MASK: PROJECT SHADOW STALKER

by jtrigonis

A mild-mannered VENOM agent has gone rogue and is covertly working with a tech startup called Bio-Mech Industries to spearhead a secret project which threatens to put an end to both MASK and VENOM––unless they can put aside their differences and work together to stop this mutual menace.

MASK

"PROJECT: SHADOW STALKER"

A fanfiction by

J.T. Trigonis

Dedicated to Jason Gross (1976 - 2023)
an agent taken too soon.

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"And when ye think all danger for to pass,
Ware of the lizard lieth lurking in the grass."
– John Skelton, from "Ware the Lizard"

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PROLOGUE: GHOST IN THE HILL

The moon, full and craterous, hung low over Boulder Hill. Inside the gas station, Buddy "Clutch" Hawks worked beneath the hood of a beat up old tow truck, Whitesnake's "Is This Love" muffling through the soft pads of his headset, fueling the veteran mechanic's mind with soothing rock music. He needed to stay focused on the task at hand and not on the fact that he was the only person at Boulder Hill on this deep dark Nevada night.

I'll never get used to this place at night, Buddy once thought to himself five years earlier when he was first hired to man the pumps during the graveyard shift. He didn't mind. He was a night person and preferred to do his sleeping during the early morning hours. But then, he never imagined he'd be recruited into MASK, the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, which neutralizes evil threats across the United States and abroad. What Buddy was doing was not merely repairing an old tow truck, but transforming it into a fighting machine based on the initial blueprints drafted by fellow agent Alex Sector.

The tow truck, which he affectionately referred to as Wildcat, was not the first of MASK's vehicles Buddy had worked on. He often got under the hood or beneath the chassis of Firecracker, which he co-piloted with Hondo MacLean from time to time. That is, until the sleek orange pickup was destroyed by members of MASK's nemesis, VENOM, the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem, named for the organization's founder, Miles Mayhem. Perhaps this was why Wildcat felt so personal to Buddy. He was attempting to imbue it with a bit of Firecracker's spirit to keep its legacy alive.

The digital clock on the kitchen's small stove flickered to three in the morning. Buddy walked from the garage to the vending machine wiping grease and oil from in-between his fingers with a shop towel. A Cherry Pepsi dropped down with the tap of a button. A quick snap later and he was sipping the artificially-flavored carbonated freshness. He peered out the door. The darkness seemed still, somnambulant. Very few cars passed at this time of night, but occasionally someone would need a splash of gas or a soda, and Boulder Hill was there, a lighthouse beacon in the vast oceanless cosmos of desert mountains.

There was a sudden flash in the kitchen area, and Buddy snapped out of his momentary rumination. A subtle movement of some sort, the briefest flicker of hazy green light. He couldn't be sure. Buddy rested his can on a nearby table, and he slowly, quietly pulled down his headphones from off his ears as U2's "One" cued up. He listened, the thumb of his right hand rolling back the volume on his Sony Walkman. Nothing. He listened harder, Bono's intro fading into the silence around him. And that's all there was––silence.

Buddy crept forward, careful not to press his sneakers on any of the floorboards he knew might signal his approach. The light he thought he had seen would have been headed for the MASK computer room. Reaching the steel doors, Buddy breathed a sigh of relief. It was shut. But something told him to go inside and check. He walked to the doors, pressed his right hand against the identification plate. The computerized voice of the MASK computer spoke to him.

"Hawks, Buddy." The multiple locks on the door unlocked and the door depressurized and slid open. The overhead lights were off inside. Only the soft green gridlines of the computer screen in sleep mode offered a modicum of illumination. Buddy switched on the light. All was lit up in bright fluorescent lights from the ceiling above. Still nothing. He shook his head, chuckled at himself under his breath. I'll still never get used to this place at night. He switched off the lights, and as he did so, his laughter quickly switched off, too.

Before him at a distance, a green glow surrounded the strangely familiar figure of a man––a man who should not be here, not only because he happened to be an agent of VENOM, but because this particular agent was dead!

"Rax?!" The name crawled out of Buddy's throat. His mouth was as arid as the land outside. The figure gave no impression that it heard or saw Buddy a mere twenty feet away. It continued doing whatever it was doing at the computer terminal. A second later, the masked head lifted and aimed straight at Buddy. He fully expected the words "Stiletto, fire!" to slither out from the mouth beneath the mask, but nothing happened. Nothing, except that the glowing green figure turned and walked right through the wall!

Buddy made a mad dash out of the computer room. "Computer, lock the doors!" he called out. The doors slid smoothly shut and locked with a Clack! Clack! Clack! By this time, Buddy had donned his mask. "Penetrator, on!" His body glowed a translucent white and through the nearest wall he passed as if it wasn't there. Once outside, he felt the cool desert breeze blowing through the remainder of the molecules that were still pulling themselves back together after passing through the thick layers of steel and brick.

Using Penetrator's enhanced visuals, Buddy scanned the perimeter around Boulder Hill. No sign of Sly Rax, or whoever––whatever––that thing might have been. But the more pressing question was just as mystifying, though perhaps more easily ascertainable: what was it doing in the MASK computer room?

---

PART 001

CHAPTER ONE: THE MISSING LINK

"Lemme get this straight, Buddy," Hondo said, his thumb and forefinger massaging the morning stubble shadowing his chin. "You sayin' you saw a ghost?!"

Matt Trakker stood between the two men dressed in his business attire. Behind him, Alex Sector and Bruce Sato examined the computer's control panel for any signs of tampering.

"I know it sounds like crazy-talk, Hondo, but I'm telling you, it was Sly Rax. Or someone wearing his mask. The figure itself, though––it was translucent, like it was there and not there all at once. I'm still baffled by the whole thing."

"Hmm," Matt began. "Could it have been a hologram?"

"Like the ones we use?" Buddy considered. "I mean, I guess it's possible."

"That would be the more rational explanation over the paranormal one," Hondo added.

"But how could VENOM have gotten their scaly claws on that kind of technology?" Buddy asked, concerned. Bruce lifted his head from out of the computer's mainframe. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," he smirked. Matt nodded.

"Bruce is right. Let's not forget that before VENOM became the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem, it was part of MASK. It's not unthinkable that Maximus Mayhem could stumble onto a similar form of the technology we use to manifest our clones."

"Let's also not forget," added Gloria Baker walking into the computer room, "that we did allow a snake to join MASK for a little while."

"Gloria's right," Hondo exclaimed. "Vanessa Warfield, the Ice Queen herself."

"It's possible she could have stolen the technology from Brad?" Gloria said.

"Possible, but unlikely," Matt asserted. "They also could've gotten it from Noir while he was holed up in that New Mexico bunker."

"However they got it," said Alex, making his way over from the control panel, "that's not all they took. According to my diagnostic, a system-wide data scrape of our computer was performed by that thing."

"Oh, damn!" Buddy exclaimed, slapping his hand to his forehead. "If VENOM mined intel on MASK––our identities, addresses, everything about us––we would all be targets, at risk of… of…" Buddy's mind was racing. Alex lifted his hand in reassurance.

"It's not as bad as it could've been," he began. "It appears––and correct me if I'm wrong, Bruce––that only a scrape of the computer's A.I. software was copied and downloaded."

"Alex is correct," Bruce remarked, replacing the steel plate that covered the mainframe's access port. "None of our personal data was breached. All our information is safe and untouched as far as I can tell."

"On purpose, no doubt," Alex added. Matt looked perturbed despite the good news in light of a tense situation. He paced a bit, then came to a halt, looked up at his colleagues.

"On purpose, you say? That would mean VENOM was after the computer's artificial intelligence. But why? What could the endgame be?"

After years of battling VENOM, first under the leadership of Miles Mayhem, and now his more sadistic brother Maximus, they have always been easy enough to read. Their plans revolved mostly around money or technology heists. Was this any different? To Matt, it seemed the only difference was that they came to Boulder Hill; that they somehow knew this gas and service station was MASK's "secret" headquarters; and that would make this a deliberate attack on MASK, totally unprecedented and gutsy, even for Mayhem.

"Well, one thing's for sure: I'll be tightening up security around here." Buddy said, an air of defeat in his voice tinged with resolve to never let a security breach like this happen again. Matt pressed a hand on his shoulder.

"Do that, Buddy, but don't beat yourself up about this. We do, however, need to figure out why VENOM did this, and––" Matt's digital watch alarm beeped, cutting him off mid-sentence. "We've gotta get going, Alex. When we get back from our meeting with the folks at Bio-Mech Industries, we'll reconvene and see how we can uncover what VENOM has planned… before it's too late.

---

CHAPTER TWO: BIO-MECH INDUSTRIES

The old industrial complex took up almost a quarter of a mile of harsh desert land just outside of the Boulder City limits. It flaunted an unnatural fusion of environmental beauty and mechanical prowess. The warehouse that housed Bio-Mech Industries had once been relegated to decrepitude, but a thrush of gentrification in recent years made this former manufacturing plant almost hip by adding a coffee shop and a small architectural firm. When Bio-Mech moved in, the tech startup occupied only a quarter of the warehouse, uncertain if the venture would amount to anything. Now, a mere four years later, they lease two thirds of the massive building.

Matt and Alex arrived early for their meeting with Jason King, Bio-Mech's Chief Financial Officer, so they stopped in to the cafe for a coffee and pastry. They sat outside and marveled at the mountains all around them, the silence of the desert in this part of Nevada, and how interesting this rather large warehouse was; it was the only life in a 10-mile radius, completely isolated from the Boulder City limits.

With steam clouding his eyes, Matt sipped his coffee, then looked up. He'd known Alex Sector for so many years that they both could read the other cold, and Alex knew that Matt felt uneasy about this meeting. Bio-Mech was seeking funding to continue its latest project, which they would discuss only with Matt and Alex, and only in person. No paper trail. No possibility of tapped phone lines. Matt didn't like that kind of behavior from this new generation of business owners who identified more as entrepreneurs trying to disrupt the system or challenge the societal norms we'd been accustomed to for thousands of years. Not that there's anything wrong with that, Matt thought to himself, but there's a right and a wrong way to do it.

Alex was about to speak, but Matt spied a lanky fellow hurrying over to where the two men sat. He wore a navy zip-up hoodie with the words "Bio-Mech" emblazoned across his chest. Matt rose first, followed by Alex. Before he knew it, his hand was clasped by the clammy-cold hand of…

"…Jason King. Sorry to keep you both waiting.

"Not at all," Matt began. "We arrived a bit early. I'm Matt Trakker, and this––"

"––must be Alex Sector. Your reputation in the tech, um, sector––pun totally intended––precedes you, sir." Jason smiled big. Almost too big. He had the face of a pale-skinned yuppie, almost blue in complexion, but his mouth was too big for it, so his smile took up two-thirds of his face when he was especially pleased with himself or with something he said.

Alex forced a cheeky smirk. "Yes, well, we're excited to hear all about Bio-Mech and this project of yours."

"Yes, yes! Please, follow me and we'll chat in private. Our CEO is also excited to meet the both of you, too."

Damian Roarke reclined in a comfortable chair at the farthest end of a large conference room. This room was the latest addition to Bio-Mech Industries HQ. Previously, it had been a storehouse occupied by scores of paper products. Now, the 50-foot by 30-foot room touted a 15-foot stainless steel slab for a conference table, upwards of a dozen wheeled chairs, a full bar built into the back wall, and a large projector screen that pulled down over the majority of another wall. The other wall was all glass, tintable by remote control, and one way; Damian and his distinguished guests could see as far south as the Eldorado Mountains, but the mountains and all the creatures alive in the vast desert landscape could not see beyond the glass walls.

Despite his youthful candor, Damian imposed a dominance on even the most ill-placed of shadows meandering about the conference room. He was a kind of caricature, sporting a bald head and eyepatch over his left eye. He wore a Silicon Valley suit: beige turtleneck and cobalt blue blazer over a pair of khakis and Chuck Taylor hightops. It was as if he knew how he would look, what first impression he would give off as soon as Jason opened the doors and Matt Trakker and Alex Sector cast their eyes upon him for the first time; the kind of nonchalance only a being of pure agenda might exude––or of sheer power.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Trakker," Damian said, hefting himself out of his chair as his guests journeyed with long strides to make it to the other end of the room. "I'm Damian. Can I fix you a drink?"

Matt took Damian's hand. Cold. Clammy. It gripped his hand like a vice, then loosened up a split second later, almost undetectable. Matt shook his head. "No thank you, Damian. And please, call me Matt."

"Of course, Matt." Damian turned his eye toward Matt's ginger-bearded colleague. "And you must be Alex Sector."

"So I must. And Alex is quite all right."

"Please, have a seat and let's get down to business, shall we?"

The meeting lasted only thirty minutes before Alex found himself standing outside the conference room shaking his head. He could hear Matt's muffled voice behind him coming closer to the door. He could hear Damian's voice, too, pleading for him to listen. A young woman, quite attractive with spiky violet-hued hair walked down a hallway. She wore a similar hoodie as Jason King; the letters that spelled "Bio-Mech" were faded with time and multiple washes. Her pale green eyes caught Alex's, and for a moment, the tension softened enough for his lips to manage a smile. She returned the gesture, then tapped the I.D. card that dangled on a lanyard around her neck on a panel and disappeared down another corridor.

The door beside Alex opened, and Matt stepped out.

"Matt, you're not even listening to me," Damian called out after him, his tone of voice laced with impatience. He turned to Alex, then back to Matt, who was now in Damian's face.

"I heard you, Damian. Both Alex and I heard every word you said. What Bio-Mech is proposing is not something we feel comfortable investing in."

"But don't you see? This is the future. Biomechanical human beings are the future, Matt, and we are on the cutting edge of the technology that will make it possible. First, people with bio-melding. Then the ability to seamlessly interface with their personal computers, their cars and homes, their––"

"––tanks and missiles," Alex interjected. Damian paid him no mind.

"It's not only the future, it's evolution." His one eye was wide, almost crazy with the possibilities he so believed to be the next iteration of humanity.

"I'm not arguing that," Matt said, slipping on his suit jacket. "My company is, like Bio-Mech, on the cutting edge of technology. What you're talking about is a fusion of man and machine. Super soldiers, for instance, for use in wars, on our streets as a new breed of police force." Matt paused a moment, finding his next words amidst a small current of emotion that set wrinkles upon his brow. "I know firsthand that there are those out there who would stop at nothing to have access to the kind of next-gen technology you're talking about, and neither I, nor my company, can be associated with something that can potentially be harmful to humanity."

There was a lingering pause following Matt's words. Damian, who had slouched a bit into Matt, righted himself. A smirk exposed Damian's teeth, grinding against themselves. "Well, we're not just talking about it," he snarled, "we're working on it, with or without your support." He extended his hand to Matt. "You can't stop progress, Mr. Trakker."

Matt peered down at Damian's hand, then back up. "No one here is stopping progress, Mr. Roarke." With that, he turned and made his way down the hall with Alex right beside him. Damian's hand remained outstretched and rejected. Once they reached the exit, Matt turned. "But if we wanted to, I assure you, we could. And would."

Outside, Matt and Alex walked the sparse parking lot in the late morning sun to Thunder Hawk. Matt lifted the gullwing door, tossed his briefcase inside. Alex was still shaking his head.

"Well, that was an utter waste of a good morning."

"Not quite, Alex." Matt looked toward Bio-Mech HQ, shielding his eyes with his hand and training his eyes on the large row of windows that marked the conference room from which they just left. He could see only the sky mirrored in its thick glass. "We may have to keep an eye on Mr. Damian Roarke and Bio-Mech."

"Another VENOM in the making?" Alex asked, gazing in the same direction as Matt.

"Maybe," Matt replied. He thought about his brother Andy. And Miles Mayhem, too. "Or perhaps something far worse."

Back inside Bio-Mech HQ, Damian Roarke dropped seemingly defeated into his comfortable chair, which was not feeling as comfortable as earlier. His right hand was clenched tightly onto a stress ball as Jason King walked into the room.

"What happened, Damian? I take it things didn't go too well."

Damian's eye was trained out the one-way floor-to-ceiling window, specifically at Matt Trakker and Alex Sector standing in front of a cherry red Chevy Camaro. "No," he growled between his teeth. "Things didn't go well at all." His eye dilated as it focused on Alex gazing into the room but seeing nothing. "Looks like we'll have to go with Plan B."

---

CHAPTER THREE: PLAY BALL!

The sound the red-stitched leather made against the Louisville Slugger was a textbook TOK! Scott Trakker, now a rebellious fifteen year-old, sent the baseball soaring high into the air towards the manor. Too close to the manor. Both he and his friend Hudson, who wound the pitch and released the fastest ball his teenage shoulder could hurl, gazed up. Their mutual friend Miranda traced the ball in an arc which she knew was far beyond her ability to leap high enough and catch. Three pairs of eyes now mapped the ball's trajectory, and the consensus wasn't good: it was headed straight for one of the manor's windows!

"Oh, no! T-Bob, the ball!"

"I'm on it, Scott!" cried the robotic voice of Scott's closest friend and occasional scooter. T-Bob moved with clumsy but determined agility, then stopped. He outstretched his arm into a steel noodle some 40 feet high. At its end, a Rawlings catcher's mitt, and it was now the only thing between the ball and a shattered glass aftermath.

THOK! slammed the ball into the glove with a tuft of dust. T-Bob's arm retracted into place, and the lights of his mouth glowed red to yellow and back to red as he hollered "You're out!" his other robotic arm mimicking the motion of an umpire.

Thunder Hawk pulled up in the driveway, and Matt stepped out, tie and briefcase in hand. A smile crossed his face on seeing his foster son, and the creases of his smile outshone those of the crow's feet clawed into the edges of his tired eyes.

"Hey Scott!" he said, his voice filling with new life. He turned his attention to the other children. "Who are your friends?"

