The Origin of MASK
Chapter 5: The Buddy System, Part 2
By Jelsemium and/or Qweb
Scott was creeping out of the kitchen with his second midnight snack of the night, when something grabbed him roughly, causing him to drop his slice of pizza and his pickle.
"Hey!"
"Scott!" Matt snapped. "I told you to stay in bed!"
Scott shrank away from his angry father, "But I was hungry!" he protested.
Matt calmed himself down with an effort. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get angry with you. You haven't done anything wrong. But there's a burglar in the house, and I want you to go to your room where it's safe.
Scott's eyes sparkled with excitement. "A burglar! Oh, wow! Where is he? How'd he get by the alarms? What's he want?"
Matt shook his head and smiled wryly.
"I don't know any of that yet. Now go to your room."
"If you don't know where he is, how do you know my room's safe?"
Matt had to admit that Scott had him there.
"C'mon, then, but do exactly what I tell you to do. Where's T-Bob?"
"He's still in bed. Should I go get him?"
Matt had an image of trying to sneak up on the slippery burglar with the clanking, quivering robot in tow and couldn't decide whether to shudder or laugh. He compromised by doing neither and replied:
"No, I think he'll be better off where he is."
Scott, whose mental image was very similar to his dad's, agreed. He picked up his still edible pizza and put it back in the fridge, but forgot about the pickle in his hurry to tag along after his father.
"Where are we going?"
"To seal off the wings from the main house. We want to cut down on his running room as much as possible."
"Does this have anything to do with MASK?" Scott asked eagerly.
"I don't know, son. I wish I did."
Matt also wished that he had his latest brainstorm, the Spectrum Mask. It was far more versatile than the ultra powerful strobe light that Ultra Flash was armed with. He made a mental note to go to Los Angeles to step up construction.
Hondo McLean tore up to the Boulder Hill gas station on Boulder Mountain in his old, but still running, clunker. "This had better not be a test of the Trakker Emergency Broadcast System."
A look at the gas station convinced him that this was the real thing. The lock had been picked, the Coke machine had been rifled and while the secret entrance to the subway had been closed, the garage wasn't put in proper order.
He punched the control button on the automatic door opener that Matt had given him and drove through the gas station and under the hill into the subway system.
Down in the basement. Buddy finished sabotaging the regular fuse box, and was looking around to see if he could figure out any way to disarm the defense mechanisms, when there was a greenish glow behind him.
"Ah ha! thought I might find you here," said a voice with a British accent.
Buddy wheeled around, aiming a savate kick at where he estimated the speaker's groin to be. The green glow gave him plenty of light to see his kick land dead on target, and continue through it without stopping. The astonished spy whirled off balance and almost fell flat on his face.
"Penetrator OFF!" Alex couldn't resist such a target and materialized a firm kick on the seat of Buddy's pants, sending the chagrined burglar face first into a pile of unidentified garbage.
"You…" sputtered Hawks, as he pulled several moldy newspapers off of his face.
"Now, now, none of that sort of language! Penetrator ON!"
Buddy rushed the scientist and passed right through him. Again Alex rematerialized to lend a helping foot to the cause.
Buddy, taken off balance yet again, plowed shoulder first into the water heater. He was beginning to sympathize with bulls. He bounced up and swung a blow that went right through his elusive opponent. Alex ran through his sparring partner, solidified and landed a rabbit punch to the kidneys and a huge buffet to the side of Buddy's head. The burglar lurched, and Alex landed another blow on his neck. Hawks went to his knees and shook his head in an effort to clear it as Alex approached in solid form to land another blow.
Buddy flung himself at Alex and managed to get ahold of him before Alex finished the formula. They were both engulfed in the green aura. Buddy, who'd never been dematerialized before, was almost taken out by nausea.
He pulled up his knees and attempted to kick Alex away from him. With both in demat form, the kick landed solidly. Fortunately for Alex, Buddy didn't aim this kick as well as he had the first one. Instead of being incapacitated, Alex was merely winded. Buddy was feeling pretty shaky himself. He heard someone approaching and decided to split the scene.
