Chapter Thirty-one
No Clowning Around
Billy stared at the gas nozzle, amazed. Trini had had to show him how to swipe his card in the reader, and he'd been utterly awed at the automatic setting on the nozzle. Here he was, years ahead of Earth's technology, and yet unable to work a gas pump without help. Now that he thought about it, there must be dozens of things he hadn't heard about. The cell phone craze had come, of course, after he'd left; pagers had been all the rage back when he was in high school. He'd heard about cell phones, and the Internet had gotten exponentially better, but the credit card craze had taken him by surprise, and Trini was now cheerfully telling him about MP3 players while she rechecked the flight system. It suddenly occurred to him that one of the main things he'd enjoyed about Aquitar was the new, challenging technology, the opportunities for an inventor like him… and yet now that he'd been away from Earth so long, he'd have all the same things here.
"Excuse me."
Billy turned to see the harassed-looking mother from the next pump standing sheepishly behind him, holding onto her son with one hand and a piece of paper and pen with the other. Trini curiously came over to stand on Billy's other side. "Listen, I know this is kind of strange," she said nervously, "but… could I have your autograph?"
Billy stared at her. He'd spent a good deal of time lately talking about being a Ranger, especially today. He'd also never been asked for his autograph while out of uniform by anyone for more than one reason. These two things combined to make him say, before he could stop himself, "I'm not the Red Ranger."
Trini whacked his arm even as he winced and mentally kicked himself. The woman stared at him.
"No, no," she said in confusion, "I—"
"You're a Power Ranger?" the kid asked eagerly.
"No," Billy said firmly. "I just… someone asked me that earlier… Power Ranger craze, you know… anyway, why do you want my autograph?" he asked desperately.
The woman leaned a little closer. "Well, he's just learning about the concept of people on TV shows not being real people, and I explained about actors and fans and autographs, and now he wants yours because… well… he thinks you're a clown." She gave him a helpless look.
Billy blinked. "Uh… why?"
"Welllllllll… your car is a bit odd," she replied apologetically. "And, um, you're dressed a little… funny."
Billy looked down at himself through a curtain of messy hair. The oil streaks still dotted his skin like badly-applied war paint. His baggy jeans were, according to Jason, technically in style, but not when the cuffs were rolled up and they were belted about three inches above the waist. Zack's T-shirt (which said "Remember my name—you'll be screaming it later") and the ratty polo beneath it weren't helping any. He supposed he was probably dressed exactly like a man who'd been living on an alien planet would dress upon returning—or, at least, he was dressed exactly like a nerd with delusions of skater punk.
"Please," she said out of the corner of her mouth, "just give him an autograph, or he'll scream all the way home."
Billy started to say something, but just then the car rocked violently and screams of rage and possibly pain sounded from the trunk. As the woman looked at the trunk in horror, Tommy appeared and flung open the hood, revealing Conner and Ethan, who were having a fistfight as best they could in such tight quarters.
"Will you two shut up in there? You're about to get to see something only twelve people have ever seen. You're in the coolest car ever made. And it really hurts to fall out of a trunk at a thousand feet up, get me? Be quiet, behave, and be nice, or I'll make sure you don't see anything more interesting than a cactus on this trip. Or a poisonous snake. I can hear you guys all the way in the back seat."
"Sorry, Dr. O," Conner and Ethan chorused meekly.
Billy looked warily at the kid's mother, who stared at Tommy for a minute before shaking her head, as if forcefully throwing out all disturbed thoughts. All she wanted was a clown's autograph, and she didn't care too much about the fact that the pseudo-clowns were storing two guys in a cramped trunk.
"Wow," said the little kid as Tommy calmly slammed the hood back down. "So that's how they gets all the clowns in the car!"
"One autograph, coming right up," Billy said hastily, taking the pen and paper from her and hoping her son wasn't old enough to be able to read his shirt. He braced the paper against the back windshield and wrote, "Billy Cranston, Clown Extraordinaire" on it.
"I'm Davy. What's your name?" the little boy asked him.
"Billy."
"No, silly, what's your clown name?" he asked, obviously assuming Billy wasn't very bright.
"Uh… Bobo?" Billy added "Also known as Bobo" to the paper.
"Nice to meet you, Bobo. Can you do balloon animals?"
"Um… heh." Billy looked desperately at the mother for help.
"Billy, man, you ready?" Zack asked, coming over with a multitude of plastic bags full of snacks.
