A “Captain Scarlet and the Mysteron” story
By Chris Bishop
“It was so nice
of you to come and visit me today, my boy…
You should come more often.”
Paul Metcalfe took a sip
of his tea, as the elderly man addressed him with these words in which he could
easily detect a hint of reproach. He
knew him way too well not to suspect that it wasn’t only a mere innocent
remark. Glancing at him across the garden table, he put his cup down on the
saucer and offered an apologetic, yet sincere smile. “Wish I could, Granddad,” he answered, “but I’m afraid it’s
impossible. I’m… very busy with my job.
You know how it is.”
“Ah yes… your job.” The older man humphed, distractedly playing
with the arms of his wheelchair, glaring meaningfully at his grandson. There was discontentment in his old, yet
lively, blue eyes for the space of about three seconds. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it
vanished; he reached for his glasses,
and started cleaning the lenses with a corner of the blanket covering his frail
legs, making a show of being very absorbed in this task. He gave a dismissive shrug of his stooping,
yet still broad, shoulders. “Yes, I
know how it is,” he said quietly. “I
was in that business myself a long time, as you recall… But I was never too busy to spend time with
my family.”
“Well, it’s not quite
the same. You mostly stayed in
England,” Paul remarked.
“And you have to run
around the globe, I know,” his grandfather swiftly put in. He raised inquisitive eyes toward the
younger man. “Are you sure this job isn’t just too demanding?”
Paul smiled widely. “I’ll be all right, Granddad. Don’t worry
about me.”
“Yes, yes, you would say
that,” the white-haired man mused. “You youngsters always think you have your
whole life before you and that you can tackle everything the world throws at
you. But then, before you know it, you
reach eighty, and then you realise that you’re not as strong as you used to be… And that maybe you were just a little too
demanding of your body when you were younger.
But at this point… it’s far too late to be able to do anything about it.”
He squinted through his
glasses, and didn’t seem quite satisfied with the result of his efforts. He grunted with frustration and was about to
start again, when the young red-haired woman seated by his grandson’s side
leaned toward him and, with a very charming smile, offered to take the glasses
from his hands.
“Let me do that, Mr.
Blake… That blanket will never do a
good job with those lenses.”
Rhapsody Angel took the
glasses and, producing a fine scarf from her bag, started rubbing the lenses
expertly, under the old gentleman’s curious eyes. When she gave them back to him, Paul Blake examined the glasses
and gave an approving nod, before putting them back onto his nose.
“Thank you, my dear… you
obviously know how to do this.”
“I always used to do it
for my father,” she explained, her smile widening. “Since I was little. So I
got the hang of it very quickly.”
Blake nodded again,
pensively. “Dianne Simms… Paul told me
your father is Lord Robert Simms?” he ventured.
“Yes, sir,” Dianne
answered. She pointed to the teapot and cup on the table. “Do you want more tea?”
Blake accepted with a nod
and the young woman started pouring tea into his cup, as he pursued: “I’ve met
him a couple of times… in the course of my job at the Secret Service. Struck me as a nice young chap… He was the one who helped defuse the
situation during the Icelandic dispute, wasn’t he?” Dianne confirmed the statement with a nod, handing him his
cup. “Very good job. And a very fine diplomat,” Blake continued. “We should have more like him, today.” He took a sip of his tea. “And how is your mother? I think I remember her too. Tall, black-haired, with green eyes? Name of Mira, yes?”
“No… that would be my
grandmother,” Dianne answered with a careful smile.
“Your father’s mother?”
Blake asked with a raised brow.
“Yes, my grandfather was
named Robert too.”
“Ah yes… Hence the confusion. Sorry about that.”
“No harm done. My mother is indeed tall – well, my height,
actually. And she had red hair
too. Her name is Julia.”
“Now I remember,” Blake
agreed with a nod. “A strikingly
beautiful woman. Just like her daughter.”
“You are too kind, Mr.
Blake.”
“I’m only stating the
truth, my dear. You are very beautiful. And charming. Just like I remember your mother. Your father was blessed to have two such visions of beauty under
his roof.”
“Actually,” Dianne
answered a little bashfully, “my
parents have not been together for quite some years now. They divorced early
on.”