Alex heard the burglar curse as he tripped over something in the dark. Alex knew there was another exit in the cellar. By the sudden silence, Alex deduced that the intruder had found it just as whoever it was that was approaching came down the main stairs.
"Alex? Are you all right?" Bruce's soft voice was made for clandestine calls.
"Yes, but I'm beginning to regret the size of this house. It could take us days to catch him." Alex got to his feet wearily, wondering if maybe he was too old for this sort of thing.
"We have plenty of time."
"Not if he has friends waiting for him," Alex pointed out.
"Hmm, when the hook and line is too slow, it is time to weave a net."
Alex sighed heavily and sulked off to get Matt to translate. Bruce hurried off towards the lab.
Buddy slunk through the wine cellar and slithered silently up the stairs and into the hall that lead to the kitchen. His right foot suddenly went out from beneath him and he bounced off the wall with a tooth-jarring thud. Still dizzy from Penetrator, he sat down suddenly and felt around for the object that had laid him low.
"A pickle?! Gimme a break!" The only comforting thought was at least it wasn't a banana. That would have been too much.
Absently taking a bite from the pickled booby trap, he started to ponder his next move. The decision was taken out of his hands.
"Ultra-Flash, hit it!"
The sudden onslaught of bright light after sneaking around in the dark so long was stunning.
Dazed, Buddy dropped the remains of the pickle and sat back on his haunches, while covering his face with his arms. He tried to look, but all he could discern was light and even more light. He couldn't stay there to be picked up like the garbage, so he charged.
Matt sidestepped neatly and pulled Scott to one side. But not quite far enough. Buddy ricocheted off of Scott and went rolling down the hall. Scott was slammed into his father and both went down in a tangled heap. By the time they had sorted themselves out, Buddy was gone.
Hondo entered the Trakker residence from the subway and found Alex helping Scott and his father to their feet.
"Are you two all right?" Alex was saying.
"That depends on how you would define 'all right'," Matt gasped, wondering if he was too old for this sort of thing.
"Hi, Hondo, guess what?" Scott was all agog with excitement.
"Somebody broke into the gas station and worked his way to your house through the tunnel," Hondo informed them. "He probably stopped in at the MASK room as well."
"Hmm, so that's how he got in," Alex mused.
"Wonderful, so instead of just getting past the house alarms, he got past the garage, subway, and HQ alarms, not to mention all those locks. My security system's beginning to look like Swiss cheese," Matt mourned.
"We'll worry about how he got in later," said the red-bearded strategist. "Right now we have to worry about him getting out."
"I'm open to suggestions," Matt said.
"Good, because I happen to have one."
Cautiously, Bruce Sato entered the workroom Matt had set aside for him. He didn't seriously expect the invader to be there, but he didn't want to find out the hard way. It was empty, so he hurried to the bench where one of his near misses awaited.
Buddy's vision was cleared up enough that he could avoid the furniture, most of the time. He found himself in the kitchen and automatically went for the refrigerator. He opened the refrigerator side first, automatically flinching away to protect his sensitive eyes. Then he snorted at himself.
"Of course the light won't come on, turkey, you turned off the power."
He turned his attention to the freezer side as he thoughtfully finished off a three-quarters emptied milk bottle. (He couldn't risk it going bad.) He also helped himself to some of the leftover pizza.
"Ah ha!" he said and fetched out the basket from the icemaker. Then he looked around for some bananas. If there were any, his fuzzy vision couldn't spot them.
"Too bad, that would have been fun."
Bruce came up behind Alex so quietly, that the bald scientist almost assaulted him.
"Don't sneak up on me like that," Alex complained.
"Sorry, it's becoming a habit to sneak around in this house."
Bruce held up the canister he brought from his lab. "I think that this might help."
Alex read the label. "It might prove useful to my plan. But hopefully we won't need it."
Buddy had to pause before making his way to the computer room. The delay made him itchy, but he couldn't afford to proceed before he could see clearly. He entered the computer room cautiously. Empty. He paused in the entry with his ice box, then set the empty box on the console. He gave the computer a dirty look and muttered "Tattletale." as he passed it and opened the door to the subway.
There was a man wearing yet another mask (actually, half a mask) in the opening.