"What's your clown name?" Davy asked Zack.
"Tinkle," Zack replied promptly.
"Can you do balloon animals?"
"No," Zack said apologetically. "But, hey, check this out." With that, Zack launched into a five-minute dance routine, complete with flips and spinning on his head. Before long, a small crowd had gathered to watch, and Zack's friends were staring.
"What are you guys doing out there?" Ethan yelled from the trunk, effectively ending Zack's dance. Several people applauded, none so loudly as the little boy.
Kimberly, who'd been trying to stuff Tommy's formerly pocketed belongings into her purse, came over to them. "Are we ready?"
"Sorry, little man, we gotta go," Zack told the beaming, awed little boy. "Mr. Blue the Grumpy Juggler needs a nap, and Pink Ptera the Amazing Acrobat still has to pick up her costume from the drycleaners."
"Only you, Zack," said Tommy, who'd been watching Zack's display with exasperated amusement.
"What's your clown name?" the boy asked Tommy.
"That's Butch, the Multicolored Strong Man," Zack explained. "And this here is Madam Kwan, the Lion Tamer. Bobo here… well, he just gets hit with the pies. And the guy over there in the red shirt pretending not to know me is Jane the Bearded Lady."
"She doesn't have a beard," Davy said suspiciously.
"She shaved it for today. That way it grows back faster and doesn't get as much food stuck in it."
"I want to be the fire-eater!" Conner shouted from the trunk.
"Okay!" Zack called back.
"Thank you," gasped out the mother, who by now was trying to control a fit of laughter and failing miserably. The gaggle of people who'd been watching them went back to their gas pumps, also laughing. She and her son bid them goodbye after getting autographs for "Tinkle," "Butch," "Pink Terra" (Kimberly changed the spelling to sound less conspicuous) and "Madam Kwan."
"What was that all about?" Jason asked as the others came back to the car.
"Just doing our part to inspire the youth of America," Zack said cheerfully, popping open the passenger door. He paused. "Aw, look, they're making out. How cute." Tommy glanced through the window just in time to see Kira and Trent jerk guiltily apart.
Once Zack got settled and got all the shopping bags settled on his lap, Tommy hopped in. It occurred to him the moment he sat down that now Kimberly couldn't sit on Zack's lap if she wanted to—which could have been accidental on Jason and Zack's part, but he doubted it. Probably just another conspiracy brought to you by the Annoying Friends of Dr. Tommy Oliver Foundation. However, he determinedly ignored this insight and looked expectantly at Kimberly. She sat back easily, sitting on his right hip with her legs stretched out towards the middle of the car. He put his arm around her waist, almost automatically, and she leaned back comfortably.
Once again, as Trini started to sit down, she gave him a smug sort of look, but he simply smiled back, not caring. She raised an eyebrow, slightly confused, and his grin deepened. She could play games all she wanted; he was perfectly capable of straightening things out with Kimberly. There was nothing Trini could force him to do. Moreover, most of what she'd said hadn't been lost on him. He did need to fix things with Kimberly. He did need to repair the team, so that they were six again, not two groups of five. He just wasn't going to do it Trini's way; he wasn't sure Trini's goals were his anymore.
"Hey, Kira," Tommy called calmly, extending an arm over Zack's head. "Is this yours?"
"My favorite guitar pick! Where'd you find it?"
"No idea. You must have left it in the lab or something," Tommy replied as Kira slipped it into her pocket.
"You still have to sing me some of those songs you wrote," Kimberly said.
"Yeah! And I want to hear yours. Did you find apple juice, Zack?"
"Uh… it's in here somewhere."
Billy drove back towards his house, where the traffic was very thin and there was less chance of getting spotted, before going airborne. While Conner and Ethan had started up again, they dissolved into fits of "WHEE!" once they realized they were flying. Trent and Kira both stared out the window in amazement, while the others looked down with nostalgia (save Trini, who stuck mostly to giving Billy directions around the new airport and out into the mountains as best she could without looking at the ground).
"I believe this is the correct route," Billy said at length. "Everyone keep a look out."
It was difficult to find the right mountain, especially from the air, as it looked a lot different than it once had, without the Command Center on top. But they'd gone to the Command Center many times in the RADBUG, and the double peak of the mountain stood out a bit. Only Tommy had been back since its destruction, but he'd been on the ground and utterly lost at the time, so he wasn't much help. Still, they managed to find it, after a mere half hour of searching the surrounding trees.
