A/N: In my shameful layoff, I lost track of how I was numbering the chapters originally. This is back to my original numbering. But it's too hard to fix Just for Kicks and the first two chapters of Masquerade Rock, so I won't.

The Origin of MASK
Chapter 19: Masquerade Rock, Part 3

By Jelsemium and/or Qweb

Buddy made a face at Gloria, then he noticed Brad. "All right!" Buddy enthused "Brad Turner! Can I have your autograph?"

Turner looked ill and sat down heavily in a handy chair.

Buddy looked at the others in bewilderment. "What did I say?"

"It's a long story," Matt said mildly.

Ace went over to the phone, as Dusty, Hondo and Scott entered through the still open door.

Dusty looked at the singer in concern. "Brad! You sick or sumpthin'?"

Brad looked at the stuntman's worried face and grinned wryly. "Sick? Why should I be sick? I just found out that I am surrounded by terrorists, my trusted manager has probably defected, my charity video is not for charity and Something Awful is going to happen at the concert tomorrow. Other than that, I'm fine."

"Oh, good," Dusty said in relief. "Well, your troubles are over, MASK is here to save the day. Hondo, these are our new recruits — Brad Turner and Ace Riker. Brad, Ace, this here's Hondo McLean…"

Ace nodded from across the room, and Brad leaped to his feet.

"The football player?" Brad exclaimed "Oh, Wow! Can I have your autograph?"

After Brad and Hondo exchanged autographs, Hondo turned to Matt.

"So, what's Venom up to this time?" the tactician asked.

"We don't know yet," Buddy answered. "But I'm going to find out."

He picked up his "art kit" from the floor and headed out.

"Wait a minute," Hondo put a hand on Buddy's chest and brought the spy to a screeching halt.

"Hey!" Buddy screeched.

"You aren't going anyplace without a backup," Hondo informed him. "We just had a run in with Outlaw, Jackhammer and Vampire. Mayhem may be on the alert for us now."

A detailed report of the fight followed, leaving Brad and Ace wide eyed with wonder and Gloria fuming over a missed battle.

"You did good, guys," Matt said deadpanned.

Everyone hissed. Then Gloria turned to Buddy.

"Don't get your 'back up'," she said, "but I'm going with you to help."

Buddy hesitated, "I don't want you to get hurt," he said.

"I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

Buddy realized that words wouldn't stop Gloria. So he just shrugged and led the way.

It took the disheveled Mayhem and Warfield a long time to get Jackhammer out of the ditch. By the time they returned to the road, Malloy had recovered and was maneuvering Outlaw back onto the road.

When the forger reported seeing a plane, Mayhem stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Hmm, must've been smugglers or something," the Venom leader mused. "Nothing to do with us."

"Are we going to check out that field?"

"No, it's too busy, let's go," Mayhem ordered. "We'll find another landing field."

Meanwhile, back in Boulder Hill, Alex returned to the study to find Calhoun driving Gloria's 'Shark' along the bottom of the fish tank. Condor and Thunderhawk chased each other around the room as if held by invisible hands.

The fiery haired Briton snorted explosively.

"Gentlemen, if it's not to much trouble, we have some work to do. I want our little surprise set up and ready by the time Matt gets back with the new recruit. I'll get Bruce, you collect Julio and we'll meet in the bunker in twenty minutes.

Calhoun guiltily withdrew from the fish tank, acutely aware that Miss Manners would not approve of chasing your host's guppies around. Jacques froze in mid-chase and wished he could disappear. Then he remembered that he already had and gave an involuntarily snicker.

Alex snorted again and left the room.

Alex was annoyed, and annoyed at himself for being annoyed. He was beginning to remind himself of the cranky old aunt who had raised him after his parents were killed. The thought of becoming like his Aunt Lavinia was enough to scare him into resolving to try to keep his temper.