"Not again!" Buddy checked out the other door, sure enough, fish face was there.
"Don't try anything . . ." the half-mask said as Buddy hit the door switch again.
The door started to slam in Hondo's face.
"Blaster, Fire!"
Matt, protected by his mask, and forewarned at that, wasn't bothered by the sight of the awesome blast. But Buddy, with no protection at all, could only cower back as the 8 by 12 foot, three inch steel door dissolved in a blast of intense light.
Hondo came in cautiously as Buddy crouched next to the computer, arms over his head, waiting to die.
"He told you not to try anything," Matt said mildly, undisturbed by the sight of his wall disappearing. "Now maybe we'll get some answers."
As he spoke, he entered the room and promptly slipped and fell on the ice cubes that Buddy had placed there for just such a contingency.
"Matt!" cried Hondo. He turned towards his fallen leader.
"Never mind me, stop him !" Matt exclaimed, indicating the departing burglar.
Blaster's next shot cut in front of Buddy and dissolved the waiting motorcycle. Buddy figured he was to be next so he changed direction abruptly. He back-flipped toward the hall door, bounced off Matt's liver, grabbed the now breathless MASK leader in a strangle hold and heaved him to his feet.
"Whoa, take it easy now," Hondo said in his best "talk the knife out of the student's hand" voice and spread his hands out, palms down, in a calming motion.
"Good advice, let's make a deal, you take off your mask and let me pass, and I won't break this dude's neck."
Buddy backed up cautiously, half strangulating Matt in the process. He didn't seriously expect the man to bargain. However, he hoped to buy a few moments to get clear. He checked the hall and didn't see the other man. ("Men? Is this just a new mask or an entirely new player? How many of these turkeys are there anyway? How do I get myself into these things?")
Suddenly, Buddy was assaulted from below the belt. He looked down in astonishment to see Scott Trakker beating at him furiously.
"You let my father go, you creep!" cried his diminutive assailant.
"Huh?" was Buddy's brilliant reply.
Feeling his assailant loosen his grip, Matt squirmed around and launched his elbow. With a frantic twist, Buddy managed to catch the blow on his ribs, rather than in the pit of his stomach where it had been aimed.
It still threw him off balance and caused him to release his captive. Scott immediately hit the teetering burglar with a tackle that did football coach Hondo's heart proud. Buddy went down with a word that Scott suspected that he oughtn't use. Hondo leaped forward to help, slipped on the ice cubes and plowed into Matt. Matt heard Buddy scramble to his feet and focused in that direction.
"Ultra-flash, ON!"
Buddy ducked away from the light. Alex and Bruce, however, caught the full effect of the ray as they came up to implement their part of the plan. Their masks protected them from most of the blast, but they were startled enough to let Buddy get past them and dodge down the hall.
There was a few minutes of disgusted silence before Scott spoke up.
"Dad? Are you all right?"
"I think so," Matt said, rubbing his sore elbow. "That guy's inhuman! Doesn't he ever get tired?" Matt complained.
Buddy ducked into a cubbyhole and tried to catch his breath.
"Man, don't those dudes ever get tired?" he complained as he rubbed his sore ribs. "This is inhuman!"
There was one trick left for him to try. It was rather desperate, no, make that extremely desperate. But he couldn't keep this up all night. And if they were going to ring in extra men, he was going to bring up the heavy artillery.
"Man, this joker sounds like the Boogey Man!" Hondo exclaimed as Matt and Scott filled him in on the night's entertainment.
"To be sure!" said Alex from where he and Bruce were setting up booby trap No. 1 in the computer room.
"There's no such thing as the Boogey Man," Scott said loftily, having just learned that fact last year.
"I'm starting to wonder about that," said Matt. "But in any case, we'll all be hip deep in recycled food products if we don't catch this guy, and soon. He's bound to find a way out of here before long."
"Don't you have any faith in your defenses, old boy?" Alex asked in astonishment.
"Not as much as I did this morning."
"I think the time has come to get the blazes out of here," Hawks told himself. "Ahh, I knew a place this size had to come equipped with a john. Now what have we got in here?"
"Lysol? perfect. What else have we got here?"