"Whew," Trini said as the car set down on a reasonably flat cliff. "About time." She struggled to find the door handle and hopped out. "Be careful climbing out, guys; you'll go rolling to your deaths if you trip and fall."
"Are we there yet?" Conner yelled from the trunk.
"I'll go let them out," Trini offered.
"Aw, I was getting so used to them in the trunk," Kira said, only half joking.
They climbed out of the car, and then Billy and Trini took a moment to double-check the trunk latch and make sure that the flight systems and so on were still operational. "This is it," Jason announced, spreading his arms out to encompass the wilderness. "The secret hiding place of the base of the first Power Rangers."
"I used to love hanging out around here," Trini said with a grin. "It was so… peaceful. So removed from the rest of the world."
"It was a bitch to hike around here, though," Kimberly joked. "Oh, look, guys! Down there. That's where we first got attacked by Putties. Right after we walked out on Zordon. I remember that rock formation."
Zack laughed. "The first time we were in the Command Center, we were all, 'Okay, yeah, superheroes, whatever. Later on.' Except for Jason; I practically had to drag him out. Anyway, the second time, right after our first zord fight, we were all, 'Whoo! That was awesome!'"
"Hey, Trini," Jason called. "Isn't right over there that spot where we—"
Trini clamped a hand over his mouth. "Reminisce about that later, honey." Jason cleared his throat and nodded. Kimberly giggled; Tommy avoided her gaze. He and Kimberly had also spent a lot of time alone out in the mountains. It was much more private out here than at the park.
They climbed to the summit, shortly above where they'd parked the car, pointing out certain spots to the Dino Rangers, such as "There's where we fixed the zords after the zord wreck," and "Over there, we were taking a walk and somehow Zack accidentally antagonized some vultures and we panicked. Ended up morphing and jumping right off the mountain." However, when they reached the spot where the Command Center had once stood, everyone fell silent, simply staring at the empty terrain.
"And that's where the Command Center used to be," Billy said quietly.
They stood there, all of them now choked up. "It's just… gone," Kimberly said. "I thought… I thought there'd be some sort of sign that it used to be there. Crumbled stone or something."
"I'm not sure what happened to it all," Tommy said. "I think… I think the building resettled or something, like it did after the Command Center blew up, when it became the Power Chamber. I think it just… reformed, into something hidden, more secretive, more… dormant, because there's still a good deal of stuff left, it's just all below the surface now, as if the Chamber sunk down a level and sealed itself off. I couldn't find an entrance from up here. Then I remembered the tunnels and caves."
Silence prevailed once again. They had mourned Zordon and Alpha, hung on to hope that they were still alive… but it hadn't hit home that Zordon was gone until they saw the blank spot on the mountain.
Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent hovered uncertainly at the edge of the group. While they'd been really excited about the idea of seeing the former lab, they now felt that they were intruding upon some private moment, meant only for the eyes of Tommy, Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly and Zack.
"Kira," Tommy said slowly, not looking at her, a hitch in his voice that even Conner caught. He pointed back down the mountain a ways, where two trees stood oddly close together in front of an outcropping of rock. "There's an entrance right down there; slip past those two trees and you'll be in the cave. Follow the tunnel and then head up the stairs. Why don't you take the guys and go on ahead?"
"Sure." Kira nodded at Ethan, took Trent's hand and Conner's arm, and headed over to the entrance in question, immediately realizing that Tommy had singled her out because she would be the first one to notice his distress; he knew she would usher the guys off quickly and quietly and keep them from asking awkward questions or upsetting Tommy and his friends further. But if Tommy had looked at the Dino Thunder teens, he would have known they already knew what was going on. Regardless, Kira motioned for the guys to slip through the passage. Though she knew the guys understood why Dr. O was sending them ahead, she dutifully made them go first, following them after shooting Tommy a sympathetic look. She had a sudden vision of Hayley's Cyberspace reduced to rubble, with Tommy and Hayley's lifeless bodies lying next to where the café should be. The thought made her stomach twist violently, tears pricking her eyes, and she gently pushed on Ethan's back, urging him to speed up their departure to give the older Rangers their privacy.