Blake raised a
brow. “Is that so?” he asked curiously. “Oh, so sorry to hear about that, my
dear. Please accept my apologies. I’m such an old fool…”
“You are not, and you
couldn’t know about that, Mr. Blake. My
mother lives in Italy now… Well, she
has been living there most of the time, for the past five years, I believe.”
“Italy? Why Italy?
Any reason?”
“She has relatives
there. Mum is part Italian, part Irish
– and all fire and temper, as my dad used to say,” Dianne said with a faint
smile. Blake answered with a smile of his own and she moved on: “As for my
father… last time I heard, he was on a diplomatic mission, in the Middle-East. Last month, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Still working,
then. Very nice. Please, give him my
regards, when next you see him… if he remembers me, that is!”
“I will, sir. And I’m sure he’ll remember you.”
“My, you are indeed a
charming young lady…” Blake said, his smile
broadening. He seemed to be genuinely
smitten by Dianne’s personality. He
leaned forward and took her hand in his, and squeezed it gently. “Were I quite a few years younger, I might
be tempted to steal her away from you, Paul,” he said to his grandson, before
delicately kissing the young woman’s hand and winking at her. She giggled.
“You are quite charming
yourself, Mr. Blake,” she noted.
“Almost as much as your grandson…”
“Really,” Paul said with
a raised brow. “I always heard he was a
very dangerous man with the ladies at my age.”
“That’s vile and
preposterous gossip,” Blake defended himself self-righteously. Noting his grandson’s teasing smile, he
shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “At your age, I was already married,” he
then remarked. “And with two children
to look after, my boy… Including your
own mother.”
Paul rolled his
eyes. “Here we go again,” he muttered.
“Be respectful of your
elders,” Blake warned him. “Or you’ll
give a wrong impression to this charming young lady here.” His words sounded harsher than they really
were, and the brightness in his eyes betrayed the fondness he had for his
grandson. His smile widened even more,
and he looked at the two young people in front of him, one after the other,
before nodding approvingly. “I can’t
believe you found someone for yourself… finally!”
“Granddad,” Paul sighed,
a little amused by the statement, “I’m still only thirty-four years old…”
“Well, you might be, but I’m not getting any
younger!” the older man declared forcefully.
“Seeing how long it took you to find someone, I might not live long
enough to actually see you marry her!”
He sat back comfortably. “Have
you set a date yet?”
“No… not yet,” Paul
admitted.
Blake grunted. “Mmm… not good.”
“And the truth to the
matter is… we still haven’t told Mum and Dad,” Paul continued. “Dianne hasn’t
told her parents, either. We haven’t even told our superior officer yet.”
“Your mother doesn’t
know?” Blake inquired. “But she’d be
thrilled to find out!”
“All in good time,
Granddad,” Paul said in a calming tone.
“And it’ll be soon, don’t worry. For now, you’ll have to be happy with
the fact that you were the first in the family to whom we told the news.”
“I’m the first, really?”
Blake said with a grin. “Well, that is
quite an honour, Paul…” He leaned
towards Dianne. “I knew there was a
reason why I took an immediate liking to him, when he was born – and that was
before his mother told me she was going to name him after me.”
Rhapsody Angel smiled
fondly. Her fiancé Paul Metcalfe – the
indestructible Captain Scarlet of Spectrum – shared a lot more than his given
name with his grandfather. From old
photos that the elderly man had showed them earlier, many of which showed him
at Paul’s approximate age today, she could see the aged Blake looked a lot like
his grandson, in those times. Except
for the hair, which was of a slightly lighter colour in the case of Blake. It was easy to see where Paul got his good
looks… Despite his advanced age – he
was now well into his eighties – Paul Blake was still a very good-looking
man. His hair had turned completely
white, deep lines marked his face and his back stooped a little, but he still
had broad shoulders and a spark in his eyes which were as blue and vibrant as his
grandson’s. His mind was still sharp,
and his speech very clear, and he had no trouble keeping up a lively
conversation on any given subject, as he had proved for the three hours this
visit had lasted so far. He just had
trouble walking, his ageing body finally betraying him after all these years,
and needed the wheelchair from time to time, especially when he had to travel
long distances. But aside from that, he
could be considered to be in excellent health.