"Hi Dad. This is Hudson, and that's Miranda. They're new to the school."

"Hi!" Miranda said with a smile and waved.

Hudson stepped up to Matt with his hand held out. "Nice to meet you, sir."

"Same here, Hudson." But the youngster was already on to something else.

"That's a really cool car! I bet she can really soar."

Matt smirked, patted Hudson on his shoulder as he passed. "Son, you have no idea!" He continued toward the front door, then paused for a moment in front of T-Bob. "Thanks for keeping the windows safe, T-Bob."

"All in a day's work, sir!"

"Woah! How did he know?" Miranda asked.

"My dad knows everything." Scott replied. "C'mon, let's keep playing."

Matt tossed his blazer onto the bed and paused by his bedroom window. Outside, he could see Scott, Hudson, Miranda, and T-Bob playing on the front lawn. He smiled, but it faded as he turned away from the window. Today he felt old. Older than his 47 years, and it was in part due to his meeting with Bio-Mech. Not long ago, Matt had been the same kind of entrepreneur as Damian Roarke. Innovative. Disruptive. Destined to change things. Destined. Change was inevitable. Matt knew this, of course, but a certain maturity was necessary to change things for the better. Something deep in his gut told him that Roarke wanted to usher in a positive that was packaged inside a Pandora's box which Matt now felt a responsibility to keep closed. Or, at the very least, he needed to keep an eye on it, to be there when it would inevitably be opened, as it was destined to be, and the dangers inside would run amok.

As Matt uncuffed his sleeve, he felt a buzzing on his left wrist. He lifted the sleeve and saw his Ultra Flash mask phase in and out on the square screen of his wristwatch. He hurried out of the manor and hopped into Thunder Hawk. The sun was beginning to turn the blue Nevada sky orange with the coming of twilight. Scott rushed over to the Camaro.

"Where are you going, Dad?"

"I have to check on something over at Boulder Hill. I should be back shortly. There are a couple of boxes of Hot Pockets in the freezer. Make sure you and your friends eat something for dinner, okay?"

"Sure, Dad. But––"

"I've gotta go, Scott." And with that, Matt shifted Thunder Hawk into drive and sped around the half-circle and into the oncoming dusk. Scott looked after him for a moment, and then he was joined by T-Bob, Hudson, and Miranda.

"Everything okay, Scott?" Miranda asked. Scott nodded, reassuring her.

"Yeah, I'm sure everything's all right." he said. Then he turned to T-Bob, who was already shaking his metallic dome.

"Now Scott," T-Bob whirred, "don't get any ideas."

Scott smiled. "Me? Ideas. Never, T-Bob."

---

CHAPTER FOUR: A MEETING WITH MAYHEM

"What do you mean no, Mayhem?!"

Nash Gorey stared into the twin brown abysses of Maximus Mayhem's eyes, and for a second, his own eyes, amplified by the thick lenses of his spectacles, held strong and firm. He had always been a good soldier, the henchman with a desire only to serve; and this was never more apparent than when Maximus's brother Miles was in charge of VENOM. But that was a different VENOM, and this was a different Mayhem.

The acids in Gorey's stomach churned. His hands shook, and beads of hot, sticky sweat bubbled up on his temples and the back of his neck. Without his Powerhouse mask to hide all of this from the outside world, Gorey was naked and vulnerable once again before his superior.

"I––I mean…" his voice cracked like ice in a tray, twisted and broken by the unwavering gaze of "…Mr. Mayhem. Sir." All at once, Gorey's tensed shoulders drooped in submission beneath the shadow of the man who stood before him, a shark-toothed grin stretching across his aging face.

"That's better, Gorey," Maximus said, then turned his back to his lackey en route to his desk. "I said no because I mean no. That Damian Roarke kid is bad news."

"But––but d-don't you think this is a good business proposition?"

"Of course I do! Technology is the future––any idiot can see that. Cybernetics is just beginning to take shape. It's only a seed now, but one day an entire industry will grow from that little seed, one that will make plenty of corporations and governments a lot of money. It's Roarke I don't…" Mayhem struggled with the word, the wolfish lines on his forehead creasing, eyebrows curling into wings above his eyes. "…trust. He reminds me too much of my brother. All delusions of grandeur and ridiculous visions and barely a foot grounding him to reality."

Mayhem dropped into his swivel chair and spun around away from Gorey. "Well, Roarke isn't the real head of Bio-Mech, right? He's just the CEO, a figurehead, so to speak."

"Still, whoever made that upstart CEO is just as batshit crazy as he is!" Mayhem turned back around in his chair and faced Gorey. His hardness softened somewhat. "Look, Nash, the fact is the kid's unhinged. Power hungry. Full of ideas about world domination and becoming number one in the biotech field. And while I'm not averse to any of that, you need the right leadership, and I'm not convinced Roarke is the right leader, so Bio-Mech will get no money or manpower from Snake Oil or VENOM."

"I know that, but––"

"End of story." Mayhem growled, and his rockiness returned. He whirled himself around to a nearby keyboard, typed in his password to access the Network. "Now get back to work. We've got to figure out how we can break into the Lost City Museum and steal that ancient Indian mask without tripping all their new state-of-the-art security systems."

"Yes, Mr. Mayhem," mumbled a defeated Gorey. He wiped his brow with his hand only to realize that his fists had been clenched. He relaxed the muscles in his two hands, then opened them. His palms showed a pale blueness from constricted blood flow. His knuckles burned a sharp white. He turned away from Mayhem, but before he could do so fully, something grabbed his attention. On a workbench beside Mayhem was a familiar site: Miles Mayhem's original mask, Viper. It was hooked up to the computer, and he only noticed it because the visor lit up as Mayhem began tapping code on the keyboard.

Gorey stalked out of Mayhem's workshop, closing the door behind him as he left. Mayhem exhaled a sigh of relief. He didn't like Gorey much. Unlike his brother, he was not the kind of man who appreciated those members of his organization who were too eager to please. But today, he had a new reason not to like Gorey. There seemed to be something of a defiance brewing within him, perhaps because he was having to serve under someone other than his brother for the first time since joining VENOM.

Whatever the reason, Maximus would have to keep a keen eye trained on his brother's former little yes-man.

Nash Gorey walked the long hallway down from Mayhem's workshop and into the open area of the abandoned warehouse that VENOM now called its headquarters. They were still in the process of finishing the build-out of their shell corporation, Snake Oil, all while plotting numerous heists and other unseemly crimes that would grant them access to greater monetary rewards. It all just seemed like so much work, whereas joining forces with Bio-Mech was a more direct, albeit more costly, route to the same rewards. How could he get Maximus to see Roarke as an ally and change his mind?

Then, as Gorey was about to head towards his room, an idea struck him. And for the first time in his life, a shark-toothed grin of his own stretched across his face.

---

CHAPTER FIVE: MISSING AGENT

"What do you mean Alex is gone?!" Matt exclaimed, stepping into the MASK headquarters inside Boulder Hill. Some of his fellow agents were standing around the computer room. Gloria and Hondo moved aside, revealing Dusty Hayes. He held in his hands Alex's Jackrabbit mask. It was dinged and dented in places, and the glass visor was shattered. A trickle of dried blood stained the luminescent blue patches, some also cracked, just below where Alex's beard protruded.

Hondo rushed over to Matt. "He's been taken," he said, then added, "but he didn't go without a fight." Dusty put the mask down on the countertop. Matt crouched down, examined it thoroughly.

"Looks like we've been compromised, Matt," Dusty said. "Buddy and I reset the security systems. Seems the triggers that were supposed to activate the Hill's defenses were scrambled somehow, even though during the last few diagnostics, everything turned up aces."

"Where's Buddy now?"

"Right here, Matt," Buddy said, hurtling into the room. "I was trying to pull footage from the cameras so we could see what went down."

"And?"

"Unfortunately, it's going to take me another few hours to retrieve the footage. Whoever was here knew the cameras were rolling and were somehow able to slap a virus on it. Some of the tape was erased, but the computer and I managed to kill the virus in time and save about a minute's worth of video. It's downloading now."

Matt scratched at his chin. "How could this have happened?"

"It must be linked to what you saw a few days ago, Buddy," Gloria added.

"You're right, Gloria. That strange Sly Rax spook! It's gotta have something to do with all this, or at the very least, it's gotta be connected––somehow."

"Do y'think it was that ghost that malfunctioned our security?" Dusty inquired.

"Maybe, but we can't be sure," Buddy replied. "It was a strange occurrence, though, that's for sure."

Matt rose up. "Well, we need to be on high alert from here on out. Buddy, let me know as soon as the footage is downloaded and you've had a chance to watch it."

"I'll let you know if it reveals anything telling."

"Let's hope it does, because as of right now, we've got a missing agent on our hands. Not only a missing agent," Matt paused a moment, lifted his gaze from the battered Jackrabbit mask to each of the agents present. "But a missing friend. We've got to find him and bring him home."

"We're on it," Hondo said, gripping Matt's arm in reassurance before heading out. Dusty picked up Alex's mask.

"I'll see what I can do to get Jackrabbit back in tip-top shape for when Alex is back." Matt nodded as Dusty exited. Gloria stepped up from behind him, pressed her hands on his shoulder.

"There's gotta be some clue as to who took him. And to where."

"It's probably on the tape. Buddy'll have it soon, but let's see if there are any other clues here at the Hill we may have missed."

With that, Gloria led Matt out of the computer room, switching out the lights as they left.

There was a shuffling in the computer room a few minutes after Gloria and Matt stepped out. A small hatch opened up from one of the panels on the floor, a secret entrance unknown to MASK agents, but not unknown to one adventurous teenager and his robot sidekick.

Scott's head poked out of the compartment where a shiny steel plate was, and below his head, T-Bob's round dome jutted out. Their two pairs of eyes, one pair human, the other more than human, scanned the room to make sure the coast was clear before Scott shimmied his way out of the hole in the floor.

"Did you hear that, T-Bob? Alex was abducted!"

"I did, Scott. And I'm sure your dad will find him." T-Bob's circuits shook as he spoke, knowing that Scott would probably doubt that.

"I doubt he can do it without our help. Let's see if we can find some clues, too!"

"I…I don't think that's such a good idea…" Before T-Bob could finish his sentence, Scott had already switched on the lights and was searching the perimeter of the computer room like a teenage Sherlock Holmes waiting for his robo-Watson to join the search.

"C'mon, T-Bob. I need your help." T-Bob stepped out from the small crawlspace. As the two scoured the room in search of anything that might prove useful in discovering who might have taken Alex and where they took him, a loud thud from behind startled them. Scott whipped his head around, and with a metal scrape, T-Bob did the same.

From the secret cubby two more heads emerged––those of Hudson and Miranda, one atop the other. Both their jaws were agape, their eyes scanning the area around them with awe.

"Wow! What is all this?" Hudson asked.

"Yeah. Where are we, Scott?" Miranda added with equal awe.

T-Bob's head whirred back round to Scott, whose own jaw dropped. "Hudson! Miranda! How did you…?" His eyes clenched, realizing he most likely didn't close the hidden entrance properly or make sure Hudson and Miranda had begun walking home before he and T-Bob slipped inside the secret tunnel––still unknown to the agents of MASK, but now not unknown to three adventurous teenagers.

"I'm gonna be in some serious trouble, aren't I?!" Scott looked at T-Bob, and all his robot sidekick could do was nod in slow agreement.

---

CHAPTER SIX: A GIFT FROM BIO-MECH

Technology was moving fast––too damn fast! thought Maximus Mayhem to himself as he entered the once state-of-the-art Nevada headquarters of VENOM. He himself was by no means a stranger to the rapid growth and usage of such technology for his wicked gains. MASK and VENOM both were products of a once top secret program that boasted it would change how espionage and international intrigue were waged in the 1990s and into the new millennium. The vehicles they commanded could transform from simple automobiles or aircraft into battle-armored fighting machines. The masks they wore possessed powers that only a decade ago were the dreams of crazy men. And all that was fine, so long as the power of the ultimate weapon was in Mayhem's hands.

The Lost Museum in Overton was itself quite the illusion. At first glance, it appeared to be an adobe hut that housed within it a plethora of Native American artifacts unearthed from the red lands of Nevada. Much of the museum consisted of various forms of clay pottery, peace pipes, and shamanistic paraphernalia. Recently, though, the Museum, working with the Peaceful Nations Alliance, unearthed a mask said to be from an ancient Native American civilization. It was the mask of a reptile god, with lapis lazuli eyes, a beak made of wood, and feathers that somehow had been preserved for over a hundred years. The mask is also said to possess mystical powers, and where there's talk of power, there was Mayhem waiting in the wings.

The only problem was that, since the acquisition of the mask, the museum, using funds granted them by the Trakker Foundation, had beefed up its security systems––so much, in fact, that this small, unassuming adobe structure was virtually impenetrable! Thoughts of how VENOM could infiltrate this building ponged around in Mayhem's brain like buzzards over the rotting, stinking corpse of a donkey. He and Gorey had been trying to sketch out a fool-proof plan for months. Months! And still they had nothing. Even now, as he opened the door to his workshop, no viable solutions presented themselves.

Mayhem snapped on the large monitor suspended above his workstation, and the morning news filled the screen. He typed his secret password into the console hooked up to the VENOM computer. On his desk, Viper, his deceased brother's old mask, booted up, still connected to the computer. Specks of multicolored light flickered on and off like fireflies in the visor, beyond which something seemed to stare at him. It was only a figment of Mayhem's imagination. He knew this, of course, and shrugged off the icy feeling of being watched and got to work.

His fingers, locked into a sheathed coding keyboard, typed furiously, automatically. As he worked, his ears perked up, listening to the TV newscaster. "Last night at around 1 in the morning," the newscaster began, "an artifact of great importance and cultural significance was stolen from the Lost City Museum…"

Mayhem's fingers ceased their symphony of encoded information. He peered up from the computer screen, red-faced. "What?!" he shouted. His teeth clenched together, and his eyes burned with sheer anger. The newscaster continued: "Security camera footage outside the museum shows three brash individuals, each masked, brazenly breaking into the museum, which has been lauded for having a state-of-the-art––"

"Yeah, yeah," Mayhem mimicked in a vain attempt to calm his anger. "'...state-of-the-art security system unlike any outside Fort Knox.' Oh, please!" He watched as they ran the security camera footage which showed the three perpetrators and what appeared to be tendrils grabbing the door and pulling it straight off its hinges. Mayhem's jaw dropped. "Well, I'll be damned."

The newscaster, seemingly aware of Mayhem's fury, hesitated a moment: "Officials at the museum this morning would not state what exactly was stolen, but they did say that only one artifact was taken, with all the rest left undisturbed and accounted for."

"Damnit!" Mayhem hollered, slamming his fist down onto his desk, leaving yet another indentation of his rage on the once smooth steel. Then, there was a knock at the door.

"Mr. Mayhem? It's me, Nash. I––"

"Piss off, Gorey. Now's not a good time." Then, rising up from his chair and stomping towards the door: "Actually, now is a fine time to talk about how in the hell it is that a trio of low-rent street criminals was able to pull off a heist that has stumped us for months!" Mayhem swung the door wide, then paused. His face relaxed the muscles that had tensed up in his near exquisite madness. His shoulders fell, and a second or so later, so did his jaw. Nash Gorey stood at the door in his standard jumpsuit. He lifted his hand to his face and pushed up his glasses. Cradled in his left arm was an ancient-looking mask with lapis lazuli eyes, a wooden beak, and feathers that even time seemed unable to wither away.

And behind Nash stood Damian Roarke, Jason King, and pale-skinned and purple-haired Dorian Harding. They were all smiles, morning coffees in hand.

"Okay Roarke, what's this all about?" Mayhem boomed as he shut the door to the conference room just past the hangar where Switchblade was being worked on by some of VENOM's henchmen. The trio from Bio-Mech dropped into seats. Gorey, still cradling the ancient Native American mask in his arm, sat near Mayhem, who now commanded the room at the head of the long glass table, as if reprimanding schoolchildren who had just done something terribly naughty.

Damian Roarke leaned back in his chair and parted his hands. "What?" he spoke with what Mayhem felt was irreverent sarcasm oozing from his raspy throat. "We wanted to bring you a little gift; a token of good faith that Bio-Mech Industries is worth your time and attention."

"And money, no doubt." Mayhem spat with an equal intensity of sarcasm. Roarke smirked, then hunched forward.

"And money, yes. I have no reason to hide any of my intentions, Max––may I call you Max?" Mayhem's eyes slitted. He wished that he was wearing Python so he might strangle this punk kid with a literal line of fire. "We came to you because we need an investor, but an investor who understands our vision, our mission. Someone who can see the future. And while I know you said you did not necessarily agree with that future, I still believe that we are of the same mold, you and I."

Mayhem smirked. "Is that so?"

Roarke got up and made his way alongside the long glass table, bridging the gap between himself and Mayhem. "You, my friend, were high-tech personified. What you've created here was unthinkable thirty years ago when people used computers to play Atari 2600s and Commodore 64s. You saw a future that others could not. Or rather…" Roarke paused for dramatic effect. "…was it your brother Miles who had the vision?" The question made every muscle in Mayhem's body tense and tighten. He seemed to grow taller as he straightened up, facing this cocky young upstart, who was now a mere inch from his thick gray mustache. Jason and Dorian sipped their coffees while Gorey gazed on, stone-faced, nudging his glasses closer to his eyes so he could watch the scene unfold with perfect clarity.

"Perhaps he gets the credit," Roarke continued, softening his voice. "I know how it is. I have a brother myself. Much younger, but man, what a vision of the future this kid has. If I'm being completely honest, Bio-Mech was sorta his idea. But someone had to make it real. Is that how it was with you and Miles, Max? Which one of you had the vision, and which one did the work? More so, who will be the one the world remembers once VENOM becomes a household name in domestic terrorism?" Roarke paused for a moment, lifted his cup of coffee, sipped, then crushed it in his hand. "Or, will you simply be forgotten? Like I said before, Max, you were high-tech; Bio-Mech is high-tech. You are the past, and we are the future. But with your help–– with your time, your attention, and yes, your money––we can become the future together."