Bruce's door was still open, so Alex just walked in. He found the design genius sprawled on the floor engaged in a fierce duel between the newly completed Raven Corvette model and the semi-completed Slingshot RV prototype.

Alex rolled his eyes and sighed. So much for his resolution.

Thunderhawk danced and whirled through the air as the quintet on ground gasped and gawped. Matt made a perfect four-point landing and got out with a flourish. The aerial finale was greeted with enthusiastic applause.

Earlier, Hondo had put Firecracker though her paces. Then Dusty had recreated parts of his infamous "pizza ride," following the route he and his pizza truck had taken to save Matt from Venom, at least the parts of the wild ride that went though uninhabited areas. He had also shown off Gator's jet boat.

Gloria, not having a vehicle, showed off her Aura mask in a battle against Matt's Spectrum, Dusty's Backlash and Hondo's Blaster.

"That was terrific!" Ace said with admiration. "Do I get a flying car also?"

"Not exactly," hedged Matt. "Here, let me show you a computer simulation of the 'Slingshot' vehicle."

Matt punched in some instructions to Thunderhawks computer. Ace, as guest of honor, since it was his vehicle on display, sat in the passenger seat of Thunderhawk as the others crowded around.

A cartoon of a sleek recreational vehicle appeared on the screen. Ace felt a severe let down.

"A flying camper?" he said in disappointment. "Um, I kind of hoped for something a little more…"

Matt laughed, "Don't judge a MASK vehicle by its looks, my good man. Remember, in our business 'Illusion is the ultimate weapon.'"

Matt pointed to a little white button on the dashboard.

"Push that," he invited the test pilot.

Ace obediently pushed the button and the cartoon RV raced forward and suddenly split open and spat out a sleek, deadly looking scarlet mini-jet. The shell of the RV went into action against cartoon figures of Venom, as the little plane accelerated and then joined the fight.

"When will this 'Slingshot' be ready?" Ace asked. "Or is it ready now?" he added hopefully.

Matt shook his head. "I had a run in with Venom," he said by way of apology. "We hired out some work on my Spectrum mask and they found out about it. Now we have to do most of the work ourselves and it's slow going. Slingshot's the most complicated, and last on the lineup. You have three vehicles waiting in front of yours."

"What about me?" Brad asked from Ace's side.

"Your vehicle is a pain in the behind, pardner," Dusty, the test driver, informed him. "I can't make it work in motorcycle mode no how. I ain't been throwed so many times since the rodeo when somebody spiked my drinkin' water."

"Motorcycle mode?" Brad said curiously. "What else is it? A helicopter?"

"Uh huh," Matt said somewhat uninformatively. The MASK leader pushed some more buttons, and a cartoon version of Condor sprang into action on Thunderhawk's screen."

Brad whistled, "What a beauty. Where is she?"

"Right here," Hondo said.

Brad turned to see Hondo lifting a tarp-covered object from the back of Firecracker. Hondo set the light motorcycle down on its wheels and whipped off the concealing canvas.

Brad looked at the lime green motorcycle with its gleaming black trim. His eyes widened, his blood pressure rose, his breath quickened, and his pulse hit hyper drive. It was lust at first sight.

"Count me in," was the first coherent thing he got from his throat.

Matt and Dusty wouldn't let Brad touch Condor until he was all suited up. Matt had used the computer to help him design the lemon yellow and plum purple flight suit. Brad adjusted the suit as best he could without a mirror. It fit well enough, but the electronic components and the padding made it rather uncomfortable.

"Lemon yellow? Plum purple? Lime green? Whoever came up with this color scheme must have been hungry," Brad commented. Scott blushed. He had wanted to help, so Bruce told him to add color to the costume designs.

"Why all the padding?" the singer continued.

"One, to help disguise you," Matt replied. "Two, to keep you warm upstairs, and three, to help cushion any spills you may take. It won't save you from a really bad crash, but it will help."

"And all the gizmos?"