“You know that
yob was responsible for my first white hair?”
Blake informed Rhapsody with a conniving smile.
Scarlet was about to
take another sip from his cup. He
glared at the older man. “Granddad…” he said warningly.
“Well, it’s true!” protested Blake. “Always getting into trouble, he was,” he continued, addressing
an obviously interested Rhapsody. “See
that big oak over there?” He pointed to a huge tree standing in the middle of
the garden, not far from them. “He took
it into his thick head to climb to the top.
He was… what… six at the time?”
“Seven,” Scarlet
corrected.
Blake shrugged. “Well, still too young to try to reach the
sky in those days, wouldn’t you think?
Naturally, although I had forbidden him to even try it, what do you
think he did?”
“Climbed the tree, of
course,” Rhapsody said with a nod.
“Of course! And what do you think happened?”
“He fell,” Rhapsody
offered, smiling.
“Indeed! He was halfway up. Fortunately for him, the
lower branches broke most of his fall.
But he broke his arm as he hit the ground...”
“Dislocated my shoulder,
actually,” Scarlet countered.
“Well, anyway… One would have thought he would have stopped
there, now wouldn’t you, Dianne?”
“Knowing Paul, I’m sure
he didn’t,” Rhapsody answered with a note of certainty in her voice. Hearing it, her fiancé rolled his eyes
skywards.
“Of course not… Three months after that, I found him in the
garden of his parents’ house… Climbing
an even bigger tree than this one.”
“Hadn’t you learned your
lesson?” Rhapsody asked mockingly,
turning to face Scarlet.
“Of course I had,” he
replied, quietly taking a sip from his cup.
He winked at her. “By then, I
had more experience in climbing trees… and I knew better than to fall.”
“Ah!” Paul Blake exhaled loudly, before
chuckling. “When I asked him what he
thought he was doing climbing that tree, he answered that my tree didn’t offer much of a challenge anymore. He had to try something bigger!”
“I do recognize him,
there,” Rhapsody remarked in an amused tone.
“As if you never climbed
any trees yourself,” Scarlet retorted
with a raised brow.
“Why yes, I did, of
course. But I never fell…”
“That’s right,” Scarlet
mocked her. “You’re a regular Dianne of
the Jungle…”
She smiled. “Wipe that grin off your face, Metcalfe.
You’ll never catch me wearing a loincloth.”
“Pity…” Scarlet muttered under his breath, draining
the last of his tea.
Paul Blake chortled
loudly. “I like her a lot, Paul,” he
told his grandson. “Please, play it
smart – and don’t let her escape you.”
“I certainly won’t,”
Scarlet grinned, putting the empty cup on the table. “I’m a very lucky man to
have found her – and I do intend to make her the happiest woman in the world.”
“Nicely said,” Blake
said with an approving nod. “Finding
the right person to become your mate, and share your love for the rest of your
life can be adventurous at times, but when you find that special someone…” he smiled contently. “… then everything seems so much
easier.”
He went pensive,
watching as the two young people in front of him were exchanging loving and
silent glances, following his words. For a short moment, he was taken back so
many years in the past, thinking about how he had courted the young woman who
would become his wife for all those years to follow; she had passed away a long
time ago now, the year before Paul was born. It had taken a long time for Blake
to actually get over the hole she had left, and to learn to live again, even
meeting other women, as time went by. But
even that was long ago; for the past few years, he had lived mostly alone, in
this small cottage near Bristol, in the company of a nurse who took care of
him. Paul Blake would have been a very
lonely man today, if not for the family he had founded with his wife – his
children, and their spouses, and then their children – and friends, and
colleagues from days of old, who came to visit him often. He had to admit, though, that his friends
were getting fewer with each passing year – and he dreaded the day he might
become the only one left from the close circle he formed with them.
He shook himself, coming
out of his momentary fugue and went back to staring at both Paul and Dianne. Such a nice young couple, he told
himself; he felt an intense pride and happiness in what his grandson had become
– a handsome man, yes, but intelligent and cultivated, caring and dedicated to
his chosen line of work. A courageous and committed agent of Spectrum, fighting
against all manner of terrorism around the world, no matter how dangerous it
might be for him, and ready to lay down his own life to save others.