Mayhem was silent. Roarke turned around and took the mask from Gorey. He held it out to Mayhem. "This mask is a gift, which will hopefully entice you to put your faith and funds into Bio-Mech." He held the mask for a few seconds before Mayhem's hands reached out and took it. He examined the ancient artifact. Its crisp blue eyes beamed with a power as-yet unknown to the current leader of VENOM. He peered up at Roarke, who smiled a hopeful, assured smile, and whose eyes beamed with a similar power all their own.

"Those suits you were wearing," Mayhem began, "with the tendrils and such. Is that part of what I'll be funding?"

Roarke laughed, then turned and walked over to Dorian. She got up. She wore her Bio-Mech hoodie. "Those weren't suits, my friend." Dorian unzipped her hoodie and let it slip down the sleek chrome of her shoulders. There was metal and wires melded to various parts of her body. Her left arm split apart into three thick metal tendrils, like bridge cables, but alive, like the tentacles of an octopus. Mayhem's eyes bulged.

"Fascinating…" he whispered beneath his breath. Roarke stepped over to Mayhem, right hand extended.

"Welcome to the future, Max!"

---

CHAPTER SEVEN: A CLUE!

I didn't have a choice, Dad––I had to tell them.

That's how Scott would begin. Then he would have to go through the series of events that lead him from their home to the computer room at Boulder Hill; how he thought that he had sent his new friends Hudson and Miranda on their way home, but they must've came back in and saw Scott and T-Bob slip into the secret door that led them down a shaft that dropped into a secret tunnel which took them into another secret hatch that opened up in the floor of the MASK computer room.

Well, it seemed none of this was all that "secret" afterall.

Scott would then continue where he left off, saying that "I didn't have a choice," and that

"I had to tell them something, so I told them the truth." He would hope that by telling the truth, both to Matt and to his friends––now closer friends than ever after having confided in them the secret of MASK––would make his dad proud. Then, Matt would lay an understanding hand upon his shoulder, smile and say "you're a good boy, S––"

"Scott!" Hudson called out, snapping Scott out of his reverie. "I think we found something. Over here!"

T-Bob and Scott hurried over to Hudson, and Miranda joined them from across the room. Hudson pointed his finger at a corner where the floor met the wall unit that housed the computer. The tiniest triangle of white stuck out amid the polished steel plates.

"What is it?" Scott asked.

"I'm not sure," Hudson replied. He crouched down for a better look. "A piece of paper, maybe?"

T-Bob nudged past Miranda, then focused his eyes to feed an enhanced image of the tiny sliver into his CPU. Mere seconds later: "It's a piece of plastic, Scott," T-Bob said. Hudson reached down to grab at it, but Miranda smacked his hand.

"Ow!" Hudson yelped.

"Not with your bare hands, Hudson," she said. "What if there are fingerprints on it?"

"Good point," Scott said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife. He pulled out the tiny pair of tweezers from inside. "Here," he said and handed the tweezers to Miranda.

"Now we're thinking!" Miranda snatched the tweezers, crouched down, and clipped the corner of the plastic bit. She tugged on it, and it slid out slowly. It got caught in increments, and Miranda jostled it until more of it emerged. Little by little, the shard of plastic revealed itself as an identification card. Another jostle and nudge, and the name and photograph was clear: a young woman with short, spiky blue hair and a permanent frown on her face. Miranda lifted it up in front of her to show the boys and T-Bob.

"Dorian Harding," Scott read aloud. "Head of Marketing, Bio-Mech Industries."

"What's Bio-Mech Industries?" Miranda asked.

T-Bob's eyes flickered. "Bio-Mech Industries is a technology company founded by Damian Roarke in 1992. Its mission, according to Roarke, is to 'be liaison for a future that will ultimately be a fusion of carbon-based lifeforms and silicon-based ones.'"

"Huh?" Miranda huffed.

"Don't look at me––that's how the World Wide W-W-Web describes it."
"Well, I've never heard of them," Scott said.

Hudson took his eyes off the I.D. card. "I've heard of them." Scott, Miranda, and T-Bob all turned to face Hudson. He looked at each of them in turn. "And I know how to get there."

Miranda smiled and clasped her hands together just below her chin, rubbing them together. "Oooh! I smell a mystery! When do we go?"

"Umm––" Scott tried to interject but was cut off by Hudson.

"Tomorrow afternoon? My brother's making chili for dinner, so I've gotta get home."

"I–I think––" T-Bob began, raising a metallic arm.

"Perfect!" Miranda exclaimed, clapping her hands. Then, rubbing them together once more, "that'll give me time to devise a plan. C'mon, let's go!"

Miranda was heading back to the secret door they entered from. She grabbed Hudson by the arm as she passed him. T-Bob looked at Scott. All they could do was shrug their shoulders and follow along.

"Well," Scott said to T-Bob, "at least this'll buy me some time before I have to face the music with dad!"

"But if we can help MASK find Alex…"

Scott smiled. "You're right, T-Bob––we'd be heroes!"

"Well––"

"C'mon ya slackers!" Miranda's voice echoed from inside the tunnel. T-Bob and Scott dropped in and closed the door behind them.

---

CHAPTER EIGHT: WHAT THE VIDEO TAPE REVEALED

It had been at least four hours since Buddy Hawks had taken a bathroom break. In his left hand, he held a ceramic Dunkin' Donuts mug just below his nose, savored the faint scent of the last few drops of French vanilla coffee from a fresh pot he brewed half an hour before. His other hand clicked the mouse while his eyes scanned the two security monitors before him in the ten-by-ten room below the gas station. Ordinarily, Buddy would have noticed the subtle glitch in cameras four, six and seven, all of which pointed at particular areas of the computer room––a glitch that, unbeknownst to Boulder Hill's chief mechanic, was caused by T-Bob's built-in video disruptor. But tonight, Buddy was distracted by his obsession with finding the answer to a question of utmost importance: what happened to Alex Sector?

He scrubbed through footage upon footage to the Wayne's World soundtrack. By the time "Ballroom Blitz" cued up, Buddy had isolated the scraps of video he had been searching for. It appeared the footage was also disrupted––not by T-Bob, but by something more sophisticated. The gray image was streaked with squiggly tracking lines. Once adjusted, Buddy saw Alex in the black-and-white past, some six hours ago. He was working at one of the computer consoles. From behind, a shadowy form materialized into a person wearing a sort of dark hood. Alex turned, then got up. A brief sparring of words, then a desperate dash for Jackrabbit.

This intruder––spry, agile––disappeared as a scratch across the tape, then materialized beside Alex. Jackrabbit hit the floor with an absent clang of metal against metal. Then tracking lines, a video glitch. In the frame that followed, the trespasser was on top of Alex, a thin arm beneath his ginger beard and wrapped around his throat. They wrestled. Alex broke away from this guy's chokehold. No, not this guy––Buddy put down his coffee mug. It was a woman, quite petite, yet somehow she was strong enough to overpower a six-foot, two-inch Brit. Free from her hold, Alex made another attempt at Jackrabbit. More tracking lines. Another glitch.

One Mississippi.

Two Mississippi.

Three Mississippi.

The footage flashed and flickered in grayscale. The woman's arm reached out––somehow overstretched––and gripped Alex by the throat, pressing his body hard against the stainless steel wall. ZOOM IN: Alex's feet. Buddy switched cameras. He had to be sure about what he was seeing. ZOOM IN: Alex was being lifted off the floor!

Tracking. Glitch.

CUT TO: camera four. REWIND to the moment just before the feed cut out on the other camera. PAUSE. He leaned into the screen, examined the pixelated image of the woman's arm. From this angle, it didn't look like an arm at all, but something else entirely.

"What is that?" he muttered beneath his breath.

The next track cued up in Buddy's headset: Alice Cooper's "Feed My Frankenstein."

CUT TO: camera six. ZOOM IN: the face, a splotch of black in most of the timestamps, was now somewhat visible. Sort of. Thick, goth-style eye shadow; dark lipstick; half her face colored in shadow. No, wait… covered in a mask! Or a piece of one, at least. This person was female, alright, but more like a young woman; a girl in her early twenties, maybe.

More tracking noise. Another glitch.

CUT TO: camera four.

FAST-FORWARD.

STOP.

PLAY: Alex, passed out on the ground. The girl, lifting him by his lab coat, draped him over her shoulder with that same strange arm.

PAUSE.

ZOOM IN: the girl's unnatural arm filled the screen––longer, larger, and bulkier than it should be, made not of flesh, but metal. Her fingers, long and thin, moved more like tendrils. They reminded Buddy of something. A movie? A show he watched on TV?

"Hold on!" he exclaimed. Buddy turned to the nearby TV and dialed the knob to a local news station. To the story that all the networks were following: the incredible, daring theft of an ancient reptile god's mask from the Lost City Museum in Overton. A heist perpetrated by masked individuals who appeared to be more than human, and, judging from footage shared by the museum, had tendril-like appendages, extraordinary strength, and the technological prowess to scramble even the most high-tech security systems.

"That's it!" Buddy downed the last cold drop of coffee and hurried out of the room.

In the computer room upstairs, Buddy shared his findings with Matt, who stood beside him and scratched his chin, eyes wide with wonder.

"So you see," Buddy concluded, "the crooks who broke into the museum are the same ones who busted into Boulder Hill and took Alex."

"That's clear, alright. But why?" Matt paused the silent black-and-white video. It froze on the girl with the strange arm carrying Alex through the door. "Stealing the reptile god mask from the museum certainly feels like a motive for Mayhem, but kidnapping one of our own agents? That's not a very VENOM thing to do."

"And unless VENOM's been recruiting new agents, that girl was definitely not Vanessa Warfield."

"Right. Still, what could any of this have to do with Alex?"

Buddy dropped his head in defeat. "Sorry, Matt. I really thought the tape would be more helpful and answer some of those questions."

"No, Buddy." Matt pressed his understanding hand on Buddy's leather-clad shoulder. He forced a reassuring smile, though he himself was far from reassured. "This is very helpful. Perhaps we just need a little more objective help." Matt sat down at the terminal, typed in his password. "Computer, cross-reference this footage from our cameras with news footage regarding the Lost City Museum robbery and give me a list of likely candidates that could have pulled off both the museum heist and the break-in at Boulder Hill"

"Computing…" the computer said in its usual robotic tone. A few moments later, bright green letters populated the black space of the screen. Matt stared at them, scratching at his chin again. "Interesting…" Matt muttered, then leaned back in the chair. Buddy stepped over.

"What is it?"

"According to the computer, VENOM is the second likeliest suspect, followed by Cobra, with SAVAGE rounding out the top three."

"Who's on first then?"

"Oddly enough," Matt began, then tapped the space bar. A familiar logo filled the screen. "Bio-Mech Industries came up as number one."

"Wait, the tech startup you and Alex met with this morning?"

"Yes. The CEO and I didn't see eye to eye, and he was quite upset by this. But kidnapping?" Matt got up. "Buddy, contact Jacques LaFleur. Tell him to take Volcano and stake out Bio-Mech. We have to be absolutely sure it's them." Then, Matt faced the computer screen. "And just in case…" He walked over to the main terminal. "Computer, select the MASK agents best suited for this mission." The screen flickered to life in green lines over black space.

Brad Turner. Motorcycle and helicopter pilot. Vehicle Codename: Condor;

Bruce Sato. Mechanical Engineer, Mechanical Specialist. Vehicle Codename: Rhino;

Gloria Baker. Champion Race Driver, Black Belt in Kung-Fu. Rhino Co-Pilot;

Hondo MacLean. Weapons Specialist, Tactical Strategist. Vehicle Codename: Hurricane;

Julio Lopez. Occupation – Physician. Vehicle Codename: Firefly.

"Personnel approved. Assemble Mobile Armored Strike Kommand!" Matt stepped away from the terminal, grabbed his briefcase. "Buddy, I'll need you to man the station for a while. I'm gonna see if I can piece together some parts of this puzzle we're not seeing clearly."

"How are you gonna do that?"

"By paying a visit to an old friend." Matt smiled, this time with true reassurance. "A friend with deep ties to a much older world."

---

PART 002

CHAPTER NINE: PROJECT "SHADOW STALKER"

Alex Sector opened his eyes, and the fluorescent light that bounced around the strange stainless steel room he found himself in irradiated a sharp pain into his eyes. He massaged his eyelids. There were scrapes and bruises on his knuckles. It was all coming back to him now. He looked around. On the floor was a styrofoam plate full of cold spaghetti and a Dixie cup filled with water. He lifted the cup to his nose, sniffed it, then sipped the contents. He waited a second before downing it all in a single gulp.

"You need to eat, Alex," a man's voice scratched like bootleg vinyl. A towering figure entered the room. He wore a chest plate fitted with wires and thin tubes that connected to an extra large mask that covered most of his head. There were goggles over the eyes, and within the twin lenses green numbers ticked off at a rapid rate. Ordinarily, Alex might have been intrigued by all of this, but at this particular moment, all he felt was anger.

"What I need are some answers, mate," Alex snapped. "Judging by the spaceman getup, I'll skip the question you probably won't answer, and we'll jump right to why the hell have you brought me here?"

The figure ignored Alex's question, almost as if he had not spoken to him at all. Instead, he made a motion with his hands, touching the sheet of metal strapped to his body. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. "It's the result of many years experimenting with technology while I studied at the university. Before I dropped out, of course. Some might even say it was the apex of my work." He paused. "Any guesses?"

"Looks like a toaster with a timer to me," Alex quipped, brandishing an air of increasing irritation. Beneath the mask, the man behind it smiled at the game, but once again ignored Alex's remark.

"This is a virtual reality simulator. Through this intricate device, I can enter a world beyond the physical one we know. All you can see in my visor are ones and zeros moving much too quickly to calculate. But from my end of these lenses, I experience the world these numbers manifest into existence. A whole new dimension, really, one which I can control with the swift motions of my mind. With a simple thought, Alex, I can erect skyscrapers or detonate a nuclear bomb. I can destroy this pocket reality and create a new one, all on a whim. In this virtual world, I am…" He paused again, this time for dramatic effect. "…Lord Matrix."

Alex couldn't help but snort at the moniker. "Thank you for welcoming me to the realm of Dungeons & Dragons."

"Turn up your nose all you like, this is no fantasy––it's the cutting edge. It was William Gibson who brought this concept to the world with his novel Neuromancer. I took that idea and rolled with it. Oh yes, I was laughed at much the same way you just sneered, but my time, energy, and effort has paid off. A virtual world is possible. More so, it has always existed––I simply discovered a more direct means by which to access it; and in doing so, I've ushered into this existence a burgeoning new industry."

Alex shook his head. It was obvious to him that whoever this person was beyond that mask wanted to hear himself talk. "Okay, so you discovered virtual reality. Congratulations. Now, what does any of this have to do with me?"

Lord Matrix stepped inside the room, his solid form shrouding most of the entryway in shadow. Alex saw the door was open, and as he was about to make a dash for it, he noticed another figure on the opposite wall standing tall, still, and silent. Alex leaned back in his uncomfortable chair. The mysterious masked marauder pulled up a chair and sat down across from him.

"What I've got planned next will make the discovery of a virtual world seem virtually unimpressive. We're already well on our way. We've secured funding, and we've got a prototype. In fact, it's practically ready for a test drive, so to speak. What we need is the expertise of someone who knows their way around artificial intelligence." Lord Matrix paused once more, filled Alex's cup from the pitcher beside him, then pushed it back toward him. "Someone like you."

Alex downed the last drop of his third cup of water and tapped it down onto the table with a dead thud. He leaned forward, hands crossed, both arms on the cold aluminum table.

"Lemme get this straight, mate," he began. "You're telling me you've figured out a way to upload a person's consciousness to a computer mainframe?" As incredulous as it sounded coming out of his mouth, Alex knew he had heard his masked captor correctly. For the past forty-five minutes he had been listening intently to Lord Matrix wax scientific and philosophic about human consciousness, memories, and how, at the end of the day, it's all just information. Ones and zeros; green text over black space. And how, by translating that consciousness into a numerical code, it could then be uploaded and stored for an indefinite amount of time like any other ordinary computer file. Only this file was a copy of a person who had once been a living, breathing human being.

With similar ones and zeros flickering within the lenses in front of the lenses of his eyes, the man behind Lord Matrix replied with a simple "yes."

"Okay then," Alex continued. "And you want my help to download that digital consciousness into a vehicle––a car––so that this car will essentially be…" Alex struggled to get the next word out of his mouth. "…alive?"

The fusion of carbon and metal before him replied once more––part man and part machine-like––in the affirmative. Alex shook his head, then chortled to himself as he picked up his empty cup.

"Well, Lord Matrix, or whoever you are under that thing, I'm gonna need a drab of something stronger than water to listen to any more of this shite." Though Alex could not see the scowl that formed on the face of the man behind the machine-like mask, he knew it was there, that he had hit a nerve. Alex leaned forward. "Okay, I'll bite. If…" Lord Matrix leaned in as well, met Alex's hard gaze mere inches from his face. "…you can give me one damn good reason why I should help you."

The mask facing Alex did not move, but the man on the other side of it was silent for what seemed like minutes. He smiled, invisible, like a poker player confident of his own bluff.

"Alex, my friend," he said, still as a calculating machine. "I thought you'd never ask."

---

CHAPTER TEN: MESSAGE FROM BEYOND

The ancient western lands burned beneath the fading remains of the day. Red Rock Canyon rose and fell like breath. To the east, the somber sandstone hidden deep within the Valley of Fire swirled with pastel flames, and the Seven Sisters stood tall as they had done since long before man had observed their muse-like beauty. Clouds drifted through in nomadic swathes, like robes reflecting the hues of the dunes below as the swoosh of the wind lulled the land into an almost nonexistent existence.