"To help with this," Matt held up the ugliest mask Brad had seen since last October. It was yellow and roughly square in shape. The muzzle looked like someone had taken that yappy little pug that Brad's mother had bought and pushed its face all the way in. There was no neck to speak of (to guard against whiplash, Brad deduced) and the dark visor was split horizontally across the middle, like bifocals.

"This is 'Hocus Pocus', Matt said proudly. "The world's smallest hologram projector."

"How does it work?" Brad asked.

"Well, in your backpack here," Matt explained, poking Brad in the appropriate component, "is a tiny computer library. It has millions of images stored in it. You order 'Hocus Pocus, on' then give a subvocal description of what you want and the image will appear. Bruce assures me that after a little practice, you'll be able to make the images move and even create your own."

Matt helped Brad adjust the bulky thing.

"Try it out," Matt instructed. "Try an image of Condor."

"Hocus Pocus, ON!" Brad said firmly. Another Condor appeared next to the first.

"Wow, why didn't Bruce market that?" Hondo exclaimed in awe.

Matt laughed, "The same reason I didn't sell Lifter, or my batteries. Too expensive and too wasteful. Which reminds me…" Matt turned towards the rock star. "Brad? Don't use that too long at a time, it uses power faster than any of the other masks. And those batteries will try and drain you when they start to run down. I don't want to risk burning you out."

Brad reluctantly turned of the hologram.

"Can I try Condor now?" he asked eagerly.

Matt nodded, "O.K., but be…"

The blond inventor was talking to empty space, since Brad was now headed down the vacant field. He went about 20 yards before Condor threw him over the handlebars onto his face.

The others rushed over, as Brad picked himself up and pulled off his helmet.

Brad looked at the cycle dreamily.

"I love a girl who plays hard to get," he sighed.

Alex was annoyed, ticked off, and extremely exasperated.

"Matt's recruited someone without consulting me?" he said aggrievedly. "We don't know anything about this Riker chap. He could be anybody, we don't even know if he's qualified."

"Buddy seems to think he's qualified," Bruce said, "And the computer confirms…"

Alex sighed heavily. "I'm supposed to be the one who uses the computer to check out people." The red-bearded Briton snorted, then stalked out of Bruce's workroom.

Bruce was surprised at Alex's irritability, to say the least. Though he hadn't known the man very long, he had a feeling that Alex was acting out of character. Perhaps he was working too hard?

"The eagle that flies too long may wind up walking home," he mused.

Then he sighed, things were getting pretty bad when even he couldn't understand what he was saying. It was time to join the others.

The lemon yellow flight suit was beginning to look like camouflage fatigues. Brad picked himself up for the dozenth time and consulted with Matt again.

"We need a little more adjustment on the airfoils," Brad noted. "Also, if we make the rotor blades and the brace a little heavier, Condor should act a little more ladylike."

The free-spirited musician revved up his cycle and headed back across the field.

"Where are you goin'?" Dusty asked in astonishment.

"Up!" Brad called cheerfully. Condor sprouted rotor blades and sprang for the heavens.

Matt covered his eyes, he couldn't bear to look.

He needn't have panicked just then. Condor in the air was as co-operative as a well-trained dog. It was the landing that was painful.

Rax stuffed the remains of his hamburger into his mouth as he trailed out of the restaurant behind his boss. Mayhem flagged a taxi and gave the driver the address.

Rax kept looking out the back window.

"What are you looking for?" Mayhem growled.

"That pizza truck could be around here someplace," Rax muttered.

"Rax, don't be so paranoid", Mayhem snarled.

"Pizza truck?" the cab driver asked.

"Driven by a jealous husband," Mayhem said hastily. "He's been after my friend for days."

"I'd notice if somebody was following me," volunteered the cabbie. "I got hijacked once and I'm paranoid about people sneaking up behind me. I'll let you know if I spot a pizza truck."

"Thanks," Rax said. He leaned back and relaxed.

"Anytime," Buddy Hawks told him.