Blake knew more of his
grandson’s work than the latter was willing to tell him. The retired Secret Service director still
had contacts that helped him keep approximate tabs on what was going on
regarding World Security – at least, as much as security restrictions would
permit – and when it came to Spectrum, restrictions were as high as could
possibly be imagined. But despite the
difficulties encountered, Blake had been able to glean a little
information. Like that incident in
Iceland, last Christmas, during which terrorists had taken over the British
Embassy, in an attempt to kidnap the ambassador’s young daughter. Paul’s cousin, Jessica, who was a Secret
Service agent, assigned to the child’s security, had been caught in the
crossfire and wounded; it was Paul who had been literally dropped straight into
the middle of the action to retrieve both his cousin and the child in her
charge. According to Jessica, although succeeding in his mission, Paul had been
wounded – and yet, when Blake had seen him, weeks after that, there was no
apparent injury on him – and he never mentioned anything about it. It was a measure of Paul’s devotion to
doing what was right, undaunted by the obvious danger he might put himself in –
and not seeking any recognition, glory or profit from it. For Paul, it was just a question of
‘performing his duty’ and ‘doing what was right’.
He certainly deserves the happiness an exceptional
woman can give him,
Blake
reflected. And this young woman here seems like the perfect match for him. They
look like they’re made for each other.
And he was quite
happy with this.
“Must you really go?” he
asked the young couple in a soft, almost pleading tone. “Can’t you stay with me until after dinner?”
“We would like to do
that very much, Granddad,” Scarlet said apologetically. “But we have to report back…” He checked his
watch. “And I’m sorry to say this, but
we will have to leave you very soon. We
have a plane to catch, which will take us back to base.”
“That’s a real
shame.” Blake sighed deeply, sorry to
see them go. A thought suddenly came to
his mind, and he raised his finger victoriously. “But… before you go, I’d like to give you something.”
“Granddad,” Scarlet
protested. “No gift is necessary…”
“I insist!” Blake made a show of standing up, but his
sore and weak legs refused to assist him.
He grunted his bad mood and looked around for his nurse, who seemed to
be nowhere in sight. “Confound it! Where’s that blasted woman, never there when
you need her? Hilda!”
“She must be in the
house,” Rhapsody offered. “Would you
like me to fetch her for you?”
“I wouldn’t want to
impose…” Blake started.
“Please. It would be my pleasure.”
“All right. Just tell her to go into the library. There’s a book there I want her to give
you. Fifth bookshelf, third book from
the left. She can’t miss it.”
“I’ll come back right
away.” Rhapsody left her seat and
walked the distance separating her from the back door leading into the
house. Both Scarlet and his grandfather
watched her as she disappeared inside.
Blake then turned to face his grandson, in order to continue a casual
conversation, waiting for Rhapsody to come back.
“Jessica came to visit,
a couple of weeks ago,” Blake announced quietly.
“I haven’t seen her for
months!” Scarlet declared. “How is
she?”
Blake shrugged. “Quite all right, it seemed to me. She has a new beau.”
“Again?” Scarlet said,
rolling his eyes. “This is, what, her third since last year?”
Blake chuckled. “Apparently, the previous one – Bruce, I
think his name was? – had been pretty much shaken by the… ‘incident’ in
Iceland, last Christmas. He started
suggesting to Jessica that maybe it was time for her to retire from this
dangerous career as a Secret Service agent, and to think of starting a new,
more normal job for a young woman.”
“Knowing Jessica, I can
imagine what she told him to do with this ‘new, more normal job’!” Scarlet said, grinning mischievously.
“Rightly so!” Blake frowned, thinking. “This new boyfriend of hers is American, I
think. I don’t know much about him. I
haven’t met him yet, and I don’t know how long it will last… But if he’s not the right man for her, I do
hope she’ll find someone one day soon.”
“Don’t worry about her,”
Scarlet offered. “She knows what she’s
doing…”
“You reckon?” a doubtful Blake asked.
“… AND she will find
someone right for her soon. I’m sure of
it. Someone who won’t be critical of her choice of career and who will deserve
her.”