Out here, a natural way of living was still manageable. One didn't need cars or computers to help navigate the daily tasks of life. Matt drove the hour and twenty minutes from Boulder City to Clark County in silence, contemplating Alex's abduction along I-15. He needed help; the pieces weren't fitting together. Not all roads led to VENOM, but Matt was certain Mayhem was behind this. Somehow. It couldn't be Bio-Mech, he pondered. Could it? The only person who might have answers was close, just off exit 90, and nestled deep within the Moapa River Reservation.

It had been at least ten years since Matt set foot on this preserved land. He hadn't seen his friend Nevada Rushmore since the late seventies. They attended college together in Reno, and Nevada made a name for himself for a time as a historian teaching others about his culture and heritage, as well as his struggles with his Native American identity. When Nevada turned twenty-seven, he wished to return to the land of his ancestors, the Paitutes, and live off that land. He was considered a shaman, or the Moapa equivalent, dabbling in experimental herbs and ceremonies that sought to open minds and bring about a deeper insight to the mystical questions of life, the universe, and everything.

Thunder Hawk's gull-wing door popped open, and Matt stepped out. The cool desert air made the hairs in his nose tickle as he inhaled. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, then slipped a pair of shades over his eyes; they canceled out enough glare from the slow-setting sun for him to see a man in the distance between the mountain pass: a hulking, well-tanned man with long black hair braided back. He wore a loose-fitting tank top beneath a button-down shirt; dusty, light-colored Lee jeans; a pair of snake-skin boots; and a myriad of leather and feathered bracelets and trinkets. Peering out above the neckline of his undershirt, a crimson eagle, wings spread forever in flight, kept his culture ever closer to his heart.

"Nevada," Matt called out with a smile. His old friend returned the gesture as he neared Matt. He opened his arms wide, and the two men gripped each other in a great big hug. "Matt Trakker," he said, his voice made deeper with the stories of elders. "Welcome, my friend."

"Thank you," Matt replied, then pulled away, keeping one hand on Nevada's shoulder. "It's good to see you, my friend. We've a lot to discuss."

"Yes, much," Nevada said, smiling. "But first things first: our ancestors, now Spirits of the Land, wish to help you find Alex. Everything is ready for us. For the ceremony. Come."

They went, side by side, into the last sunset between the mountains.

Night dropped its raven-colored cloak, and the rocks that enclosed the reservation were now shadows of their daytime glory. Thunder Hawk slept in the same spot where Matt had left it. Beyond the mountain pass, through the valleys of burnt rock and sparse indigenous trees and cacti sprawled about the desert, Matt and Nevada sat cross-legged across from one another on a patch of dead land. A fire crackled between them, fueled by the branches of fallen-down trees, rabbit bones, and other special trinkets known only to Nevada––both state and man. The two friends were still, as dead as the night, though their eyes were open, piercing the depths of one another's selves.

Nevada was decked out in the traditional shamanistic accouterments of the Paiute people from which his tribe was descended. He wore a mask he referred to only as Totem, which resembled an eagle, with eyes and beak and pure white features adorning the blue steel mask. Pressed into the forehead of Totem, a red stone glowed in the firelight. "Red jasper," Nevada remarked. "For increased sensitivity to the Earth." All Matt could recognize of Nevada was his mouth and fine-chiseled chin; all else was Totem now.

Beside the Moapa medicine man lay a long bentwood pipe decorated with feathers. Its small basin smoked from the holy leaves he burned for ceremonies like this one. He took it, lifted the opposite end to his lips, and took a long, slow drag. His eyes closed, and the smoke channeled through his mouth, down his throat and into his lungs, touching all the chakras that remind man that he is more than mere human. He passed the pipe to Matt, and he accepted with a nod of his head, then mimicked the actions of his spiritual guide. He inhaled the sacred smoke, and at once his head swirled. He saw his eyes––twin suns of some binary solar system––and he shut them until everything around him went black except the red jasper gemstone, now glowing in the Shadowlands. Rings of purple and yellow bloomed before him; all Matt could see behind his mind's eye were the sharp silhouettes of mountains, the infinite expanse of the land. And stars. Thousands––no, billions of stars, each one a universe of its own.

Somehow, Matt knew at this moment he was no longer Matt Trakker, but the idea of Matt Trakker. Nothing more, and yet everything more, all at once.

A navy shroud dropped over the dreamlike silhouettes of mountains and cacti, and a fingernail moon curled helplessly in the desert blue.

––Beware the Trickster, the voice echoed, cavernous.

––A skinwalker in your mirror image stalks this land.

Matt saw in the darkness of his Mind beings of pure moonlight standing tall as a man, then moving as four-legged beasts howling. Totem poles formed from trees, on each register a mask venomous and foreshadowing…what?.

––It shall not reveal itself unless cornered.

Nevada leaned back, pressed his shoulder blades and head upon the earth. His eyes opened; within them, a tapestry of night was reflected, stars and worlds and all. His voice deeper than before, he spoke to Matt––to the idea of Matt:

––Those who blend man with metal, doomed are they to be more machine and less man.

––Who is the Trickster? Matt hummed through numbed lips, as if sewn shut. He placed his hands on the dirt, feeling nothing but Cosmos.

––The Trickster's face is covered. Covered. Like you, Matt Trakker.

The Cosmos beneath Matt fell away. He righted himself in the World of Man. Now face to face not with Totem––beak wide, kuk-kuk-kuking; wings spread, a span that bridged whole galaxies in their flapping. But there was no wind. Now, no desert or mountains, no trees with familiar faces etched in them; only emptiness. Mirrors and smoke. Mitote, the conceptual embodiment of Matt Trakker thought to itself. A word borrowed by the Moapa from the Toltec Indians––the fog that clouds the mirror, preventing the understanding of Truth.

From Totem's beak, a voice familiar and friendly. Not Nevada or Totem.

––We've got a bloody mess on our hands, old boy…

Alex! It was Alex's voice, echoing from an unknown elsewhere. Matt's lips and tongue had unsewn themselves from the silence that bound Matt to the muteness of the moment.

––Where are you, Alex?

The silence was all there was now. Totem's feathers flapped in and out of this reality and the one they left behind for a time. A crisp breeze whispered Matt's name from out of nowhere. A crimson blast of sharp light replaced purple and yellow rings of transcendence. Then the pain arrived. Agonizing pain. Matt leaped up. (Again? Hadn't he righted himself before? Wasn't this all a dreamlike trip?) He gazed down through fuzzy eyes, the Truth filtering out the fog.

Mitote?

Nestled on his cross-legged lap, a rattlesnake, its fangs plunged endlessly into his forearm, into the universe flowing beneath his flesh.

The Serpent's venom, already making quick work of his mortality.

---

CHAPTER ELEVEN: MAZE OF THE MINOTAUR

Scott, T-Bob, Hudson, and Miranda stood before the tall glass doors of the building that supposedly housed Bio-Mech Industries.

"So this is Bio-Mech, huh?" Miranda huffed, then turned to Hudson. "The coffee shop on the corner is more impressive." Hudson smirked and assured them all that, though it might look unassuming from its rugged industrial exterior, this was Bio-Mech Industries, which, he added, according to Forbes, was named one of the top five tech startups of 1994 located outside of California's burgeoning Silicon Valley.

The doors were held shut by a large electromagnetic bar across the top. Scott pressed his hand on the pane, and he could feel the energy vibrating through the tempered glass. Miranda took out Dorian Harding's I.D. card and placed it beneath a scanner, which lit it up with red laserlight. Beep! The electricity flowing through the magnet ceased, and the heavy steel and glass door was loosened from its grip. Hudson reached for the handle and pulled, and it opened with no resistance.

Hudson and Miranda slipped in first. Scott turned to T-Bob. "You know what to do with the cameras, T-Bob."

"You bet, Scott." Internally, T-Bob pinpointed all of the closed-circuit cameras in the building, then activated his video disruptor as he and Scott passed through the doors. Behind them, the electricity resumed, reactivating the magnet. They were sealed inside.

The crew of would-be sleuths wandered around the labyrinthine corridors of the first floor of the massive converted warehouse. Most of the rooms were closed; others were empty board rooms, which, to these kids, looked more like bored rooms, so they shuffled past those with a brief peek inside at the unoccupied chairs and powered-down computers and dead projectors. Hudson took the lead, and under his intuitive guidance, the gang made fast work of navigating the intricate hallways and common areas of the complex's ground floor.

"What are we looking for again?" Hudson asked.

"Not what. Who." Miranda snapped.

"Yeah, we have to find Alex. He's gotta be here." Scott pounded his fist into his hand.

"Are we sure he's here?" Hudson asked.

"Well," Scott reasoned, "MASK doesn't have any agents named Dorian Harding, so she must be the person who broke into Boulder Hill and took him."

"A fair deduction, Watson," Miranda said in her best Sherlock Holmes accent.

Hudson was silent as he walked past a set of double doors with the words "HIGH VOLTAGE" stenciled across them. Miranda, following close behind him, paused by the doors. "Hey, what's this?" She got on her tippy-toes and peered into the small square window at the very top of one of the metal doors. "Some kind of tech room, I think." She scanned Dorian's card, then nudged the door, and it gave way.

"Hey!" Hudson gasped. "Let's stick together. This place is big, and you don't know the layout or what might lie––"

Too late. Miranda had already slipped inside.

"––around the bend." Hudson sighed, then began backtracking toward the doors.

Scott and T-Bob followed after Miranda, saw her standing aghast and gazing straight ahead. The three of them laid eyes on the same sight: in a corner of the room, a burly young man was crouched beside an open mainframe panel. He wore a black leather motorcycle jacket with the sleeves cut off; there were large, scary spikes along both shoulders; and he sported a bright red mohawk, to boot. As if feeling their eyes upon him, his head spun around. His face was shadowed in a pale blue cast; he wore a kind of metal helmet that covered only the left side of his head; strange, wormlike things squirmed about his face; and his eyes––on catching sight of these teenage (and titanium) trespassers––burned a toxic green.

"Hey!" he croaked in a toad-like ribbit. He sprang to his feet, his pair of steel toe boots squeaking as they gripped the steel floor. "What're you rugrats doing here?!" His voice was digital sandpaper.

The kids bolted out the door they had entered from and passed Hudson as they fled. Miranda grabbed him by the arm and followed T-Bob and Scott.

"What's going on?!" Hudson cried.

"Just run!" Scott called behind him.

"What are we running from?" Hudson turned his head, saw the hulking figure chasing them down the lengthy stretch of hallway they found themselves in.

"Hey, wait up!" the leather-clad cyberpunk called out, as if in recognition of someone in the group. T-Bob converted into scooter mode, and the three teens grabbed hold of him as he put further distance between them and their pursuer.

"In there!" Scott said, spying a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. T-Bob slowed down enough for his passengers to hop off safely, then righted himself as a robot once again.

"Miranda," Scott began.

"On it," she replied, and held the I.D. card beneath the scanner. Beep! and they barreled through the demagnetized doors.

"Okay, what do we do now?!" Scott asked, gasping for breath.

"I have an idea," Hudson remarked, eyeing something in a corner of the low-lit room they just entered. He ran for it while the others hid. On the other side of the doors, the big brute spoke:

"Hardwire to Lord Matrix," he said. "Hello? Lord Matrix? Frostbite? Anybody?" Scott turned to T-Bob, who nodded his head and winked. T-Bob not only dampened the CCTV, but the communication systems, as well.

Beep! The doors swung apart, and Hardwire rushed inside only to meet the blunt, cold steel head of a very big wrench. Thud! He flopped onto the oily concrete below, his green eyes burning out into twin black holes of unconsciousness.

"H-homerun!" T-Bob exclaimed.

"Nice swing, Hudson!" Scott added with equal excitement and relief.

"Quick," Miranda said, grabbing some coiled up wire from the floor. "Let's tie him up."

"Good idea." Scott said. He helped tie Hardwire's boots together, then fastened his hands behind his back. "There, that should hold him for a bit."

Miranda noticed that the weird worms along Hardwire's face were still squirming, but in slow motion now.

"Eww, gross!" she exclaimed. "What are those?"

"They look like little tentacles," Scott said.

"Not tentacles. Tendrils." Hudson said with some certainty as he investigated the room. Scott jumped up and did the same.

"What is this place?" Miranda asked, stepping away from Hardwire. "Some kind of high-tech garage, I guess."

"Looks like it," Scott affirmed. "It actually reminds me of where my dad stores new cars and other stuff he's turning into MASK vehicles."

All around the room there were random vehicles: a blue and green dune buggy which Scott recognized could be a close clone of Firefly; a yellow ATV; a few forest green 4x4s; a really sleek, matte black motorcycle. There were also lots of parts belonging to other types of vehicles; Scott identified at least one afterburner from a small jet plane. There were wings and other conversion kits, not to mention power tools, tires of all sizes, and plenty of Craftsman cabinets. Yes, this was very familiar to Scott. The only other organization he knew of that had this kind of technology and ingenuity was VENOM, and that was because VENOM was once a part of MASK a long time ago. What is Bio-Mech, anyway? Scott thought to himself. And could this be what they wanted with Alex, to make MASK-like vehicles?

"Hey guys, check this out," Miranda called to the boys and bot, and they hurried over to her. She was standing beside a large vehicle beneath a blue tarp.

"Why's this one covered up?" Scott asked.

"I don't know." Miranda said. "What do you think it is?"

Hudson grabbed a fistfull of the tarp. "Let's find out!"

---

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE PIT VIPER AND THE FIELD MOUSE

Matt's eyes opened.

He stood before a long stretch of tunnel. Familiar. He brushed his crusted eyes with his hand. Red. Gloved. Gray sleeves. He was wearing his jumpsuit, though he couldn't remember wearing it when… when…

Matt blinked. He was inside the underground tunnel that connected his mansion to the MASK headquarters beneath Boulder Hill. Vein of being. It wasn't as polished and clean as it once had been. The tracks were still there, oranged with time. They led him forward, disappeared into a forever darkening horizon.

The corridor sprawled endlessly onward. Where's the transport? Matt thought to himself. His mouth was Mojave dry. A thought passed––of Scott––and tears stirred in his eyes. A strange realization crept in as he wiped away the soft oasis streaming down his cheeks. Everything felt unreal, as though––

Wait! What if…? he thought, then cupped his mouth. No! Am I… dead?!

His boots splashed against a puddle of oily water as he stopped walking. He turned. Another tunnel. Black, empty, and endless as that which fell away behind him. He pulled a deep breath into him. Coldness echoed beneath his hollow breast. His exhalation was sorrow that made melancholy the dense air around him. One foot, then the other, he pleaded in the silence of his mind, then plodded forward into the indefinite darkness that called him forward.

Light. Actual light. It chewed away at the thickness surrounding him, shone far brighter than any sunlight he had ever known. Shards of luminescence traced the shape of curves and scales: a giant pit viper. Its eyes were dying stars. Its body coiled around itself, almost ouroboros, then unfurled, its head before Matt. Mouth parted. Tendons stretched wide enough for what was once a man to step on through. Screaming stars shot down, waiting…

Matt stepped one foot in front of the other once more, and he entered the snake.

A spectrum of gray shapes and humidity clung to Matt's skin. To his jumpsuit. To what remained of his corporeality. He journeyed deep into the belly of this massive serpent. His second skin dropped away. Left naked, sweating, parched for water, drenched in fever drops and visions in the mad Mind-World within the snake. Within himself. His Self. He slouched, then dropped onto all fours, crawling. A sloshing, squishing sound ahead. In the center of a universe of ghostlike vertebrae, he beheld it––huge and red and pulsating: the heart of the viper!

It hung like a slab of slaughtered meat on a shiny hook in the living cavity. Its beat fought time with timelessness. There was blood––lots of blood. The curling rib bones blackened. Streamed down like inkblots. Hardened into sleek black walls. Before Matt, a dining table was dressed for a feast. The heart, unmoving now except for a single spot throbbing, an unnatural pulling and tearing of veins and membranes. Until something burst out from inside!

The thumb-sized head of a tiny little field mouse.

Matt's eyes wrenched shut. He struggled to stand, dizzied by a crisp air fanning in from somewhere unseen. Matt reopened his eyes. He was seated at the sleek black table flanked by mechanical men, humaniform but inhuman. At the table's head, a man sat, bare-chested, wearing a rat's head. A braided mane of hair trailed down its back. Its eyes were black holes which no light could penetrate. Its chest muscles pulsed above a chiseled abdomen. The being's biceps could pound coal into diamonds. In one hand, a pitchfork. In the other, a machete.

Before Rat King, a coiled pit viper slithered on a black plate. Matt fixed his eyes past the sea of soulless eyes at the Rat King. It stabbed at the snake with the pitchfork, securing it for the slaughter. Matt shifted focus to the hair. Black and red. Like Vanessa Warfield's, he thought to himself. But you are not Vanessa Warfield, are you?

Matt peered down at his hand.

In them, he held a pair of shears.

Deep breath in.

Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

Then let it go.

Let. Himself. Go!

Clad once more in his jumpsuit, with Spectrum on, Matt leapt onto the table and dashed toward the Rat King just as the monster was about to hack down into the helpless snake with the machete. Matt kicked away the plate. Shears in hand, he grabbed the Samson-like mane, and snipped away its identity, strand by strand. Then flesh. Then wires?! Lightning crashed, and Matt tore the mask to pieces, faced the face of his True Enemy!

Matt gasped. His eyes opened. After a moment, he smiled.

He found himself surrounded by familiar faces––Gloria, Julio, and Nevada. Wisps of palo santo and sage willowed into the air. Matt propped himself up on shaky arms, but Nevada pressed him back down. For the moment, his tired body obeyed.