Gloria followed Rax and Mayhem out of the restaurant only to see them driving off in the cab Buddy had borrowed from one of his contacts. She ran to her car, but it wouldn't start. She could only watch helplessly as the cab turned a corner and vanished.

Gloria yanked open the hood of the Buddy's rented car, and found the distributor cap sitting neatly on top of the battery. Buddy always preferred to work alone.

"Blast you, Buddy Hawks," she muttered angrily, but with an undertone of worry. "Now you've really got my 'back up.'"

Grumbling to herself, she went back inside to see what she could learn from Bruno and Dagger who were on their third round of food.

Buddy parked the cab and made his way back to where he had dropped off Rax and Mayhem. The Hotel Blue Skies (aka Hotel White Elephant) had been intended for tourists coming to the '84 summer Olympics. It hadn't been completed in time and the owners had taken a tremendous loss on it.

No one wanted to come to the place, since it was in a bad neighborhood. The owners couldn't sell it, or even give it away, so they had just boarded it up and used it as a tax deduction. It was perfect for Venom.

Buddy slipped into the building easily, Venom hadn't had time to really set up an effective alarm system. There'd be no getting trapped in here like he had in the Trakker mansion.

He slunk through the garage cautiously, taking note of the damage to Outlaw, Jackhammer, and Vampire. Not that he had doubted Dusty and Hondo, but it was nice to get confirmation.

He heard voices and followed them. He loitered in the hall until he heard them start for the door.

When Mayhem and Rax left the room to go to the garage, the hallway was empty.

It wasn't for long, Buddy slid out of the room he had hidden in and headed for the door of the room they had just left. It was locked, but he got the door open quickly and began to search the room. There were all sorts of interesting gadgets and complicated blueprints, but the spy ignored them for the time being.

He knew there was no way that Dagger, Sheppard or Malloy were going to be able to understand those blueprints. Hawks hoped that Mayhem would have something simple in writing for his less intelligent employees. Putting the plan in writing would be foolish, but maybe there was something to explain the equipment…?

"Ah HA!" Buddy thought to himself, "This is more like it!"

A photograph session followed, then Buddy tidied up, snuck out of the room and relocked it.

He had almost made it to the door of the lobby, when the lights went on and Rax's voice said triumphantly.

"See! I told you, but you wouldn't listen to me would you? Well, there's your proof!"

Matt finally got Alex on the phone.

"Ah, finally," Matt said. "Have you heard about the new recruit yet?"

"Bruce told me," Alex said drily.

"Good," Matt said a trifle apologetically. "He seems like he'll fit in. And it's a good thing, too. I meant to have you check him out more thoroughly before I approached him, but things have been getting out of hand here."

"I see," was Alex's noncommittal reply. "I take it Buddy has been in touch with you?"

"Yes, we've seen him," Matt said. The leader of MASK filled Alex in on everything that had been happening.

"And right now Buddy and Gloria are trying to find out what Venom has up its sleeve," Matt finished.

"Gloria went off with Buddy?" Alex inquired with some surprise. "The poor girl. I doubt the relation will last long, however."

"Alex, you've been hanging around Bruce too long," an amused Matt informed his friend. "What do you mean?"

"I'd wager that Buddy finds some excuse to dump Gloria off somewhere," Alex said. "Or maybe he'll just get on her nerves so much she leaves on her own."

"What makes you say that?"

"Just a hunch."

Brad let Gloria into the suite just then. She found Hondo watching the news and Matt on the phone.

"Where are Dusty, Ace and Scott?" she asked.

"Ace went back to his hotel," Hondo replied. "He promised to call his wife again, and he decided he wanted some privacy to tell her how much he missed her. Scott and Dusty went to pay their respects to this pizza cook that Dusty knows."

"I see," Gloria said.

"Where's Buddy?"

"Driving Venom around in his taxi," Gloria said drily.

"With no back up?" Matt asked.