Happily he went digging up every can he could find that said: "Warning, contents under pressure, do not use or store near heat or open flame."
Hondo was making a production out of "sneaking" through the house. Since the Boogey Man had tried to grab the masks earlier, he might be tempted to go for Blaster. At least, that was Matt's theory.
Matt and Bruce flanked Hondo with considerably less noise. They were carrying specially charged fire extinguishers and were planting computer links to replace the disabled alarms as they went. Alex bugged the stairways the same way and was paralleling Hondo's course on the second floor, likewise armed with a fire extinguisher. Scott was in the computer room, keeping an eye on the computer readouts and wishing that he wasn't too young for this kind of thing. A bleep from the console caught his eye.
"Dad, there's something weird going on in the music room."
It made sense. The music room with its floor to ceiling windows seemed a likely place to try a breakout.
Buddy was setting his incendiary surprise near the windows, when he remembered the kid that had attacked him. He hesitated with the lighter in his hand.
"I can't risk the kid getting hurt if this thing gets out of hand."
He tried to reassure himself that if the kid was still with Trakker, then he'd be all right. But the nagging thought that there might be other children around kept cropping up. Trakker had only one. But who knew about the others? He wasn't even sure if his homemade bomb would get him out. Terrible to burn everyone to death for no reason.
He growled to himself and scanned the room again. There was a fireplace there, but the grill in the flue was impassable.
"Hmm, I wonder if Trakker has some sort of automatic fire escape system. Maybe if I generate enough smoke, I can crack this place without endangering any attack-trained rug rats."
He began to transfer flammable items to the fireplace when he heard somebody try to sneak into the next room. A discrete check revealed it to be the black dude with the blasting mask. That would certainly get him outside. Without hesitating long enough to consider it might be a trap, he slipped the cigarette lighter up his sleeve, grabbed a handy curtain from his firebomb, flung it over the black man and jumped.
Hondo went down flailing wildly. Even if Blaster had been operational, he couldn't have gotten a shot off. Then, as per Matt's instructions, he went limp. Buddy bounced to his feet, tugging the curtain with his left hand, his right hand clenched into a fist. He was almost too preoccupied to notice the entrance of Matt and Bruce. Almost, but not quite.
He whirled around to meet them just as Alex came through the ceiling, all three immediately opened fire with their fire extinguishers. The combined sprays knocked Buddy to the ground.
Hondo dug himself out of the curtain to see Buddy squirming helplessly on the floor. Bruce's experimental foam may have been a flop as a fire extinguisher, but it made great super glue.
Matt took out his fingerprint kit and approached his captive.
"Well, now, let's see whose little boy you are."
The look the captive gave him should have melted steel. Matt was very glad this tiger was in a net.
The computer took an extremely long time for it to come up with an answer.
"Fingerprints do not correspond to any person on file."
"I don't believe this, he's got to be in there somewhere," Hondo said in bewilderment.
"It's entirely possible that this Venom group could have the knowledge to remove their fingerprints from all computer files. Remember, Mayhem doesn't seen to have any other name." Alex said thoughtfully.
"Now that we have the tiger, how do we intend to cage it? No net lasts forever."
Alex sighed noisily. "Bruce, it's been a long night, would you kindly restrict yourself to English?"
"He means we can't leave him glued to the floor," Scott translated gleefully, happy that he understood something that Alex did not.
Alex just looked down his nose at him without saying anything.
Buddy soon realized that squirming was not getting him anywhere. Neither was cussing, although cussing made him feel a little better. He slipped the lighter back into his hand. Ignoring a mental image of barbecued Buddy, he applied the flame to his bonds. Thankfully, they did not catch fire, even more thankfully, they began to soften under the heat. He hoped they were loosening fast enough.
Matt was tired. He hurt all over. And he was still in the woods.
"When the hound is out of options, it may be wise to call the lion."
"You're right Bruce, it is time to call the authorities, but which ones? We started this whole thing because there weren't any agencies able to handle Venom."
"The Peaceful Nations Alliance is set up to handle international crises, and I think that Venom certainly fits that category," Alex said.