"Rest, Matt," Nevada said. "You've been through much, my friend; I was able to suck the toxin out of your bloodstream." Matt looked beside him. On a small nightstand sat a bowl filled with blood and a greenish yellow fluid coagulating inside it. A knife smeared with dried blood lay next to it. Julio pressed his hand on Matt's forehead.

"The fever's going down, too," he said. Matt made another attempt to sit up.

"Matt!" Gloria yelled. Matt raised his hand to her face, stroked her cheek. She smirked. He propped himself up on one elbow, took a sip of water Nevada handed to him.

"I know…" Matt began, then pulled another shallow breath into his strained lungs. "I know who's behind this––all of it." He turned to Nevada, grabbing him by the shoulder. "I know who the Trickster is!"

"Who is it, Matt?" Nevada asked, waving a smoking stick of palo santo before him. Another breath in. Warm, soothing. Matt sat up fully now with Gloria's aid.

"Yeah," Julio said. "Tell us who this rat is."

Matt shook his head. "No, not yet. First, I have to speak with Maximus Mayhem."

---

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CHANGE OF HEART

Ever since he was young, Brad Logan had an unnatural need for speed. Nothing, it seemed, could move fast enough for him. Not the go carts at the mall or the silver balls soaring up and down the angled playfield of a pinball machine. And playing Pong for him was a grueling challenge. It was as if Brad experienced things in fast-forward. Everything in the world moved too slow for him. In fact, the only thing that made him feel truly alive was riding his Husky bike as fast as his legs could pedal him. But after a while, even that proved too slow. His body just couldn't get him going fast enough.

Then, on his 15th birthday, Brad discovered the sport of racing. Specifically, Formula One racing. His dad, also a bit of an adrenaline junky himself, took him to see his first Grand Prix at Caesars Palace, and Brad was at once enthralled by how fast these souped-up, open-wheel race cars whipped around the track, hugging the curves and drifting along at speeds upwards of 200 miles per hour––practically light speed to a boy on the cusp of adolescence. Of making his own decisions.

And of living with the consequences of those decisions, too.

For five summers, Brad worked a series of odd jobs, from fry cook to carnival barker. He would save some of his earnings, and spent the rest on the races, seeing everything he could from NASCAR to the Indianapolis 500. When he got his driver's license, he was able to graduate to jobs like car valet and mechanic, which taught him a lot about cars, how they were made, and what they were capable of doing. By the time he turned twenty-one, Brad had saved up enough cold hard cash to buy himself a Ford Thunderbird from the garage he worked for at the time. It was a beauty, at least to him. He barreled it up and down I-15, quivering between digits in the red arc of the odometer. He was preparing himself.

Months later, he registered himself and his T-bird for a special kind of race, a multi-class race, in which different vehicles––Formula One and stock cars, touring motorcycles, and even trucks––shared the tarmac in the same race. It was the first of its kind in Nevada, and it was a joint venture between rival gasoline giants Boulder Hill Gas and Snake Oil, and co-sponsored by the Peaceful Nations Alliance. Brad thought he could make quite the name for himself if he could take home a win.

His car was number five. He christened it Razorback, a name which signified to him slickness and danger. He painted the T-bird red and white, and was even able to get sponsorship from Simpson, Gumout, and Escort, whose corporate dollars allowed Brad to further trick out his ride with a better set of Goodyears, as a well as some red checkerboard paint, and a little black to allow the number to stand out, even as the car crossed the finish line in a blur. He even got his name painted on the car itself.

But Brad would never make it across the finish line of this race, and his name would merely be a whisper lost to the whims of the gods of speed.

Alex Sector stepped into the room where Bio-Mech kept Brad Logan's body. His eyebrows furrowed at the sight. Brad was lying in a bed, eyes closed, with tubes and breathing aparati bridging the distance between his flesh and the machine that was keeping him alive.

"He's been in a coma for seven years, Alex," Lord Matrix said. For a moment, it was as though the metallic echoing of the voice inside the mask had muted and allowed the man behind it to materialize. "He was going way too fast when he took the last turn. Too fast, even for him. And that curve, it was…"

"…a dangerous curve," Alex interrupted. "I remember it. I was there. The car flipped over, shedding its parts as it tumbled off the speedway. Horrific. I can't believe that… that he's…"

"Still with us?"

"Yes. Still alive."

"Well, 'alive' isn't the best term. The doctors at the hospital said they couldn't do anything more for him, so we opted to remove him from the vile clutches of our healthcare system and keep him alive in the hopes that he would one day wake up. But that hasn't happened yet, and it's likely it never will. We understand and accept this now."

"And by 'we,' who exactly do you mean?"

A nearby door slid open as if on cue, and in walked a sleek cyberpunk with crisp blue hair, cold gray eyes set deep within thick black eyeshadow, and dark crimson lipstick.

"I believe you've already met Frostbite," Lord Matrix said with a coy smile.

"Not officially," Alex replied. "But yeah, we've met."

"Frostbite and I, as well as Hardwire, the third member of our triad, were his best friends."

"Are his best friends," Frostbite interjected.

"Yes, we are. Which is why we want to make use of the latest technology at our disposal to take Brad's consciousness and download it into this." Lord Matrix pressed a few buttons on a gauntlet he wore on his right forearm, which was really a spruced up Nintendo Power Glove. A faint holographic form materialized from a trio of tiny lasers. It sharpened into the three-dimensional image of a sleek black concept car, the likes of which has never before been turned into a Hot Wheels or graced the showroom floor at the New York City Auto Show.

The image rotated in a gradual 360-degree arc. It had large wheel wells at the front in between what seemed more akin to a cockpit than a cab or traditional automobile interior. Its front swooped down from an elevated rear, giving one the impression of a panther prepared to pounce. There was a slickness and a danger to the vehicle, and Alex could see why it appealed to Lord Matrix the way it did. He turned from the hologram to the flesh and bone human lying on the bed.

"You're essentially asking me to help you put a person's soul into a car, Matrix."

Lord Matrix switched off the hologram and stepped closer to Alex. "Let's not get caught up in the semantics of it all. We simply want our friend to live, and if his body, that soft human machine, is no longer a suitable vessel for Brad's soul, as you called it––his consciousness as we know it to be––then it's only fitting to present him with a new form. A familiar form. A form in which he has always felt at home.

"A car?"

"Oh, but it's so much more than just a car!" The tinny clang of metal-on-metal returned to Lord Matrix's voice, and this did not go unnoticed. Alex turned to his captor. He spoke between the gritting of his coffee-tanned teeth.

"What's your endgame here, mate?"

"That, I'm afraid, is none of your concern. Your role here is to save a life. A life cut far too short, far too soon."

"We just want our friend back," Frostbite added. She stared at Alex from beside Brad's bed. "Will you help us?" Then, once more: "Will you help him?"

Alex looked at the young woman who was, like Lord Matrix, something more. The thick black eyeshadow that emaciated her face and gave it a skull-like countenance. through the appearance of hollowed out eye sockets. But within the twin caverns of her eyes, beyond the gray, a sparkling, too human blue that almost seemed capable of shedding tears like rain.

"Alright," Alex said without so much as a glance in their direction. "I'll help save Brad Logan's life."

---

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: UNLIKELY ALLIANCE

Nelson Ghost Town was a swift 45-minute drive from Sin City. The term "ghost town" was a bit of a misnomer, though. An old mining town abandoned long ago, Nelson was more junkyard than ghost town: old buildings in disrepair; a motel sign stuck in the hot Nevada sand; and dozens of old cars from as early as the 1930s, flat-tired and wrecked, strewn across a landscape once rich with gold, now barren and wasted. A chapel stood in the middle of the dunes, where occasional wedding ceremonies were held, which helped keep the town from becoming a forgotten relic of a bygone era.

Nelson was purchased, and there had been much buzz that the new owners were going to turn it into a tourist attraction, hoping to lure visitors in from Las Vegas, Henderson, and the surrounding cities of the Silver State to walk in the footsteps of a diverse cast of old west characters whose boots once kicked up dust in the hopes of striking it rich.

A wilder west didn't exist more than it did in Nelson, and this made it the appropriate location for a meeting between two leaders of rival posses.

Matt found himself gazing at a row of abandoned cars from the 1930s, the kind that gangsters might've ridden around in firing slugs from their Tommy guns. They were all eaten up by patches of rust, discolored further by the scorching rays of the Nevada sun blazing down upon the steel and glass. Walking further down, Matt laid his hand on a school bus that once ferried the children of Nelson to and from school; now, the bus lingers as a testament to the ravages of time.

A crunching of gravel, and Matt knew that Maximus Mayhem stood behind him now, looking up at the same sight, shielding his eyes with one hand raised toward the sun.

"A ghost town. Really?" Mayhem's voice was jagged with judgment.

"I think it's got potential."

"Y'know, I could easily add you to the roster of ghosts here."

"But you won't."

"Oh? Won't I?"

Matt turned and faced Mayhem. "No, you won't. Because for the first time, Max, we have a common enemy, and that enemy has powerful allies. I've seen them, I know. And MASK can't defeat them alone. And neither can VENOM."

Mayhem took two steps closer to Matt, the pistol in his hand clenched tighter than before. Matt dropped his gaze to the weapon, then looked back up at Mayhem, his eyes hard, familiar.

"Put down your gun, Max," Matt said. "This isn't your way. And you know well enough that by killing me, you'd only be strengthening MASK against VENOM, much the way…"

" …that killing my brother strengthened VENOM."

Matt lowered his gaze once more, shook his head. "Must we talk of dead brothers?" He reached out a shaking hand to Mayhem's, still gripping the gun. Mayhem's eyes softened, as did his grasp, and he allowed Matt to lower his weapon.

"You've got ten minutes, Trakker. Talk!"

The look in Mayhem's eyes was one of incredulity. Matt never realized just how identical Maximus and Miles were in both appearance and demeanor until that moment. The way the eyebrows dipped from horizontal to a wide letter "V" and how the edges of their mouths curled up when seized by frustration or anger. Matt had seen this look many times during his encounters with Miles, the elder by a matter of seconds, but never had he seen it in Maximus.

"You must be joking!" Mayhem said at last, then let the crooks of his mouth jerk upwards into a smile. The jackal-like laughter that followed reverberated like an unnatural tremor through the small chapel where the two men stood. "Really, Trakker? Do you expect me to believe whatever viper-induced deathbed vision of a 'trickster in our midst' you had?"

Mayhem turned away, but Matt caught him by the arm. "Mayhem, listen to me. It all adds up. Think about it."

"There's nothing to think about. I won't buy that he––of all my agents––could be capable of this level of betrayal."

"Can't you?"

"It's a pipe dream, kid!" Again, Mayhem started for the chapel doors. "Your time's up, by the way."

"Mayhem," Matt rushed after him. "Max, wait. Just––" Mayhem stopped, turned. "Here, take this." Matt held out a folder.

"What's this?"

"The proof. I saw that Snake Oil made a sizable investment in a new tech start-up this week. An investment in the same start-up that was courting Boulder Hill."

"Bio-Mech."

"That's the one."

"So?"

"I declined. Something about the CEO struck me as disingenuous. I had one of my agents look more deeply into Bio-Mech shortly after another of my agents was abducted." Matt nudged the folder in Mayhem's direction once more. "Roarke is only the face of Bio-Mech. A puppet, if you will. The real head of the company appears to be someone else."

Mayhem snatched the folder from Matt. He flipped through it, and his gray eyebrows creased again. The edges of his mouth drooped, and his teeth clenched tight. Then, everything softened, and Mayhem's eyes raised up to meet Matt's own.

"If this is accurate––and it's still a big 'if' for me––why tell me about this?"

Matt smirked. "I think––for the time being at least––that Bio-Mech could prove a dangerous threat to both MASK and VENOM, and I don't believe either of our organizations can stop them alone."

"You're proposing a team-up then?" Mayhem belched out a sarcastic laugh. "That viper did a helluva number on you, eh?"

"Maybe, but I've got a plan, if you're willing to hear me out. And if you're willing to trust me."

Matt held out his hand. Mayhem looked down at it, then up at Matt. The Matt Trakker who not too long ago was responsible for the death of Miles Mayhem, who, long, long ago, was responsible for the death of Matt's younger brother Andy. For the moment, none of that mattered. Mayhem glanced at the sheet of printout paper clipped to the folder in his hand.

And for the first time ever, a Mobile Armored Strike Kommand agent shook hands with an agent of the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem.

---

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: NEED FOR SPEED

Brad Logan white-knuckled the steering wheel as Razorback approached the first double apex. This particular curve on the strip at Las Vegas Speedway Park was really two curves, but it could only be taken as a single razor sharp turn. The Thunderbird was coming in too hot, though, and Brad had to slow down fast. He cooked the brakes, and black tufts of smoke billowed from the rear tires. Behind, Ali Bombay leaned in Road Rash-style on his touring cycle and whipped around the cloud. Razorback fishtailed for a few seconds before careening out of control.

From the cockpit of his F-1 racer Goliath, Matt Trakker watched the whole tragic scene unfold in slow motion. One moment, he was cruising wing-to-wing beside Miles Mayhem's intimidating Buzzard, and the next Razorback had been hurled ten feet into the air, flipping over numerous times before it crashed down onto the road. It skidded another twenty feet toward the Snake Oil pit stop manned by Sly Rax.

"Nevada, emergency!" Matt yelled into his watch. "Bring the truck to the strip, and get Ace in the air now!"

There was a collective gasp from the hundreds of spectators who witnessed the horrific scene. Sparks flickered from the steel scraping along the road, scarring the tarmac with white claw marks of paint. Ali spun his cycle around and raced like a bullet back to the crash site. With elbows locked and arms pressed against the wheel, Matt braced for whiplash as he slammed on the brakes. Goliath screeched to a halt, kicking up a twister of dust. Matt unstrapped himself, snatched his fire extinguisher, and joined Ali and Sly. Buzzard whizzed past both Goliath and the towering inferno that erupted and choked the clouds with black blasts of heat and horror.

A stunt jet shot across the sky meteor-like and, as it neared the double apex, doused the fire with water which, along with Matt, Ali, and Rax's efforts with their extinguishers, subdued the flames before the blaze could rage any further. But by that time, the damage had been done. The race was over. The fans had left their seats with anguish on their faces; they had entered Speedway Park that afternoon expecting entertainment and excitement, and they exited as the unfortunate witnesses to an American tragedy.

Nevada and Alex arrived with the flatbed. Ambulances pulled up, sirens blaring. Medics pulled Brad from the smoldering wreckage. Somehow, he was still alive. They laid him on the gurney and wheeled him into the ambulance. Brad's dad made it down from the stands to the strip on unsteady legs, tears riding down his face. His voice was a hoarse prayer, his eyes ghosts. He shoved past everyone and crawled into the back of the ambulance. The doors slammed closed, and it drove off, leaving the band of brave heroes behind.

In the empty bleachers, three teenage friends stood in shock. A blond-haired girl in ripped jeans, a Nirvana T-shirt, and blue Doc Martens crumbled into the arms of a leather motorcycle jacket-clad boy with an orange mohawk and black steel toe boots. Beside them, the eldest of the three stood, with one hand on his shaved head, his other balled into a fist, clenched tight like his teeth, his whole body shrouded in disbelief and rage.

Matt removed his helmet. From afar, Miles Mayhem rushed over, cutting the distance between them with haste. Before long, he was in Matt's face.

"We just lost a shit-ton of money, Trakker!" Mayhem hollered. He shuffled past his nemesis, butting his shoulder against him as he stormed off. Matt turned, face red with anger.

"Yes Miles, we did," Matt yelled. "But that poor kid might lose his life!"

Mayhem didn't hear––or pretended not to hear. He kept his pace toward the Speedway's main office, grabbing Rax and dragging him along. Matt crouched down for a moment, wiped sweat from his forehead. Nevada stepped up beside him and rested a much needed hand on his shoulder. So did Alex.

"Good work, everyone," Matt said, managing a halfhearted smile that faded as soon as he turned away from them. "I just hope that kid's gonna be alright."

The vital signs monitor blipped a steady digital heartbeat the way it had done for seven years while the life support unit kept Brad Logan alive. For the past two days, the beep had an all-too human heaviness to its raindrop mimicry. Now, that tension was at its apex.

Alex Sector stood above the young man's body. Various machines and computers with wires, some coiled like phone cords, others copper and silver coated in colorful rubber casings, were curved around Brad's body like a strange mechanical cocoon. Lights blinked in quick succession. Daisy chains carried brainwaves to microchips between various motherboards that, if successful, would be installed within the aerodynamic steel and chrome body of yet another machine that was only a brisk one minute walk from where Alex now worked.

The door behind him opened with a whoosh of artificial air, and in stepped Lord Matrix.

"How is our patient doing, doctor?" he asked. Alex slid a square floppy disc into one drive, checked the computer monitor, then removed a slim diskette from another drive and placed it into yet another computer set on a rolling cart beside the vital signs monitor. The lifeline pulsed bright green, then flashed across the black void before the next pulse a mere one second apart.

"I'm no doctor, Matrix, but this is delicate work," Alex huffed, wiping away a few beads of sweat from the top of his head. "Apparently, a human being translates to a lot of information." Alex pointed to a tall tower of floppy discs beside him.

Lord Matrix knelt down beside the black monolith that, in a way, resembled a Jenga tower, each piece integral for keeping the whole complete. "So, this is Brad's DNA, eh?"

"Not exactly," Alex interjected and felt a distinct pleasure in contradicting his captor. "But it's a close enough comparison. This is not Brad Logan the person, of course, but a near complete copy of his consciousness."

"I see," Lord Matrix replied, not at all impressed. "What do you mean by 'near complete' a copy?"

