, surely, come from the second creature's eyes. Hadn't it? Frantically, Hondo rubbed his eyes with his forearm, blinking away the glowing green afterimage, and looked over the railing again.
Tommy, much bewildered, was standing safely on the ground, held by two of Hondo's colleagues. People blinked and rubbed their eyes and wondered aloud where the light had come from and why the boy wasn't hurt. Hondo heard more than one voice claim it was a miracle.
And the two … creatures? … were gone.
Talking with the police and the ambulance attendants who came to take the strung out child, Hondo didn't mention his "space people." He figured he'd be yanked into the ambulance along with Tommy if he did. He didn't know if anyone else had seen the oddly dressed pair at the edge of the crowd, but he wasn't going to be the one to mention them.
Even without mentioning costumed intruders, it took a long time for the police to take his statement about how the kid freaked out during practice and fled to the roof. Hondo was weary and soul sick when he finally walked back to get his stuff in the virtually empty school.
"Hey, Hondo," said another teacher on his way out. "There are a couple of guys waiting for you. Said you expected them. So I put them in the teacher's lounge."
Hondo moaned. He'd forgotten all about Matt's appointment, naturally.
He aimed his footsteps toward the lounge.
"Matt, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but we had some troub … " he said as he came through the door. When he saw his visitors, he stopped in the middle of a word.
Though they had left their masks in the pickup, their outfits were unmistakably those of the men from outer space.
"We know, Hondo," Matt said. "We were there."
Hondo eased himself into a chair, still staring.
"You two," he said. "You did … What did you do?" He aimed his bewildered look at the orange-clad Bruce. "The boy didn't fall. He flew! How?"
Then the teacher remembered he was talking to one of the foremost inventors in the country and turned to Trakker.
"Matt, what are you up to now!"
The blond inventor chuckled and told him.
Three cups of coffee and nearly an hour later, Hondo shook his head again.
"And you want me to join this 'MASK' group of yours?"
"You'd be invaluable to us, Hondo, particularly in the beginning. We're going to have to take a bunch of people and turn them into a team. That's always been your specialty," Matt said.
"On the playing field, Matt. Not the battlefield."
"The same strategies apply, Hondo."
The black man shook his head yet again, thinking of Tommy and the drugs that had pushed him over the edge, literally.
"There's so much evil in the world, Matt. Even here at school. Why do I need to go hunting this Venom crew?" he said softly.
"You have to start somewhere, Hondo," Matt replied, just as softly.
Hondo grinned wryly.
"I don't know, Matt. I've seen you come up with some crazy ideas; but this one … "
"To land on the moon, men had to build a mechanical spider," Bruce said solemnly.
"Huh?" Hondo said.
"Bizarre situations call for bizarre solutions," Matt translated.
He saw the teacher was still uncertain.
"You don't have to decide now. There's no obligation to buy. Our offer has a lifetime guarantee and is fully refundable in case you change your mind. Just one thing," Matt continued more seriously, "Don't mention this to anyone else, whatever you decide."
"You can depend on that!" Hondo said. "Think I want to wind up in the booby hatch?"
Matt wasn't disappointed as Hondo escorted him and Bruce through the echoing corridors toward the parking lot. He knew Hondo was a man of imagination and he was sure his "bizarre" scheme would set that imagination afire.
Alex had been right, Matt thought. There were times when you just had to trust your luck. The millionaire felt the famous Trakker luck gathering momentum. It had been serendipity that brought Bruce and him to the school at the precise moment when they could best demonstrate the lifesaving abilities of MASK. And serendipity was going to carry them through; he could feel it.
As the three silent men left the building, Hondo froze in astonished fury. Duffy, the local drug dealer — not that the police had been able to prove anything — was standing in the school parking lot, talking with a fascinated group of neighborhood kids, most of them too young to go to the junior high. Duffy's two, ever-present guardians lingered nearby.
"Duffy!"
The animal roar sprang from Hondo's throat, scattering the kids like fall leaves before a hurricane.
The mask of geniality dropped from the drug dealer's eyes as he turned to face Hondo, the major obstacle to Duffy's bid to become top dealer in the city. Hondo lived in the same neighborhood where he taught and he did his best, both in and out of school, to keep the local kids away from drugs. He was real bad for Duffy's business.
Duffy was as big as Hondo, but he eyed the black man warily. He knew the teacher's reputation.
His two goons moved to flank him. They watched Hondo's supporters with contempt. Each outweighed Matt by a good hundred pounds, and Bruce was smaller still.
Together they wouldn't make one good opponent, the older of the two goons thought, and went back to watching Hondo. But the younger of the two, hardly more than a boy really, just high school age, eyed Bruce with more suspicion than seemed warranted.
"You want something, MacLean?" the dealer said insolently. "I was just talking to the kids."
"Yeah, and we both know why, don't we," Hondo snarled. "I told you to keep your slimy self off the school yard. Now get off before I throw you off."
"Take it easy. We were just going," the dealer turned with calculated slowness. "Too bad about the Hawthorne kid. Heard he almost took a high dive today."
With a wordless growl, Hondo reached for the man's shoulder to turn him around. But the dealer had been waiting, baiting Hondo into rash action. Duffy spun first, a knife in his hand, slashing for Hondo's fingers to maim him for what would be the rest of a very short life. But Hondo's hand wasn't where it had been.