“Like you and Dianne,
right?” Blake said, smiling at his
grandson, and nodding in the direction of the house. “You do seem right for each other…”
“We like to think we
are,” Scarlet admitted with a brilliant smile.
“You love her very much,
don’t you?”
From where he was
sitting, Scarlet could see the back door of the house opening, and Rhapsody
coming out, a big book in her hands, slowly crossing the garden to come back to
them. He nodded to his grandfather’s
question. “Very much indeed. I can’t believe I wasted so much time, not
even noticing how much she truly meant to me.”
“While I suppose she was
quite smitten by you?”
“How do you know that?” Scarlet asked, raising a brow.
“The same happened with
your grandmother and me,” Blake answered, chuckling. “And between your Mum and Dad…
Women… they all know before we
do that they will end up with us.”
“Mmm…” Scarlet reflected
with a slow nod. “I guess women are
more perceptive about that sort of thing than we are…”
Blake sniggered
again. “Maybe it’s us who are… just a
little more obtuse.”
Both men laughed out
loud, just as Rhapsody approached them.
She had heard the last words they had exchanged, and smiled as she
leaned down to her fiancé’s side.
“Nonsense. You men are not as
obtuse as you seem to imagine.” She
gave Scarlet a swift kiss on his cheek.
“You eventually figure it out.”
She took a step forward
towards Blake, presenting the book.
“Fifth row, third book from the left.
Is this the one?” He nodded in
answer, but declined the book she was handing him.
“No, keep it. It’s a gift for both of you.”
Scarlet took the book
from Rhapsody’s hands and examined the old leather cover. “An old Bible?”
“Yes. It was given to me many years ago – by the
vicar who married us, your grandmother and I.
It was used on our wedding day.”
He smiled and gestured to the Bible.
“It’s my wedding gift to you two.”
“Granddad… I don’t know
what to say,” Scarlet replied a little awkwardly. “But you know, the wedding is not planned for tomorrow…”
Blake grunted. “An engagement
gift then, if you prefer,” he retorted in a falsely offended tone. “Yes, I
know you’re not exactly a God-fearing man, Paul, but…”
“It’s a lovely gift,”
Scarlet cut in quickly, before his grandfather started to imagine he didn’t
appreciate the gift. “I realise it must
mean a lot to you… And that you should
part with it…”
“It’s because it does
mean a lot to me than I want to give it to you,” Blake answered.
“Then we are honoured,
sir,” Rhapsody said with a smile of thanks.
“When the time comes, we shall ask the clergyman who marries us to use
that Bible.”
Scarlet gave a sharp nod
in approval of his fiancée’s decision.
Blake smiled slightly, satisfied that his gift seemed to please the
young couple. However, he was not about
to let them believe he was happy with their present choice of waiting for a
later date to celebrate their wedding.
He humphed loudly, and resettled himself comfortably in his chair. “In the meantime,” he grumbled, “don’t
forget to add me to your invitation
list… and reserve me a place in the front pew.”
Both Scarlet and
Rhapsody exchanged an amused smile, not fooled at all by the older man’s
falsely grumpy tone.
“Don’t worry, Granddad,”
Scarlet told him merrily. “We certainly
won’t forget you… and you’ll have the best
place in the house…” He winked at
Rhapsody. “Well… the second best place, that is. I’ll have the best place, of course… by my
beautiful bride’s side!”
Captain Blue met
with Captain Scarlet and Rhapsody Angel in the hangar, just after the latter’s
SPJ landed on Cloudbase. Scarlet
certainly welcomed his friend’s help in taking Rhapsody’s too numerous
suitcases back to her quarters; Dianne had never been able to pack sensibly,
and more often than not, it was his back
which had to suffer the grief of carrying such a heavy load. After both men had escorted the Angel back
to her place, Scarlet kissed his fiancée goodbye, and went to his own quarters,
accompanied by Blue – carrying his only suitcase
and a small carry-on bag. On entering,
he deposited all of his luggage onto his bunk and sat heavily on it, sighing
deeply. “Home sweet home…”
“How was the
visit to Granddaddy?” Blue asked with a
smirk. “By the looks of you, I gather
it didn’t go too well.”