"There were parts of his mind I wasn't able to access. Certain memories, personality traits, that sort of thing. There seems to be a block that your firmware couldn't get through." The final floppy disc popped out of the drive and into Alex's hand. "That should be it," Alex continued, adding it to the stack. "This is as close to another Brad Logan as we're gonna get with this technology."

Lord Matrix stood up. grunted under his breath, though it didn't surpass the virtual realm behind his mask. "Very well then," he said. "It'll have to do. Let's move on to the final phase, shall we?"

---

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: "IT'S ALIVE!"

Hudson pulled the tarp. It rippled away in silent microfiber waves, revealing beneath the sleek ultramodern frame of a futuristic sports car, the likes of which Miranda, Scott, and T-bob had never seen before. Its curves were those of a 1968 Corvette but reimagined as if designed by Hugo Gernsbeck, incorporating all the sensibilities of the America he believed would one day exist from within the pages of Amazing Stories. They walked around the car, and as they moved, its matte black hull shimmered, and the color changed to a deep cobalt with hints of maroon. When the kids stopped moving, the car's hue reclaimed its original black, as pitch as the Mojave night.

"Pretty rad paint job," Hudson commented.

"It must be a trick of the light," Miranda noted. "Maybe reflecting off the glass of this… cockpit?" She stepped closer to the domed structure forged from a violet-tinted tempered glass. It was open, and inside there was a single seat in front and a spacious, but narrow, rear compartment.

"Well, that's strange," Scott said, pointing at the dashboard. "There's no steering wheel in this thing!"

"Or odometers," Hudson added. "Just this one button. The ignition, I guess?"

Miranda raised her hand. "Did you guys hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Scott asked. Miranda brought her index finger to her lips.

"Shh! A beep," she whispered. "I heard a beep."

They stood still and listened. The hiss of a hydraulic door fizzed open just beyond the door to this glorified garage.

"Someone's coming!" T-Bob gasped. Hudson dashed over to the door, got on the tips of his Reeboks, and peered through the small square of glass. "It looks like another one of those… things. And there's a bald guy with a beard in a lab coat, too."

"Alex!" Scott exclaimed.

"Looks like the clues added up," Miranda smirked. "Now what do we do?"

Scott looked to his trusted robotic companion. "T-Bob, get Miranda out of here fast––!"

"Hey! That's not fair!" Miranda protested. Scott rested his hand on her shoulder, the way his dad had done to him many times before.

"Miranda, I need you and T-Bob to get back to the house." He turned to T-Bob. "Find my dad, and tell him Alex is here and needs their help."

"Will do, Scott." T-Bob's tin voice yelped as he converted to scooter mode.

"Fine!" Miranda pouted. "But what about you and Hudson?" Scott eyed Hudson, and they both peered at the backseat of the speed machine before them.

"We'll hide in there!" They said in unison, then added, "Jinx!"

"Real brave, fellas," Miranda mocked. T-Bob shook his dome.

"I-I-I don't know, Scott––"

"Now, T-Bob. Go!"

Miranda hopped onto T-Bob, and they whirred off with a burst of black exhaust. Hudson snatched the tarp from the cold concrete floor, and he and Scott jumped up into the backseat of the cockpit. They stared at the door. Beep. They ducked down, tucking themselves deeper inside and shielding themselves with the tarp just as the metal door slid open.

Lord Matrix entered the vehicle laboratory, followed by Alex carrying a box containing Brad Logan's floppy-disk consciousness. He stopped in his tracks upon seeing Lord Matrix unveil the concept car he had seen earlier as a small hologram. Now, it was all steel and glass and real, and every bit as dangerous as Alex had suspected it might be. A panther at rest, readying itself for the hunt.

Alex crouched down on a nearby dolly and slid himself beneath the sleek underdark of the sleeping beast's chassis. He had worked on cars like this many times before. In fact, most of the modified vehicles in the MASK roster had computerized components similar to what he was seeing in the electronic control units placed throughout this car. There was an awkward familiarity to it that almost comforted him about the operation he was going to perform.

Almost.

Alex Sector was attempting a feat hitherto unheard of in biomechanics and science. He was going to insert the digitized consciousness of a human being into the central processing unit of an automobile. A machine. In essence, he was about to give this car sentience. The gift of life from a life cut too short. He felt like Dr. Frankenstein, but with only a fraction of the fictional mad scientist's conviction. Was this really Brad Logan? he thought to himself as he worked with hands and tools alike, his knuckles greasing up against the oil of the silent beast above him. Of course it wasn't! It was a copy of the original. And what would Matrix do with the original once the copy has been activated? Alex knew he shouldn't think of such ethical questions, but the thoughts ricocheted through his mind like a laser beam in a magnetized cell. A part of him hoped––prayed, even––that this absurd idea wouldn't work; that the copy had been contaminated somehow. That the transfer wouldn't take, and the machine would remain without the spark of a human soul, and continue to be just a machine. An extraordinary one, sure, but a car nonetheless.

As if reading his thoughts, something deep within the car began to purr. A steady beeping resounded. Another disc ejected from the drive in the car's CPU. A copy of a copy, Alex thought, then shook his head. He jabbed the final floppy into the slot, hoping the force might cause a fatal error in the transfer or scramble the data somehow. No luck. The purr boiled to a vibration that hummed through the entirety of this next-gen sports car and, unbeknownst to Alex or Lord Matrix, into the bodies of Scott and Hudson hunkered down in the slim compartment behind the pilot's seat. The last disc ejected, and Alex rolled himself out from under the belly of the beast he feared he had just breathed life into.

"Well?" Lord Matrix asked, anticipation vibrating his voice. "Did it work?"

Beep. The door slid open, and Frostbite joined the two of them.

"We're about to find out," Alex replied, brushing his hands against one another.. "How d'ya turn this thing on, mate?"

Lord Matrix moved past Alex, reached his arm into the cockpit and pressed the red ignition button and held it for three long seconds.

Two seconds.

One.

The V10 engine growled to life, and the blank dashboard lit up with digital dials and meters. Alex jerked back, surprised by the 450 horsepower that stampeded out of the Dodge Viper GTS engine tucked beneath the hood. The air grew thick with what felt like a presence, one that was not that of Alex or Lord Matrix. Not Frostbite or even Scott and Hudson. But one thing was certain: it was the presence of something alive. Lord Matrix felt it more than the others. Through his visor, in that digital world of his own genesis, he saw that presence seated within the cockpit––a virtual ghost in the machine.

A voice manifested as frequency waves across the dashboard.

"I'm alive!" It spoke in narrow band noise, a hiss of circuitry below the syllables it spoke.

"Oh my God––Brad?!" Frostbite gasped. To her, the voice was unmistakable. She rushed over to the cockpit, but Lord Matrix's ironclad hand halted her.

"No, Frostbite. Not Brad," he said, then looked back at the jet black panther at bay before him. "We must call him Shadow Stalker now."

A brief symphony of SID chiptunes and digital computations echoed through the vehicle lab, and the voice spoke again. "Yes, I am Shadow Stalker now." Alex looked at Lord Matrix, jaw agape. He clenched his teeth, ready to rant in protest. Beep. The laboratory door slid open once more, and a familiar face entered the room. Not a face, but a mask––deep green with beady black eyes and a sharp snout jutting forward which gave the impression it was modeled after a baboon or jackal. The fact was the mousy misanthrope behind it was nothing more than a goon. (Or so Alex had thought.)

"Nash Gorey?!" Alex exclaimed with utmost incredulity. The man in the emerald mask ignored him, shuffled past Frostbite, and stood beside Lord Matrix. He stroked the edge of the cockpit glass with his gloved hand. Lord Matrix turned to him as Shadow Stalker idled to itself.

"Yes," Gorey said in his usual goofy manner that even Powerhouse didn't have strength enough to mask. "Shadow Stalker you are. Now, let's get you ready for the ride of your life!"

---

PART 003

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: LOGAN'S RUN

Shadow Stalker's silken black tires peeled down a secluded stretch of freeway at 180 miles per hour hellbent on destruction. Twilight settled on the darkening Nevada desert, and the night sky above bristled with stars that could do nothing but watch the blue-black blur tear up the road, leaving only a brief flash of shadow in its wake. In the back of its cockpit, two friends gripped the black leather seat backs with anxious fingers. Scott lifted his head from the tarp that had shielded them from discovery by Lord Matrix in the glorified garage at Bio-Mech Industries.

"What do you see, Scott?" whispered Hudson. Scott peered out of the maroon glass of the cockpit, squinching his eyes.

"It's all a blur. We're moving too fast. I can't tell where we are."

"Who are you?" A voice filled the whole cockpit.

"Who are we?" Scott retorted. "Who are you?!"

"I am Shadow Stalker, and I am on a mission. And you should not be in here."

"So let us out then," Hudson said, poking his head up.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Nothing can interfere with my mission."

"Which is?" Scott asked.

"Classified information."

"Who are we gonna tell? I mean, we're stuck in here with you, so whether you like it or not, we're in this together."

"And if you're not gonna stop to let us out," Hudson continued, "you might as well tell us about your mission." There was some computing on Shadow Stalker's part, then a thrush of static. A voice––somewhat different and more human than before––replied.

"A fair point, my friends," it said. Static rippled through its circuitry before Shadow Stalker spoke again. "We're headed to the secret headquarters of the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem."

"Alright," Scott said. "What for, exactly?"

"To put an end to VENOM once and for all."

"Oh!" Scott gasped. He turned to Hudson, shook his head and whispered, "that's not good." He tapped some buttons on his wristwatch, which was no ordinary Casio, but a MASK communicator…

Matt Trakker's watch pulsed with the familiar image of his Ultra Flash mask. He sat in the energy room of Boulder Hill with a number of his MASK agents best suited for this particular––and peculiar––mission. A mission that he was trying to convince everyone was a good idea.

All around the room was an energy of a different kind. Julio Lopez felt it as his fully-charged Streamer mask lowered down into his hands. Hondo MacClean felt it as he received Blaster II, as did Gloria Baker and Bruce Sato, both reaching up to retrieve their respective masks from the charging web. The energy emanated from another mask that was powering up, which belonged not to an agent of MASK, but an agent of VENOM who happened to be sitting across from the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand: Maximus Mayhem.

Matt glanced at his watch. His eyebrows furrowed, and Julio caught sight of it.

"What is it, Matt?"

"It's my son. I think he's using Morse Code to communicate with me through the watch." Worry streaked across Matt's face. Gloria laid her hand on his. "If I'm understanding this correctly," he said, looking dead ahead at Mayhem, "there's a car headed for your 'secret headquarters' intent on destroying it, and VENOM."

Mayhem leaned back and crossed his arm. "A single car? Pfft! It would take a small army to wipe out VENOM. I––"

"Mayhem!" A voice crackled, cutting the tension in the room. It cried out from Mayhem's own watch. He lifted it up to his face. "Codenames, fool! What is it, Mad Dog?"

Bruno "Mad Dog" Sheppard replied: "There's a really fast car headed straight for the base, like he knows where he's going. Should we teach him some manners?"

Matt pointed a finger at Mayhem. "Do not engage." Mayhem snorted. He covered his watch. "Please, Trakker. My guys'll make mincemeat out of this car." Then, into the watch he gave Mad Dog the go-ahead. "Yes, you and Birdman show this putz who's boss!"

"You got it, Wolf!" and there was silence. Matt shook his head.

"What?!" Mayhem reached for his mask. "If anything, they'll buy you guys some time by the time you get there. And if things go south, I'll bail you out."

Buddy turned to Mayhem, annoyed. "Hey man, we're keeping you here for your own protection. How 'bout you show a little gratitude, huh?!"

"It's alright, Buddy," Matt interjected.

Mayhem sat in the chair, mask in his hands now. He was too comfortable. "Fine. You go after the pawn, but the leader's all mine."

Vampire's chrome-plated engine roared like its bloodlusting namesake on the prowl as it sped down the freeway. Hot sand and cacti whirred past Floyd Malloy's Buckshot mask, his hair slapping against the breeze like blond fire. Beside him, Stinger kept pace, its own eight cylinders snarling as its Goodyears kicked up dirt and small debris onto the sunbaked strip behind it. The road ahead of the two VENOMous vehicles was quiet, eerie, and still.

Until it wasn't.

Sheppard saw it first from behind the lenses of his mask. The translucent paint blended Shadow Stalker into the road on which it raced. If not for a streak of harsh sunlight that sliced across its cockpit, he might never have seen it until a few seconds later, and by then, it would have been too late. Then Malloy glimpsed the sleek speedster. He turned to his comrade, nodded once, and then converted Vampire from touring cycle to turbo jet and blasted off into the darkening sky. Stinger's tires suddenly vanished beneath its chassis, and in their place tank treads tore hard into the tarmac adding velocity and power to Sheppard's ride. Another second, and it was armored and ready for action or impact.

Shadow Stalker didn't flinch on seeing the two VENOM vehicles closing the distance between. Instead, it increased its speed. Beneath its body, a pair of gun turrets emerged and blasted a series of laser bolts at Stinger. Many of them ricocheted off of the heavy plate armor. Sheppard slammed on the gas pedal. Stinger bounced and growled, gaining more speed. Shadow Stalker continued its barrage of laser beams until a few struck the treads in quick succession. The former Pontiac GTO jerked from left to right, almost losing control, but Sheppard's expert driving kept the machine on trajectory with its quarry.

At the same time, Vampire launched two missiles down at Shadow Stalker. With the prowess of a cougar, the futuristic car swerved out of the way of each of them. The missiles exploded the ground behind Shadow Stalker just before it added another twenty miles an hour to its odometer in seconds. It was on a crash course with Stinger, sparks of laser light cutting molecules of oxygen and nitrogen amid the few dozen feet that separated the two speeding beasts.

Vampire swooped up and around just in time to witness a bolt strike Stinger's tank tread, splitting it in half on the left side. The GTO veered off the road seconds before Shadow Stalker could make impact.

"Aww, shit!" Malloy exclaimed from beneath Buckshot. He gripped the handlebars and let rain a storm of laser blasts on the rogue vehicle as it zoomed past an overturned Stinger. A pair of missile launchers popped open on each side of Shadow Stalker. From within the cockpit, Scott and Hudson watched two missiles soar away from Shadow Stalker, one heat-seeking set on Vampire, the other making a b-line for the downed Stinger.

One explosion on the ground, and one lighting up the sky like fireworks. Vampire's right wing was blown off, missile launchers and all, and the small jet careened down to the desert like a falling star. Malloy cranked the gas coming in for a crash landing and managed to ride the touring cycle a hundred feet or so before coming to a full stop.

Malloy turned and saw Stinger engulfed in flames. He pulled off his mask, looking toward Shadow Stalker, now only a streak of black with red eyes for tail lights on a gray road that seemed a lifetime away.

"Bruno!" he gasped out of breath and dashed toward the blazing wreckage of the orange GTO tank. By the time he got there, the heat caused beads of sweat to stream down his windblown hair and pockmarked skin. He squinted his beady eyes and could see movement in the fire, debris, and embers. It was Sheppard struggling to tear himself out of the driver's seat. His biceps full-flexed bending the steel softened by the flames of hell itself. There was an energy field around him, and the metal of the machine bent further, for such was the power of his Magna-Beam mask. But still he struggled. His skin charring with every second he remained in the towering inferno.

"Bruno! Get out of there before––!"

Too late. Stinger erupted in a blaze of fire, its smoke plume mushrooming into the skies above. The explosion was deafening to Malloy, but he still made an effort to run toward the intensifying heat and flames, especially when he saw Sheppard shambling toward him, zombie-like, his whole left side smoldering, Magna-Beam misformed to his face.

Sheppard collapsed into Malloy's arms, and he patted the remaining flames until they died out. Holding Sheppard's broken body, he raised his watch up to his curled lips. "Birdman to Wolf, Vampire and Stinger down. Mad Dog is down…"

Mayhem stood outside Boulder Hill, his fist clenched at his side as he listened to Malloy: "…Target's still headed to home base. Request instructions and emergency help. Mad Dog, he's in bad shape."

Mayhem turned to Buddy, and he nodded, then ran over to Wildcat, leaving Dusty with their guest.

"Help is en route, Birdman." Mayhem spoke into his watch. "I'll alert the others to be prepared in case MASK can't get there fast enough."

"MASK?!"

"Yes," Mayhem gritted his teeth. "MASK is here to save the day."

---

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: COOPERATION AND CONFRONTATIONS

Thunder Hawk blasted off into the twilit sky once its odometer clocked in at 120 miles an hour, leaving Rhino, Firefly, Hurricane, and Condor shrouded in a cloud of dust. Not long after, the flying Camaro's radar picked up Shadow Stalker some ten miles ahead of the Kommand convoy. The sun was almost set over the westernmost mountain ranges, but a last, faint breath of bright blue colored the oncoming dark with an ombre haze that provided just enough light to see without headlights. Matt had a plan, or so he convinced himself he had a plan based on the computer's recommendation of agents best suited for this mission.

On the ground, Gloria rode shotgun inside Rhino, in a seat reserved for Alex; today, she served as Bruce's partner. She was adjusting her Aura mask with a screwdriver when Bruce caught sight of something in the distance and headed their way.

"Look, Gloria!" Bruce said through Lifter, pointing. Gloria looked up from her work and out Rhino's windshield. A crackle came in on Bruce's watch. "Bruce," Jacques LeFleur's voice called out in a thick French accent. "T-Bob and a young lady are headed your way from Bio-Mech."

"We see them, Jacques," Bruce replied.

T-Bob and Miranda rode toward the familiar sight of Rhino, waving their hands. Bruce pumped the brakes, and Brad Turner swerved Condor around the big rig trying to keep up with Thunder Hawk a few hundred feet above him. Gloria raised her watch to her lips.

"Matt, it's––"

"I see them, Gloria. Get them aboard, and keep them safe."

"Will do!" Gloria stepped out of Rhino as Hondo roared past in Hurricane and Firefly transformed into its namesake and soared into the fading golden dusk ahead. T-Bob slowed his roll enough for Miranda to hop off before converting back into his robot self.