Tommy, Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly and Zack stared at the place where the Command Center should be. The mountain, to an outsider, looked like any of the other mountains surrounding it; one couldn't technically call it "the ruins," as few signs of the great building remained. Now, anyone who stumbled upon it would have to look hard to tell that there had ever been anything there, and they would mostly likely assume that it was a torn-down ranger station (ironically enough). There was no telling, from the outside, what it had once been… yet to the six former Power Rangers the bare stretch of stone and dirt seemed to have a gaping hole in it, a glaringly obvious scar. None of them had ever found out if Zordon was still alive, and none of them had seen Alpha in years. A transmission from another world and a robot… both had seemed so human; both had been dear friends that they'd probably never see again. And the Command Center, their second home, the only place where they could truly and always be Rangers and teenagers at the same time, the only place they truly belonged, was no more.
Jason reached out for Trini, drawing her against his side. She slid her arm around his waist, Zack coming over to put his arm around her shoulders. Tommy stood alone between Kimberly and Billy, wondering why he had ever left the team, if there was anything he could have done to stop the Command Center's destruction, and he knew the others were also thinking it. They all wished they'd never left, even though they knew it had been the time to move on, even though Zordon had given them his blessing as they passed on their powers, even though those that had stayed on the team had never begrudged them the other chances life had brought their way.
Kimberly started to cry. She didn't sob, wasn't even obvious about it; she took one shuddering breath and the tears started to fall. She stood there, her arms wrapped around herself, staring numbly at the bare mountaintop. Kimberly held her grief back as much as she could, knowing that the team needed their privacy right now; she didn't want to cause a scene. They needed to grieve themselves, not comfort her. Only one of the others even realized she was crying.
Wordlessly, without thinking about it, Tommy stepped closer to her and put his arm around her back. Just like that, the last of Kimberly's composure snapped. She crumpled against his chest, and he held her tightly, letting her sob against his shirt. Unlike just about every other moment Tommy had spent with Kimberly in the past four days, he didn't think twice about it, didn't second guess his actions or hers. He didn't care about his past with her; their former relationship didn't enter his head at all. For that moment, he was just someone who understood, someone she could lean on, and all Tommy wanted was to give her that.
Billy put his hand on Tommy's shoulder, as if affirming that he, too, was strongly affected, and that he would be there if Tommy needed him. Tommy gave him a nod, though the action was unnecessary; they all knew each other's feelings. He didn't have to look to know that Jason had his own hand on Billy's shoulder, that they were united physically as well as in spirit while their minds remained in solitude. They were together, in the way they were always meant to be—as a team, as Zordon's team.
Together they stared down at the memory of their home, vivid recollections of every moment they had spent in that building flooding back and bringing sorrow, but also hope. They stood on the mountain, all sense of time gone, a team for the first time in over nine years.
Well, Ethan thought as they moved past the empty basement room and up into the Power Chamber, THAT was the most depressing moment of my—whoa.
Ethan stared in shock at the crumbling remains of the Chamber. The doors, obviously automatic but no longer functioning, were stuck half-open, and Ethan wandered into the main room in a daze, sidestepping Conner and Trent on autopilot. The room was lit with a faint, ethereal glow, emanating from two pillars encircled with rings of light every foot or so. The majority of the control panels were still intact, though scorch marks still lingered and a bit of broken glass lay scattered on the floor, primarily in front of the back wall. The extensive dust and signs of decay seemed almost a mockery of the greatness that had once occurred in the room.
"Ethan," Kira whispered. "Can you… can you figure out any of this stuff?"
Ethan approached the controls hesitantly, feeling as though he was disturbing some sacred artifact, and of course that never ends well. The switches meant very little to him; he couldn't tell much about them whatsoever, especially with the extremely dim light. He picked one out at random—a large, round red button—and smacked it.
A dull throbbing noise started, growing ominously; Ethan cursed himself for doing something as dangerous as pressing a Big Red Button because of course that never went well in the movies… and then, so suddenly they all yelped, the entire room lit up as bright as day, an electronic humming noise now faintly audible. Some of the buttons and switches and so on also lit up.
"F-found the light switch," Ethan said shakily, jerking his head around to check for poison gas, flying arrows and other such booby traps.
"Dude, I almost wet myself!" Conner hissed.
"Don't do that!" Kira added, clutching her heart.
"Sorry," Ethan said sheepishly. He looked around at the console in front of him, and something Tommy had once mentioned caught his eye—"Viewing Screen." Taking a deep breath, he muttered "Here goes nothing" and flipped the switch.