"I heard that, and I rest my case," Alex said in his ear. "Well, I'll let you get back to work. Our little homework project is almost finished. See you soon."

"Goodbye, Alex. Give my regards to the others, and ask them to stick around if they can. I have an idea for some more training, sort of a boot camp for MASK agents."

"Will do," Alex promised.

Matt hung up and sighed heavily. He looked over at Gloria.

"I'm sorry, Matt," she started.

Matt waved her apology away.

"It's not your fault," he exonerated her. "Duane Kennedy warned us that Hawks wasn't the best team player around." He looked over at Hondo. "I'm expecting you to teach him the joys of teamwork."

"My pleasure, Matt," Hondo said grinning wickedly.

Gloria was begging for a chance to help tame Hawks when Dusty and Scott returned with three and a half large pepperoni pizzas with double cheese.

Buddy froze, he could tell that the Venom agents weren't looking at him, but the slightest movement would attract their attention. He stood perfectly still in a half crouch in the doorway between the lobby and the rear hallway. He wasn't in shadow, but his drab clothing was about the same color as the wood. Fortunately, he had chosen to wear a brown cap, instead of his usual eye-catching red one. If neither Rax nor Mayhem looked directly at him, he might go unnoticed.

Rax went over to a pile of luggage. "Where are those binoculars?" Rax found the required item and turned to Mayhem. "Turn out the lights, already."

The lights went out and so did Buddy. The last thing he heard was…

"See, a pizza truck!"

"It's not the same one," Mayhem snarled. "It's not even the same kind!"

"So? Maybe it has relatives."

Buddy shook his head and made his way outside and back to his cab.

There was a knock at the suite's door.

"That had better be Buddy," Matt muttered.

It was. Hawks came in and made a beeline for the pizza and helped himself.

"After Buddy left me all alone…" Gloria paused to glower at him. Buddy shrugged.

Gloria made a face at him and continued.

"… I made friends with Dagger and Sheppard. They were boasting about all the money that they were going to be given soon," Gloria continued. "I asked if they were going to rob somebody, but they said that people were going to give them the money."

"That makes sense," Buddy said around his pizza. "Mayhem has a laser show that's downright mesmerizing."

"How so?" Matt inquired.

"Apparently the laser show will hypnotize people," Buddy reported.

"And then they just hand over all their pocket money and jewelry," Gloria interrupted.

"Well, if that ain't the nastiest dang scheme I ever heard," Dusty said indignantly.

"On a scale of one to ten, cowboy, that's barely a one-half," Buddy said lightly, but without any real humor. "So, boss," Buddy asked his fearless leader. "What do we do now? Take on Venom with what we've got?"

Matt shook his head. "No, we need more training before we have an open confrontation with Venom." Suddenly the multi-millionaire philanthropist grinned wickedly.

"But I think I know how we can handle them," Matt told them.

Normally, Brad's "pre-show jitters" helped psyche him up for his performance. But today the prospect of violence was distracting him from getting ready. He glanced towards the wings, where two very unusual "sound technicians" were also getting ready for tonight's "performance".

Gloria looked over from stage left and smiled slightly as Brad broke yet another string on his guitar. Gloria was happy that Matt had allowed her to wear Aura. The mask made her feel ready for anything. She looked around at the opening act, Brad's group, the hangers-on and even the technicians in their goggles and soundproof ear muffs.

"Aura and Blaster don't even look out of place here," she muttered.

Hondo, over at stage right, picked up Gloria's words on his earphones and flashed her a thumbs up sign. They had been prepared to tell anybody that the masks were a new form of sound mufflers, but nobody had even looked at them twice. Not even the technicians seemed curious about the addition of the two oddly dressed MASK agents.

The history teacher pushed the curtain open and looked out into the audience, trying to spot Matt and Dusty. Matt was easy to spot, the tickets Brad had given them were right in the front row. Dusty, acting as usher, was harder to spot. But Hondo finally located the cowboy when Dusty waved at him from the cheap seat section.