"G-G-Gloria! You're a s-s-sight for s-s-sore eyes!" T-Bob exclaimed.

"Scott and Hudson," Miranda began. "They're in the back of a, of a––"

"We know. Scott contacted us." Gloria crouched down, placed her hand on the young girl's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Miranda said. Then she exclaimed "Alex…!"

"Alex?" Gloria asked. "Is he there?"

"Y-y-es!" T-Bob interjected. "He's at B-B-Bio-Mech!"

Gloria's eyebrows perked up. She turned to Bruce, who stood in the doorway between the driver's and sleeper cabin. He nodded, putting on Lifter once more. Gloria spoke into her watch:

"Rhino's gonna make a little detour, Matt."

"Go ahead, Gloria; I just read your transcript. Brad, be their eyes in the sky."

"You got it," Brad replied, and Condor converted into its helicopter counterpart and lifted up into the sky.

"The rest of us will continue to VENOM's headquarters."

Rhino's engine ignited with an impatient, guttural growl. Bruce shifted into gear, slammed his boot on the gas pedal. The rig charged ahead into the coming night with Condor as its guiding star. Destination: Bio-Mech Industries.

Jackhammer took the lead, its armored hood-shield fitting itself into place over the windshield. A pair of reciprocating cannons protruded from the front grill beside the acronym "VENOM" etched into the Ford's black understeel. With a clang that ripped through the hot evening breeze, the veteran vehicle's anti-aircraft turret unfolded itself, and in its seat, Cliff Dagger, A.K.A. "Blaster" emerged, Torch-masked and taking aim in the heat of the desert.

Behind the battle-ready Bronco, Lester Sludge rode Iguana over a sand dune beyond the freeway's shoulder, sending the 4-wheel ATV into the air as its front hood dropped open. Upon landing, "Lizard" was ready for action with a pair of bazookas and a rotating circular saw. Behind him, Manta launched into the sky, VENOM's own Vanessa Warfield piloting her violet soaring Nissan 300ZX just above the ground support.

"We're the last order of defense, fellas," Warfield rasped into Whip's communicator.

"Next to last, apparently." Dagger chimed in, to the Ice Queen's chagrin. That was not what she wanted to hear. Not now, or ever.

"I for one am not banking on MASK to bail us out. We've got this!"

There was a blip on her radar, and she knew it was Shadow Stalker. She magnified the distance using Whip's enhanced vision, but she couldn't see anything but darkness. "Night vision," she snarled, and the image turned green and she saw everything––the road below, the mountains that formed the valley, and an unnatural dark green machine speeding toward them with incredible haste.

More blips popped up. Warfield looked again from radar to road and recognized some familiar enemy vehicles. Tonight, though, they were not her nemesis. Only a lone car, supposedly so dangerous it required a MASK and VENOM team-up to neutralize the potential threat it posed. She could not contain her disgust. Orders were orders, though, and if they had to work together for just one night, so be it.

"I'm locking missiles on our target," Vanessa announced on her channel, now open to MASK and VENOM agents alike. On Manta's targeting computer, a yellow circle surrounded the blip that was Shadow Stalker, then burned red, the word "LOCKED" flashing in that same shade. "Let's end this now."

"Wait, Ice Queen!" a voice shattered the silence. "Don't fire! There are two kids inside.

"Are you serious, Trakker?!"

"Yes. Don't even lock your missiles."

"Too late for that!"

Shadow Stalker's computerized consciousness had picked up on Manta's weapons lock on it, and it changed its form. In a flash, it was no longer a sleek black car that blended into the night. Its front wheel wells flipped up, the tires spinning, and from them a heat hotter than the sun-baked asphalt, lifted Shadow Stalker off the road. The rear wheel wells jutted outward and the tires rotated to mirror the front ones, now turbines, and the whole chassis hovered at high speed two feet off the road. The engine lifted up to become a tail fin with an afterburner, and blue flames fired out, increasing the vehicle's speed tenfold.

Matt watched the transformation in awe, all the while thinking of Scott and Hudson trapped in the back seat. His crimson-gloved fists gripped the wheel hard.

"I'm going in!" He announced, then flipped a switch below the steering wheel. Thunder Hawk swooped down toward the ground, picking up speed as it fell out of the sky. Soon, the jet-Camaro was flying a few feet from the freeway and quickly catching up with Shadow Stalker. At one point, he could see Scott and Hudson in the backseat through the deep purple glass of the cockpit.

"Hurricane, Firefly, cover me!" The '57 Chevy converted into its six-wheeled tank mode, and from the top, Hondo emerged and aimed his cannons at Shadow Stalker's rear turbines. From the air, Julio did the same. At the opposite end, Manta took aim at the hovercraft's front turbines.

"Jackhammer," Warfield yelled into her microphone, "aim for the tires!"

"You bet, Ice Queen."

"Now, everyone!" Julio yelled, and pressed the buttons that fired his lasers, and they all started shooting––Firefly and Manta, Hurricane and Jackhammer. From the roadside, Iguana waited, Sludge watching through the optics of his Mudslinger mask as multicolored beams of laserlight flashed all around Shadow Stalker. The enemy retaliated, firing from a pair of large cannons at the front of the hovercraft. Dagger struggled to dodge the blasts, and one struck its front tire, tearing it to shreds and sending the Bronco fishtailing toward the edge of the road. This vehicle was both bullet- and laserproof; much of the barrage from MASK and VENOM bounced off of its hull.

But it didn't matter. Matt had locked his missiles on a boulder a hundred feet from where Shadow Stalker drove and fired. The missile struck the mountainside, blasting the large boulder from its home and onto the freeway as the hovercraft was passing.

"Hold on, Scott," Matt muttered to himself, though everyone could hear him through the comms. The boulder crashed into the side of Shadow Stalker, cracking the cockpit glass. Scott and Hudson had their hands over their heads, bracing themselves for the impact that jostled them in the backseat.

"C'mon Hudson," Scott yelled, "that's our cue." Scott kicked the glass with both his legs, shattering it further. Not far behind them, he could see Thunder Hawk tailing Shadow Stalker. So close. Hudson kicked at the glass.

"Please stop what you are doing," Shadow Stalker demanded.

Scott turned to the dashboard. "Sorry, but we've gotta go whether you're gonna let us out or not!" Scott said, and gave the glass another kick with Hudson, and the cockpit fell out onto the road in a shower of amethyst debris. Scott felt the whoosh of hot air envelope the air-conditioned cockpit, now made hotter by the laser fire that lit up the night in all colors of the rainbow. Thunder Hawk was right beside Shadow Stalker. Matt removed Spectrum.

"Catch, Scott!" he called down, then tossed the mask down to him. Scott caught it, put it on, then wrapped his small arm around Hudson. Matt turned to his microphone. "All agents, hold your fire!"

The lights and sounds of high-speed battle ceased. From within Shadow Stalker, there was a shrapnel of static, then a voice, almost pleading:

"Don't––don't leave me…" It was again more human than inhuman, and Scott paused a moment, then turned away.

"Spectrum, on!" Scott commanded. An aura encased both teenagers and lifted them out of Shadow Stalker and toward Thunder Hawk's passenger seat. Once inside, Scott pulled off Spectrum, and the aura faded. Matt leaned over and hugged him, messed his hair a little, too, like only a father can.

"The kids are safe," Matt said, relieved. His eyebrows furrowed, and he turned his attention back to Shadow Stalker still speeding toward VENOM's headquarters. "Okay, now let's give this thing everything we've got!"

---

CHAPTER NINETEEN: OUTLAW ON THE RUN

Alex Sector stared down Nash Gorey from across a long aluminum table in the Bio-Mech vehicle laboratory. "So, VENOM's goon now fancies himself the grand mastermind, eh?" Gorey's eyes slitted. He removed his thick glasses, wiped them with a lens cloth. He put them back on his face, then crooked his head to one side, and smiled.

"As a matter of fact, this 'goon' has even grander plans for Bio-Mech. 'Project: Shadow Stalker' is just Phase One.

"Enlighten me, please." Gorey did not appreciate Alex's sarcasm or instigation.

"But if I tell you, I'll have to kill you."

"Somehow, I don't think my leaving here alive was ever really in the cards. But hey,––"

"It was a bunch of kids, Matrix…" a voice whined from across the lab where Lord Matrix and Frostbite were helping a bruised and bloodied Hardwire to his feet. "…And some kinda talking scooter!" Alex perked up. "Check the cameras if you don't believe me."

Lord Matrix did, but there was only static. No visuals or sound. Frostbite touched the cables keeping Hardwire bound. They froze and shattered away to the ground in small crystals.

Alex put his game face back on, smirked, and gazed hard into Gorey's eyes. "––you're welcome to try, mate."

Gorey smirked, then paced the floor. Alex crossed his arms and stood strong and unflinching. "Bio-Mech is the future," Gorey began. "A merger of carbon and silicon, man and machine. We've achieved some success with Lord Matrix, Frostbite, and Hardwire here. And that is sufficient to create an entirely new, thoroughly modern form of 'Mobile Armored Strike Kommand,' if you'll pardon the appropriation; one in which the drivers are in control of their vehicles more directly. Mind to machine. This is Phase Two."

"How does phase one work into this?" Alex asked.

"In order to control the vehicles," Gorey folded his gloved hands together as he paced the room, "a piece of the driver's consciousness must be embedded in the vehicles. Shadow Stalker was our test, and since our test subject, Mr. Logan over there, is in a coma, this test afforded us minimal risk and maximum reward."

"'Test subject?!'" Alex shook his head, enraged. "We're talking about a human being––"

"––who is alive again!" Gorey fired back with comparable volume and vigor. "Albeit in a different form, but alive nonetheless. And it's all thanks to you."

Alex stiffened and remained silenced by Gorey's last comment. Lord Matrix flinched a moment, as if something were stirring inside of him. He went deeper inside of himself, deeper inside the matrix. He tapped into the cameras and hidden radars set up along the various roads leading to Bio-Mech Industries.

"Nash…" Lord Matrix said as he made his way to Gorey, but the former VENOM lackey didn't hear him. He was standing only a mere inch or two from Alex's beard, leering wild-eyed into his captive's own unwavering eyes. His fist clenched, then slammed into his open palm.

"All that remains," Gorey hissed through gritted teeth, "is to stamp out those standing in my way, namely VENOM and––"

"MASK, Nash," Matrix interrupted.

"Yes," Gorey's teeth grinded, bone against bone. "And MASK, too."

"No, MASK is here!

"What?!" At once, Gorey's bravado vanished. His armor chinked.

"Yes, and…" the man behind Lord Matrix swallowed hard, an audible glitch in his throat. "…and VENOM is with them."

"But how…?" Another chink in his armor. "A team-up?!"

The screen on Lord Matrix's mask lit up, at first with static, and when the tracking lines cleared, the image revealed a slew of MASK and VENOM vehicles, riding with haste toward Bio-Mech.

The stainless steel garage door lifted, and Outlaw tore through it like a bat out of hell, flames trailing off the jet-black trailer as it vroomed off into the night. Inside the cab, sweat beads balled then broke on Gorey's forehead beneath the heat and strength of Powerhouse. Before him, only a few hundred meters away, Rhino was speeding down the opposite side of the yellow lines. Not only Rhino, but Shark, Gator, Hurricane, and Jackhammer on the road and Manta, Condor, and Firefly from the sky.

Behind Powerhouse, Gorey's jaw dropped, but his awe only lasted a moment. His eyes squinted, and through the slits he could see a subtle sheen of light around most of the vehicles heading toward him. All except two of them. The only tires kicking up dust belonged to Rhino; the only sound from the air was a lone helicopter's propellers.

"Illusion is the ultimate weapon," he muttered to himself, smirking. "Ha! Only when you can't tell it's an illusion!" Gorey jerked the wheel, crossing over the double yellow lines until the two very real semis were barrelling down on the same side of the road.

"Looks like the jig is up," Brad said.

"Keep up the mirage anyway," Gloria replied. "And speaking of Mirage––Jacques, are you there?"

From an enclave of a mountain, a shimmer of light glowed translucent, and a large boulder became a deep cobalt-colored van with monster truck tires. "Volcano is here, mes amis! We're on him." As Outlaw zoomed by the still shifting rockface, Jacques pulled out, crossed the double yellow lines, and was soon in Gorey's rearview mirror, gaining ground with those massive Goodyears.

Gloria looked up from her watch, concern in her face as she realized Rhino was still headed straight toward Outlaw.

"Um, Bruce?" Gloria began, but Bruce politely cut her off.

"Don't worry, Gloria. He'll swerve."

Gloria sat back, uneasy. "I hope you're right, 'cause he's got a trailer and could tear through us as if we were tin foil."

Miranda poked her head between the seats, as did T-Bob. "I––I don't know, Bruce," the small robot stuttered. "He's coming in awwwfully fast!"

"He'll swerve," Bruce muttered, then beneath his breath. "I'm pretty sure he'll swerve."

Gorey, knuckles bone white on the steering wheel, kept Outlaw steady and firm, and only a mere 100 feet away from an impact that would no doubt end everyone involved in the imminent crash. Imminent, unless one of them swerved. Gorey's crazy eyes ogled through bifocal lenses and Powerhouse's enhanced visor, swirling with wild rage.

Fifty feet…

Gorey's foot added 10 more miles per hour in a single press of the gas pedal.

Twenty-five feet…

"Bruce…?" Gloria's voice cracked.

"The tiger knows when to let the snake win," He said, then spun the wheel. Rhino crossed back onto the wrong side of the double yellow lines as Outlaw screeched past in a terrifying whoosh and a victorious howl from Gorey himself. Bruce looked out Rhino's window at the dirt kicked up by Outlaw's burnt rubber tires and scorched desert sand.

"Brad and Jacques, follow him––but keep your distance."

"On it, Gloria." Brad circled Condor around as Volcano drove past the convoy of MASK and VENOM vehicles. Each of them disappeared into the night until all that was left was Rhino.

"Alright," Gloria said, putting Aura on, "let's bring Alex home."

Alex's fist crashed into Lord Matrix's mask with a reverberating crash before he was grappled by Hardwire.

"You can't!" Alex shouted, struggling to break free from Hardwire's superhuman strength. Lord Matrix adjusted his mask.

"Yes, I can." He turned to Frostbite. "Initiate escape sequence. We'll start fresh again. Hardwire, powerdown all systems––including his." Lord Matrix pointed to Brad's body lying helpless in the corner. "Then join us at the rendezvous point."

"What about this one?" Hardwire asked with regard to Alex, whom he was holding in place with one of his tendrils.

"Leave him here for his friends."

"He's still alive!" Frostbite cried out. "We can't leave him."

"He's a shell. Living, but not alive except as Shadow Stalker now."

"You're a monster!" Alex shouted, his face red. "An inhuman monster!" Lord Matrix looked back at Alex. He paused for what felt to him like timelessness. He reached up to a pair of tubes on either side of his mask, and plucked them. A seeping of air escaped, decompressing the oxygen system. He grabbed either side of the mask.

"No, Alex…" He removed his mask. "I'm only human."

"Roarke!" Alex gasped. "My God, mate… what have you become?!"

On Damian Roarke's face, two lines of dried tears shimmered in the fluorescent light. "More human than human."

Roarke walked out of the vehicle laboratory for the last time. Hardwire shoved Alex over to Frostbite, knocking her out of her own moment. "Here, Frostbite, hold him while I––" But that's all Hardwire could get out before a single slender tendril forged from synthetic materials latched onto him and shocked him unconscious with high voltage jolts of electricity.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked her. She brushed past him and stepped over Hardwire's smoldering body. She walked up to Brad Logan and the machines that kept him breathing, kept him alive for seven long, hopeful years. That is, until all hope was lost. Until today. She pressed a barrage of buttons. The machines powered down.

"No, wait!" Alex reached out his hand. "How can you do this to him?"

Frostbite stared Alex dead in the face, the threat of violence burning in her eyes. Or rather, something more universal than white hot electric savagery. A single tear broke and streaked her pale cheek with humanity. Behind her, the life support machine flatlined. A steady beep drowned out all else except for her voice, cracking with something like a facsimile of emotion.

"I was fully human once, y'know," the all-too-human voice of Dorian Harding said through Frostbite's facade. She picked up Hardwire and flung him over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all. "Lord Matrix is right though. It's just a shell now. An empty shell. Like me." She turned away, then disappeared through the sliding glass doors just as Rhino's headlights lit up the Bio-Mech garage and the devastation that had befallen it only moments ago. Alex was all that was left alive; all else, including Brad Logan, was plunged into darkness.

---

CHAPTER TWENTY: CHOICES

Thunder Hawk's onboard computer locked onto Shadow Stalker, and Matt's finger was ready to press "FIRE" and drop a pair of bombs down at the speeding hovercraft. Then, a crackle of radio static interrupted his resolve, and a voice channeled through the frequency until it found the one that connected with the flying Camaro. That voice sounded human, and it scratched Matt's name into the fuzz.

"Who is this?" Matt demanded. Scott pointed at the speaker.

"It's him, dad. It's Shadow Stalker."

"What?"

"Yes, it's me. Brad Logan."

"How is that even possible?"

The organic intelligence of Shadow Stalker that was once a young race car driver enlightened––or rather reminded––Matt on how he had been in an accident; how for the past seven years, he's been in a coma; and how, with Alex Sector's help, his consciousness was digitized and downloaded into the machine now known as Shadow Stalker; the same machine that Matt, only seconds ago, was intent on destroying.

"I remember that race, and the crash, too."

"Yes. And I remember you. You tried to help me out of my car just before I sssslipped into unconsciousnessssszzt." The channel went silent for a few moments. Then, the voice buzzed back with two simple words. "Thank you."