A circular screen on the east wall lit up, and the four teens' jaws dropped. Staring down at them from the wall was Dr. Tommy Oliver—minus a few years. His hair was almost as long as Kira's, hanging straight down his shoulders, and he was gazing solemnly out into the room. Cautiously, as though afraid this vision of Dr. O might jump out of the screen and smack them, or at least scold them profusely, Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent crept closer.
"Hello," Tommy said grimly. "If you're viewing this message, then obviously you've either stumbled into some place you shouldn't be—or you're a Power Ranger."
"Oh, good, we're the second one," Conner said. Kira shushed him.
"As you might've guessed, you are standing in the base of the original Power Rangers, who protected Angel Grove for years from numerous enemies. I oughtta know," Tommy added with a smile. "I was the sixth Power Ranger, the Green Ranger, and later the White, as well as the Red Zeo Ranger and the first Red Turbo Ranger."
"Okay, that's probably not something you want to say on a recording," Ethan said, frowning.
"Shut up!" Kira hissed. "I want to hear this!"
"This base has been blown up twice by evil forces in recent years. The first time, it reconstructed itself into a new base. The second… well, I can only assume it tried to do the same, but so much of its power is diminished now. By all rights this place shouldn't work nearly as well as it does, but that's beside the point. If anything, it is a monument to the fact that Power Rangers never give up.
"If you are one of us, a Ranger, I hope you'll find what you need here. Be warned, the security levels in place are maddeningly difficult to crack. If you are not one of us, I ask that you keep this secret as we have kept it. We have saved lives; we have done the world a lot of favors. If that means anything to you, you'll turn around and walk out the door and take the memory of this place to your grave. I can only beg you not to disclose whatever evidence you might find of the truth of the Power Rangers… Well, that, and I can warn you that if this Chamber senses that you don't belong here, it may activate its numerous defenses. It's a pretty scary building when it comes down to it. The Power protects us… not trespassers. If you try to abuse the gifts granted to us, you're going to get a rude awakening."
"Is he insane?" Trent wondered aloud as Tommy's image disappeared. "If someone finds this—"
Trent didn't get to finish, as a robot with a head shaped like a flying saucer filled the Viewing Screen. A squeaky, computerized voice filled the room.
"Security system armed. You have ten seconds to deactivate primary countermeasures. Please enter one of the passwords now. Ten…"
"WHAT?" Trent roared.
"Nine…"
"Oh god!" Kira yelped.
"Eight…"
"Ethan! You're gonna get us killed!"
"Seven…"
"It wasn't me!"
"Six…"
"Was too!"
"Five…"
"SHUT IT OFF!"
"HOW?"
"Four…"
"RUN!"
"Three…"
"What I wouldn't give to be able to yell 'Dino Thunder Power Up' right about now!" Ethan wailed as they dashed for the exit.
"That is correct," said the squeaky-voiced robot.
"Huh?" They all halted, nearly colliding with each other as they turned back to the screen.
"Primary countermeasures deactivated. Welcome to the Power Chamber."
Never had the four teens breathed such strong sighs of relief. "Oh, thank god," Kira moaned. "I don't like this place anymore."
"Yeah," Conner said. "Dr. O would've killed us if we blew the place up again."
"If we weren't dead first," Kira said dryly. "Besides, I don't think it would have blown itself up. Again. That's a bit too overdramatic. Probably just would have killed us with poison gas or flying arrows or something."
"What was it that turned it off?" Trent said loudly, trying to take their minds off of the fact they were all scared to death now.
Ethan frowned thoughtfully. "Hang on… 'Dino Thunder, Power Up.' Dr. O said the first team had three dinosaur zords—the pterodactyl, the tyrannosaurus rex and the triceratops. He told me… he was the one who came up with the morphing call. He was the one who set the morphers to activate to 'Dino Thunder Power Up.' So… he might have gotten some of the plans for the zords and bikes and everything from here. From files kept by Zordon. So…"
"So our morphing call is one of the old passwords to this place?" Kira asked.
Ethan shrugged and nodded. "That, or there's some sort of information on the Dino Rangers in here, and Zordon or whoever set the passwords to Ranger morphing calls."
"Huh," Kira said. "And here I thought it was just some corny thing he pulled out of a hat."
"My dad did say they got a lot of ideas from stuff left over from Dr. O's Ranger days," Trent mused.
"Wow. Thank god he didn't choose 'cheese soup' for the morphing call," Conner said. He looked speculatively at the control panels. "I want to press something!"
"NO!" Kira, Ethan and Trent shouted.