Dusty saw Hondo peeking out from backstage and waved cheerfully, then he went back to seating folks. Matt had protested making Dusty work while Matt sat around. But Dusty had pointed out that too many people at the concert would know who Matt was and would wonder why he was ushering. Of course, Hollywood stuntman Dusty Hayes was familiar to a lot of them, too. But nobody would question why Dusty would need to take such a menial job.

Besides, Dusty was enjoying himself. He caught Matt looking back at him and grinned cheerfully. Matt made a faint attempt to smile back, then sat back in his chair.

Matt sighed to himself. At least Dusty was happy. Scott, on the other hand, would probably sulk for a week. And considering the abrupt way that Matt had bundled his son onto the airplane home, he couldn't blame the boy a bit. But at least Scott was out of this fight. Alex had called and assured Matt that Scott had not managed to jump off the airplane between California and Nevada.

Matt settled back farther in his seat and tried to spot Ace and Buddy in the rafters. But the revolving globe in the center of the roof shed too much light for him to spot them.

Buddy could see Matt up in front trying to locate them. He decided against going forward, moving way up here made him uncomfortable. Ace smiled at Buddy from behind his goggles with just the slightest hint of superiority. Ace liked high places. Buddy adjusted his earmuffs and made a face at the pilot. He was better at pretending to be a technician than Ace was, but Ace had a better head for heights. Not that the spy was exactly an acrophobic, but he moved over the beams and catwalk with far more caution than Ace used.

"Wipe that grin off your face, fly boy," Buddy ordered, "The show is about to begin."

"This is it, Mayhem," Vanessa remarked somewhat nervously. After all, she had never performed in front of such a large audience before, not to mention her favorite singer. She wondered if it would be possible to get Turner's autograph somehow.

If Mayhem was nervous, he didn't show it. His only reaction to the curtain rising was to put on his mask. Vanessa followed suit, although she kept her audio receptors on so she could listen.

About one-fourth of the way into the concert, Brad planned to take a break to rotate the scenery for the video, and to thank the heavy donators for their aid. Mayhem planned to make his move then, at the natural time to ask for more money. Gorey would start the hypno-laser show and put the audience in a light trance, then Mayhem would get them all to write large checks for his favorite charity, himself.

The music stopped, he signaled Gorey, the light show started and . . .

"It's not working!" observed Rax from his lookout seat in the middle of the auditorium.

"I can see that!" roared Mayhem. "Gorey, you pea-brained bungler, it's not working!"

"I … I don't understand it!" wailed Gorey. He pushed buttons and turned knobs frenziedly. "It should be working!"

"Well it's not!" snarled Mayhem.

Matt adjusted the volume of the pocket radio that Buddy had set to Venom's frequency and laughed to himself. He made sure to keep the Spectrum component aimed at the revolving globe in the center of the room. As long as Spectrum's neutralizing beam canceled out Gorey's hypno-beam, then Venom was stymied. They were hardly likely to haul out the heavy ammunition and start shooting.

As Matt thought that, the entire back of the stage disintegrated into a swarm of flying bullets and equally deadly splinters of wood.

A dozen ear-muffed and goggled "technicians" burst onto the stage waving uzis and semi-automatic machine pistols. Six poured out from the rear and three from each side to prevent any escape. The stage was too high off of the ground to permit a frontal assault.

"Die, Turner! You imperialist, warmongering hypocrite!" the leader exclaimed.

"What the devil!" exclaimed Mayhem.

Matt heard Mayhem's exclamation and added a few choice swear words himself as he ducked the shrapnel. His involuntary reaction moved Spectrum out of line with the revolving hypno-ball. And then Gorey's frantically stepped up light show went into effect. Instead of going into a light trance, everyone who was not protected, including Matt and Dusty, went into a sound sleep.

In the next episode:
Venom has left the building
and the new MASK agents take center stage.