"Could be. Duane Kennedy is head of security for the PNA," Matt said thoughtfully. "I've met him enough times that I think he would listen to me. I'll give him a ring when he gets to his office."
"Are we going to leave the burglar glued to the floor until morning?" Scott asked, somewhat sleepily. "And what about the security?"
The computer interrupted before anyone could answer.
"Alert! Smoke detected in the vicinity of the prisoner."
"Oh, give me a break!" Matt moaned as they went charging out the door.
Buddy had accidently set his jacket smoldering in his attempt to get free,. It did help to loosen the bonds, and the goop itself prevented Buddy from being charbroiled in the process. He pulled free just as the four MASK agents burst into the room.
"Ah, gimme a break!"
Bruce was first in and Buddy, having great respect for that lifting mask of his, charged him head on, knocking the smaller man into the wall.
Hawks was on his last legs, but he wasn't about to let them see him falter. Whirling, he lashed out at Alex with a savate kick that winded the scientist before he could "Penetrator On." Hawks continued around in a circle and his next kick caught Bruce as he bounced off the wall and threw the inventor into Matt, stunning them both.
Hondo, distaining any further use of fancy gadgets, entered the room with a flying leap and hit Buddy with a tackle that did football player Scott's heart good.
Buddy slammed back first into the metal shutter that closed off the room from the safety outside. Hondo got to his feet and Buddy hit him back with a credible tackle. The two men went rolling on the floor and the larger Hondo wound up on top. Hondo twisted and tried to get a hammerlock on the squirming mass of fury beneath him. Alex leaped forward and grabbed one of Hawks' arms and applied torsion.
Hawks yelped and grabbed Alex's hand and rolled over, pulling Alex on top of Hondo. Then Buddy drew his knees up and managed to kick both of them away from him.
He scrambled to his hands and knees and Bruce leaped onto his back. Buddy stood up, stooped over, grabbed the Japanese inventor by the shoulders and flung him on top of Alex and Hondo.
Matt stepped up with a ceramic vase he had picked up from an end table, and broke it over Buddy Hawks' head. Buddy dropped to the carpet without a sound.
Matt glared at the burglar, breathing heavily and looking as though he wanted to bash him again, for good measure.
"Dad!"
Matt looked around in surprise, and became civilized again. "Scott! Didn't I tell you to stay put?"
"No," Scott answered truthfully.
"Oh."
Alex, Bruce, and Hondo got to their feet and looked at the intruder in astonishment. It seemed unreal, somehow, that a simple blow to the head could put him out of commission.
"Is he dead?" Scott asked, with a sort of horrified fascination.
Matt pulled his mask off, feeling like he was going to be sick. "God, I hope not."
Alex checked. "No, merely knocked out. I doubt that vase was heavy enough to do any serious damage."
The invader stirred and groaned as if to confirm the diagnosis.
"We'd better arrange for a doctor when we get hold of Kennedy," Alex went on. "But in the meantime, we need someplace to keep him."
"How about in the vault?" Scott suggested.
"That's sounds reasonable," Matt agreed. "And let's tie him up just to be safe. Duane should be in his office soon. It's already daylight on the East Coast. I hate to be a party poop, guys, but I want some sleep."
"It is always a good idea to declaw the tiger before caging him," Bruce pointed out.
"It's also a good idea to speak in English," complained Alex. "Let's search this blighter before we do anything else with him."
"That's what Bruce said," Matt translated mildly.
"No he didn't. He's blithering about tigers again!"
A thorough search turned up all sorts of interesting burglar tools, but no identification, and no weapons.
"No weapons? I say, that is most peculiar," Alex said thoughtfully, as Hondo and Matt tied up their moaning guest. "I'd think the museum raiders would be well armed."
Matt shook his head wearily. "This is beyond me guys, I don't even want to think about this again before breakfast."
The put the invader in the room where Matt kept his household funds and his blueprints. Since Hondo was the only one who had gotten any sleep that night, he volunteered to keep watch. They figured that ought to hold the burglar until reinforcements arrived.
They figured wrong.
In the next installment:
A great escape, a dramatic revelation,
more blithering about tigers,
and Buddy Hawks finally stays "got."