The black man, who wasn't slow for all his size, snatched back his hand and danced out of the way of a follow-up thrust.
The drug dealer crouched, his knife gleaming in the fading daylight. His teeth were bared, like a wild animal set for the kill.
Hondo looked at him, and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"I was hoping you'd do that," he said.
Duffy wondered if he'd made a mistake; but it was too late to back out. He drove in, slashing with his knife at Hondo's belly. The former Golden Glover darted aside, dropped his shoulder low and ripped a fist into Duffy's stomach as the big Irishman roared past. He followed up the blow with a highly illegal right to the kidneys, which would have gotten him disqualified in the ring.
The drug dealer dropped his knife and clutched his side. Still bent over he began to turn, and Hondo straightened him up with a classic right to the jaw.
But the dealer was tough. Anger seemed to erase his pain and he began to trade punches with Hondo. Toe-to-toe, the two big men stood, slugging it out.
But Hondo's preoccupation with Duffy didn't prevent him from keeping an eye on his two smaller friends.
The older of Duffy's henchmen didn't care to mess around with fisticuffs when he had something more effective. When he saw his boss lose the knife, his hand dove into his jacket.
Matt didn't wait to see whether he was reaching for a gun or a knife. The MASK leader threw himself headfirst into his first combat situation. He butted the unsuspecting thug in the midsection, hearing the man's grunt of astonishment. His legs driving hard, Matt wrapped his arms around the man's waist and threw the both of them to the ground, making sure to land on top. The thug's head thwacked against the pavement and the air whooshed from his lungs as Matt's full weight landed across his chest.
The goon lay unmoving, wheezing gently, as Matt removed a nasty looking revolver from his inside pocket.
The youngest of the criminal trio had moved cautiously toward Bruce. The oriental studied his large, but young, opponent, then leaped into a crouching karate stance, hands poised like slashing blades.
"Hai!" Bruce shouted fiercely.
The youngster hesitated. Warily he circled the smaller man who remained in the ready stance, moving with the boy.
Out of the corner of his eye, the youth saw his comrade lying unconscious, saw his boss falter under Hondo's pounding. In front of him, he saw the Japanese man's face twist into a devilish mask.
Bruce leaped to the attack shouting, "Hai!"
The youngster's nerve broke and he fled the fiendish sight, running down the street as if pursued by demons.
Slowly Bruce straightened up.
A heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. Heart racing, he spun; but it was only Hondo, who'd put his opponent down in the third round. His scientific boxing had triumphed over Duffy's brute force.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Hondo complained, indicating the fleeing youth.
"Me?" Bruce said indignantly. "He was three times my size. He could have killed me."
"But … " Hondo said, miming a karate chop.
"Oh, that," Bruce said. "I'm just a peace-loving toymaker. All I know is … Hai!"
He again leaped into the ferocious seeming karate stance. Then he pointed at the distant youngster.
"He watches too many kung fu movies. And so, my friend, do you."
Matt, who'd used Firecracker's radio to call the police, came back to join the group. Hondo turned his attention to him.
"And you, it was pure luck that thug was watching me and didn't see you until you hit him."
"It sure was," Matt agreed cheerfully.
"You mean to tell me, you two plan on tackling one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world and neither of you knows how to fight?"
Matt shrugged.
"You are crazy!" Hondo exclaimed.
Bruce shrugged.
They heard the sound of distant sirens. They listened for a while as the wail grew closer and Hondo grew more calm.
Suddenly the teacher began to laugh. Matt and Bruce might not be much at fighting, he realized, but they both knew how to "use their heads" in a crisis.
He looked down at the unconscious garbage at his feet and remembered what Matt had said about having to start somewhere. This looked like a pretty good start to him.
"Hey, Matt," he said softly. "Show me around that project of yours tomorrow?"
"I thought you weren't interested," Matt teased.
Hondo shrugged.
"Somebody's got to teach you guys how to take care of yourselves."
Sly Rax of the organization known as Venom was idly thumbing through a supermarket tabloid when he came across an item of interest right next to the two-day popsicle diet, just under the story about the Dalmatian raised by a family of baboons.
"Hey, Mayhem, look at this," he said.
The story told about the attempted suicide of a drug-crazed teenager who threw himself off a building only to float lightly to the ground aided by aliens from outer space. Several witnesses claimed to have seen the aliens who wore weird space suits and funny looking masks. Police discounted the story as mass hysteria and said it was just chance that the boy hadn't been injured by the two-story fall.
"Sounds like someone's stealing our act," Rax joked, pointing out the part about the funny-looking masks.
"Don't tell me you believe everything you read, Rax," Vanessa scoffed. "Don't you know they make up all the stories in that rag."
"Really?" said Dagger in disappointment.
"Don't be too hasty, Vanessa," said Miles Mayhem. "I've found treasures following slimmer leads that this. Put the word out. I want to know if anyone is making masks like ours — and why."
"You know, Vanessa might be right," Rax said, as much as he hated to. "Maybe the reporter just made the whole thing up to fill space."
"Maybe," Mayhem said speculatively. "And maybe we should investigate this town. This … " he checked the paper again. "This Boulder Hill, Nevada."
In the next episode:
Matt and company must depend on "The Buddy System,"
when a mysterious intruder breaks into
MASK headquarters and the Trakker mansion,
and all of Matt's super security fails to keep him from learning
the secret of MASK!