Matt's features softened. He lowered his hand away from the blinking red button. "Brad, listen to me: I need you to stop what you're doing. What you're about to do."

"I… I'm afraid I can't do that, Matt. I have to go through with the mission. It's the reason I was built. The first of many missions in this second chance at existence."

"You're obviously something more than a machine. You can choose your own road."

"I'm only one-half of Shadow Stalker. There's an artificial intelligence in here with me. It's taking a lot for me to sssspeak this openly to you. And it'sssszzt trying to override that, too."

"Matt!" Julio cut through the conversation. "We're a mile away from VENOM HQ. I predict Shadow Stalker will be able to lock on target within thirty seconds."

"Sooner than that," something that was half Brad, half something else, remarked. Shadow Stalker added ten more miles per hour, kicking up sand and dust as it sped straight toward the base of a mountain, behind which VENOM's headquarters was set.

"We have to destroy it, now!" Vanessa cried out with a tin can rasp behind Whip. Shadow Stalker locked onto its target. Matt switched channels.

"Brad, how can I… how can I stop you from doing this? How can I help you?"

"Do what you must." Then, a harsher voice crashed the conversation. "You can try, at least. But we will complete the mission."

"Shadow Stalker has locked lasers and missiles on its target!" Hondo's voice rippled through the fuzz of synthetic taunts. Matt opened a wide channel.

"If you've got missiles and bombs, use 'em. Lock on target now."

Hurricane, Manta, Firefly, and Iguana, as well as Thunder Hawk all locked crosshairs on Shadow Stalker. Beneath his breath, Matt sighed. "I'm sorry," he said before giving an order that felt very wrong.

"Fire!"

They did. They all did. MASK and VENOM, and for the first time in over a decade of doing battle with each other, they fired at a common enemy. Missiles sliced across the skies. Bombs fell from up on high. Laser beams lit up the ground in a rainbow of color. The resulting explosion blasted open the deep purple Nevada sky with a red-orange mushroom cloud and thick cobalt smoke that seemed to suffocate the night. Thunder Hawk, Firefly, and Manta craned upwards out of the billowing puffs, gaining altitude before dropping down toward the road, now obstructed by shards of steel and glass debris ablaze with flame.

"We got it!" Lester Sludge yelped into the open channel.

"Good riddance," Vanessa added beneath the icy complexion of Whip.

Matt and the other MASK agents were quiet, as if someone had called for a moment of silence for a lost life. Then a friendly, but frenzied voice broke that silence.

"Matt!" Gloria's voice was panicked. "Don't destroy Shadow Stalker. He's alive!"

"It's too late, Gloria," Matt removed Spectrum. He turned the wheel and spun the Camaro down toward the road and away from the smoldering wreckage that once was Shadow Stalker. Of what was all that remained of Brad Logan. In the quiet between communications, Matt heard Alex sobbing.

Scott looked up, first at Hudson, who was silent, his fists clenched in his lap. Then Scott turned to Matt. He gasped. This was the first time he had ever seen his dad cry.

"Dad…"

"It's okay, son. Let's get you kids home."

And toward home they rode. All of them. MASK in one direction and VENOM in the other, the way it had always been. Perhaps how it always will be.

---

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE RETURN OF MILES MAYHEM

Outlaw's odometer edged past 120 miles an hour, shredding the road as the oil rig rolled on toward its destination. Gorey was sure he heard something moments ago. "That sounded like an explosion," he said. He grinned wide, serpentine, as he imagined the side of the mountain where VENOM's headquarters had been a blazing inferno, all fire, glass, brimstone, and stainless steel debris.

Gorey spoke into Powerhouse's built-in communicator: "Shadow Stalker, do you read me?" Nothing but static. His grin slithered into a grimace, and he felt his stomach drop. "Come in, Shadow Stalker. What is the status of the mission?" Still, nothing but static and silence. "Answer me!" he yelled. Then, in a whisper: "No, they couldn't have. They wouldn't have…" He shook away the thought, then slammed on the gas, adding another ten miles to the odometer.

Up ahead in the distance, he saw his destination some five hundred meters away. A "GAS" sign lit up the deep violet night like a lighthouse beacon: Boulder Hill. On the outside, the façade of an ordinary filling station; housed within was the secret headquarters of the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand. (Well, not so secret to Gorey.) "Ultimate weapon my ass!" he snickered, then laughed at his own joke. "I'll take care of MASK first, then finish off VENOM!"

Gory was about to press the button to power up Outlaw's rattler fire Howitzer hidden snugly in the trailer when he saw Boulder Hill convert. Steel shields dropped and curled around the station; the pair of gas pumps sprang to life as laser blasters, shifted, and took aim at the oncoming threat; and the sign that only seconds ago illuminated up the desert sky dropped down revealing a pair of cannons trained on the onrushing Outlaw.

"Arghhhh!" Gorey gritted his teeth, then let out a laugh. "Oh, you were ready for me, eh? Well, it makes no difference to me, MASK!"

He was a mere 250 meters from Boulder Hill when, beneath the roar of Outlaw's engine, Gorey heard the whirring of helicopter propellers cutting the sky. His head jerked about, but he couldn't identify where the sound was coming from. When he gazed through the windshield, Gorey almost lost control of his basic bodily functions at what he saw before him. A sight he had not seen in years. One he never in a million years would have expected to see here now.

From behind the small mountain before which Boulder Hill was built rose a sleek blue helicopter, its crimson cockpit poised right at Outlaw.

"No!" Gorey's voice was more Goon than God-King. "It can't be!" He regained some composure, used the steering wheel to pull himself forward. "Powerhouse, magnify cockpit." The mask zoomed in, adjusted its focus. Beyond the tempered glass of the copter's cockpit was another familiar sight: a pilot dressed in military regalia donning a mask. And not just any mask, but Viper, the mask that belonged (belongs?) to…

"M-Miles Mayhem?!" Gorey stuttered. He was about to brake hard, but paused. A smirk, sly like an insane asylum inmate's own, stretched across his face, hyena-like. He slid his foot off the brake and floored the gas pedal. He pressed some buttons. Outlaw's trailer flipped up, and due to the sheer velocity, it twisted and bent before being torn off by the resistance of the wind crashing against the speeding semi. The tanker tumbled into the desert night behind him, right toward Volcano. The van's monster truck tires crushed what remained of the wreckage as it pursued Outlaw.

"Zut alors!" Jacques cried. "This fella's crazy, no?"

"Like a trapped fox," Brad chimed in from the sky above Volcano. "He's all Mayhem's now!"

The Howitzer locked onto the helicopter hovering just above Boulder Hill––the helicopter Gorey now knew to be none other than Switchblade.

Then the helicopter transformed. Its landing gear snapped up; wings flared out from either side; and the whirling propellers came to an abrupt halt as a pair of hidden afterburners fired up. Switchblade split the distance between the two vehicles, lasers blasting as it soared ahead. Outlaw took the brunt of the barrage, and pieces of the semi littered the road. As soon as the speeding jet was close enough, Gorey unloaded the rattler on Switchblade. A storm of bullets ripped through the clouds, the sky, and eventually, its target as a trail of orange flame and black smoke followed the jet as it fell out of the air and into a collision course with Outlaw.

Gory jerked the wheel and slammed on the brake. Outlaw slid forward just as Switchblade passed overhead, taking out its Howitzer before the plane crashed into the desert sand, twisted metal with a sound like nails raking a thousand chalkboards. Gory gazed into his rearview mirror, watching as Switchblade blew apart, scattering scraps of itself in a fifty-foot radius. Gorey slammed on the brakes, and Outlaw screeched to a full stop.

"Ha!" Gorey laughed. "Ha-ha! That'll teach you, Mayhem!" He pushed open Outlaw's door and hurried over to the wreckage, kicking random bits of pieces of his former-former boss's iconic jet plane. He made his way to the cockpit, and he saw shattered remnants of the crimson glass. And inside he could see Mayhem's body writhing in pain and torment from the hellish demise he was currently undergoing. Gory stepped a foot or so closer, not bothering to shield himself from any additional explosions.

"Wait just a minute…"

Gory watched Mayhem's body with careful attention. What he thought at first to be the agony of a person being burned alive in a plane crash was really a glitch of some kind, as if the tracking on a VCR needed adjusting. By the time Gorey figured out that this was not Miles Mayhem, but a hologram of him, there came a tapping on his shoulder.

He turned.

There, standing right before him, was Mayhem, dressed in that selfsame navy military uniform, Viper, heavy and ominous, covering his face. Its little golden serpent staring down at Gorey. An intense fear struck Gorey. Mayhem's gloved firsts clenched.

"M-M-Miles! I mean, M-M-Mr. M––!"

Mayhem's fist socked Gorey right in the mask, denting Powerhouse, and sending the scrawny former henchman crashing into some flaming debris. A rage built up in this little man––once a mouse––behind his big mask. He leaped up and charged Mayhem, but his larger and heavier-set adversary spun Gorey around and, using the goon's own momentum, directed him into the back end of Outlaw.

"Give it up, Gorey. You're done!"

Gorey growled from behind Powerhouse. He charged Mayhem again. Mayhem gritted his teeth and prepared himself for impact.

"Viper…" Mayhem whispered.

"Powerhouse…" Gorey cried.

"…on!" they commanded in unison.

Before Gorey could absorb the Samsonite strength pouring out from Powerhouse, Viper spat out a stream of corrosive poison, which struck Powerhouse and ate away at the mask's metallic and electronic components. A short circuit later, and the mask was rendered powerless, and Gory could only stumble up to Mayhem.

Gorey grabbed his mask, pulled it off, and tossed it to the ground with the rest of the rubble and trash.

A series of headlights landed on the scene. Buddy and Dusty rode up in Wildcat; Volcano pulled up on the other side of the wreckage; and Condor hovered down and converted back to motorcycle mode. Mayhem stood before Gorey, who dropped to his knees, bifocals cracked and twisted on his face, hair tufted. Bruised and beaten, broken and defeated. Mayhem removed Viper and dropped it on the ground beside him. He grabbed Gorey by the lapel of his jumpsuit, raised his other hand and punched his former lackey square in the face. His glasses hit the ground first, then Gorey himself, out for the count.

Dusty shook his head beneath Backlash. "Now was that really necessary?" Mayhem grabbed Viper and stepped up to Dusty. His body stiffened beneath his orange vest.

"That one was for my brother," said Maximus Mayhem. "But make no mistake," he continued, his reflection in Backlash's extended visor widening like a face in a funhouse mirror, "this could've ended very differently.

Mayhem picked up Viper and shoved it into Dusty's chest, leaving his brother's legacy in the MASK agent's hands. He snatched Gorey by the malformed lapel and dragged his unconscious body to Outlaw. Dusty raised his hand in protest, but Buddy stopped him.

"Matt said to let 'em go. VENOM can deal with him themselves."

Mayhem slammed the driver's side door, shifted Outlaw into gear, and rode off away from the wreckage of Switchblade and the shadow of his brother; away from a dumbfounded Buddy and Dusty; away from Jacques and Brad extinguishing the flames; away from Rhino pulling up to the scene; away from Boulder Hill, which now resembled a simple gas station once more; and away from MASK and their one-time alliance. In time, VENOM will begin to pick up the pieces. And with more time, VENOM will be ready to fight another day.

---

EPILOGUE: GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES

Alex Sector's fingers rapped nervously on the faux marble table top of a new coffee shop that just opened in the center of town. Big windows, no smoking sections, and a strange Memphis design aesthetic about it, particularly in some of the furniture and lighting. He checked the time on his watch, then ran his fingers through his ginger beard before resuming the rhythmic tapping he had been engrossed in seconds before.

It had been a month and a half since his kidnapping, and still Alex was a bit paranoid about being out and about in public. He looked over his shoulder a lot. Whenever the cafe door swung open, his attention was drawn to the ding of the bell––a single high-pitched note that cut through the few conversations at the colorful tables all around him. It drowned out all other frequencies of voices. He would watch and see who came in, listen to what they ordered at the counter, their brief banter with the baristas, all to keep his mind focused and aware.

But Alex was also waiting for someone.

The door opened, and ding! That someone walked in wearing an oversized hoodie and a pair of ripped Levis and burgundy-colored Dr. Martens boots dusted with Nevada heat and countless miles logged into their air-cushioned soles. On the front of the hoodie, a faded screen print read "Bio-Mech Industries," and it was the first thing that Alex noticed. He straightened his posture in his seat as the person wearing it reached his table, pulled back the chair, and sat down across from him.

Beneath the hood, Dorian Harding stared at Alex with ice-blue eyes. Alex smiled, then leaned forward. He folded his hands on the table, all the while Dorian's gaze was unmoving.

"Thank you for seeing me."

"Over the phone you said it was important." Her voice was as cold as her eyes. Alex thought to himself was it possible in just over a month she could change so much? He didn't dwell on it, but instead reached beneath his seat. There was a nervous dart of her eyes.

"There's no need for alarm." Alex said. Upon the table he placed a box that took up most of the space between them. Dorian looked at the lid, then back at Alex.

"What's this?" she asked. Alex nudged it toward her.

"Open it," he said.

Dorian laid her hands––one gloved and the other bare––on the box's lid and lifted it off. Inside, dozens of floppy disks were arranged in single-file rows all along the interior of the box. Dorian's speech staggered into syllables until she was able to find the words to express her incredulity.

"It's not…"

"It is. It's all that's left of him, I'm afraid, and I thought…" Alex took a moment, then leaned forward. "…I thought you should have them."

"Why me?"

Alex smirked. "Because you were human once, and maybe––"

"I'll be human again someday?" she continued his thought. Alex allowed himself a chuckle for the first time in a while, since the incident. Dorian's stone face was unmoved. Alex stood up and laid his hand on her gloved hand that hugged the box.

"Well, when you are, you'll be happy to have something of him." He stepped away from the table and walked to the door.

Dorian slid the lid back onto the box. For the first time in a long time, Dorian thawed and allowed herself the comforting warmth of a smile.

The school bell rang, and Scott Trakker was among the first to gather up his things and rush out the doors and into the wide open desert air. He was quickly joined by his good friends Hudson and Miranda, as well as a few of their other friends.

"That last period felt like it would never end!" Scott said.

"I know!" Miranda said. "Wanna get together at the clubhouse and do some of Mr. Gross's word problems?"

"Sounds like a plan. How 'bout it, Hudson?"

"Sure. I'll meet you in a bit. I've got something I want to show you, but I gotta pick it up at home. Something I've been sketching out over the past month."

"Ooooh, how exciting!" Miranda exclaimed. "Okay, See yous in a bit. You coming, too, Jeremy?"

Jeremy MacMasters, the new kid to the group, brandished a dumbfounded expression on his face which then lit up into a beaming smile. "Yeah, sure, but I…I've never been to the clubhouse before." This was a big deal for Jeremy, who had only just moved to Nevada from Los Angeles, far enough out of reach from the poverty and gang violence that pockmarked L.A.'s east side. He was still acclimating to a new school, new friends, and a new life in a whole other state.

Scott patted his shoulder. "We'll go to the clubhouse together. T-Bob and I can pick you up at your house,"

Jeremy smiled, then pursed his lips. "Uh, what's a 'T-Bob'?"

"Oh, right. T-Bob's a robot––you're gonna love him! See ya!"

Scott crossed the street and caught sight of Alex stepping out of the cafe taking a final swig of his coffee.

"Alex? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just a midday cuppa, Scott. Come on, I'll drive you to the station."

Scott and Alex headed down one street; Miranda strolled down another, and Jeremy yet another. The cafe door swung open again, and out stepped Dorian Harding clutching the box that housed the downloaded consciousness of Brad Logan close to her once frostbitten heart. She sped away from the bustling streets.

Hudson kept pace with the crowd, which dispersed little by little as he passed crossing guards on every street corner of the downtown area. He made his way to a street and, halfway down, climbed the steps to a small house. In the driveway, a deep purple 1990 Geo Tracker 4x4 baked in the midday sun. The name on the mailbox in front of the lawn read "Roarke." Hudson inserted a key into the lock, turned it, opened the door and entered the house.

"Hud?" A voice called from somewhere on the second floor. "That you, little brother?"

"Yeah, it's me," Hudson said with no traceable enthusiasm as he climbed the steps two by two and made a sharp right into his room. He tossed his backpack onto the bed, then swapped the light windbreaker he had been wearing for a Levis denim decked out with pins, buttons, and iron-on patches. Then he emptied the brown paper-bagged textbooks and his Lamborghini-clad Trapper Keeper and 1980s movie and Nintendo Power posters bore silent witness to it all. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a single-subject spiral bound notebook. It was a generic affair, almost handmade-looking with a simple plain brown softcover.

On that cover, hand-drawn letters colored in with magic markers lit up the page with vibrant promise:

PROJECT: VOR-TECH
UNDERCOVER CONVERSION SQUAD

There was movement from behind Hudson. He turned around to find his older brother, Damian Roarke, towering over him. He reached out a hand and tried to mess the young man's brown curls, but Hudson jerked his head away before impact.

"You going back out, kid?" Roarke asked. Hudson clutched his notebook.

"Yeah, I… I'm headed out to do some homework with some classmates."

Roarke smiled. "That's good. That's very good. Need a ride?"

"Nah, I'll walk."

"Okay. That'll give me some time to finish up a few things I've been working on. But be back before six. We're having your favorite for dinner."

"I will. Bye!" Hudson said and grabbed his empty backpack and hurried past Roarke. As he stepped into the hallway, he turned his head, peered past the open door and into his older brother's room, which used to be their parents' room long, long ago. Inside, a panoply of machinery and parts Roarke salvaged from Bio-Mech Industries' main headquarters beeped, blipped, and hummed. The room somehow seemed alive inside.

In the far distance, the large, ominous mask belonging to Lord Matrix loomed and seemed to stare right at Hudson Roarke.

The same way Damian Roarke was staring at him, too.