“Oh, on the
contrary, it went very well,” Scarlet retorted quickly. “My grandfather and I have always got on
well. He was thrilled to learn about
our engagement, Dianne and I.”
“I imagine
so. I suppose he started asking
questions about when the big day will
be?”
“Right on the
spot,” Scarlet agreed sombrely. “He
started saying that he ‘wasn’t getting any younger…’”
“… And that he
might not live long enough to actually see the day?”
Scarlet
sighed. “The truth is, he might be
right about that, you know? He’s in his
eighties – still a very vigorous man for his age, despite his bad legs… but he
won’t be here for ever.”
Blue nodded
slowly. “I can see your dilemma. You’re feeling guilty about making him
wait.”
“Something like
that,” Scarlet admitted. “Not only
him. But Dianne’s parents, my parents –
who still don’t know about this – the colonel…”
“…Who doesn’t know either,” Blue added
meaningfully.
“Thank you for
pointing that out, Adam,” Scarlet grunted.
“I know I don’t
have to give you lessons in that field, Paul,” Blue continued. “But… don’t you think you’d better tell him too? I kept my relationship with Karen a secret from the colonel for a long
time myself, before finally telling him…”
“… only to
discover he’d known all about it all along…”
Blue smiled
thinly at his friend’s remark.
“Perhaps. But I didn’t know that
at the time, and I felt so much better
after coming clean with him. Believe me, it’s not such a bad thing to do.”
Scarlet
hesitated. “All in good time,” he said
with an awkward smile. “When I’m
ready.”
“When you find
the courage, you mean.”
“Courage is not
something I’m lacking, I’ll remind you.”
“Except when facing the old man. And perhaps your parents as well…”
Scarlet rubbed
his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think you can compare our situations, Adam,” he
said.
“Why not?” Blue
asked with a frown. “What difference is
there between my relationship with Karen – and your relationship with Dianne?”
“Well… me, of
course.” Scarlet pointed to
himself. “I’m different.”
“Paul, I still
fail to see the point of…”
“You know,”
Scarlet interrupted swiftly, “when we were coming back from my grandfather’s
place, Dianne kept talking about how he
looked a lot like me when he was my age.
And I have to say, it is true: I
am today the spitting image of what he was in his young days. You know what Dianne told me? She told me: ‘So that’s what you’ll look like when you’re eighty.’”
“And…?” Blue
asked in a puzzled tone.
“Adam – I don’t
know what I’ll look like when I’m eighty.
I might still look as young as I look today!”
“And that’s bad?”
Blue asked with a thin smile.
“It is when
you’re involved with a woman, I would say!” Scarlet remarked, a little
irately. “Don’t you think it could put
a dent in any relationship, in the long run?”
“In the long run, maybe,” Blue reflected. “In the meantime, I don’t think you should
worry about that.”
“I’m not. But the colonel might not agree.”
“The colonel is
not an ogre, Paul. And I can’t see him
getting all fired up about what – at the moment – is simply a theory – which
might turn out not to be true.” Blue marked a pause. “Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? You
did tell me that, so far, Fawn hasn’t
found anything conclusive about that
aspect of your… condition…”
“No, that’s
true,” Scarlet admitted reluctantly.
“But… I still feel the same as I did two years ago. I don’t feel any different.”
“Well, so do I,”
Blue answered with a smirk. “Maybe it
simply means we’re both in good shape?”
Scarlet gave him an awkward look.
“I say you should put all your fears aside and go forward. Tell the colonel. Tell your parents. Let
the world know how you feel about Dianne.
And that you intend to marry her and be happy with her for as long as
you’re both alive and together.”
Scarlet smiled in
turn and simply nodded in acknowledgement of his friend’s encouragement. “Soon, Adam,” he promised. “I’ll tell them –
all of them – very soon.”
Blue nodded. “Perhaps the question will become
academic. Your grandfather might tell
your parents himself – did you think about that? Your mom is his daughter after all. How many secrets can he have from her?”
Scarlet laughed
out loud. “Plenty, I’d imagine!” he
said with good humour. “Remember, he
was an agent, and then a director of the Universal Secret Service. I should think he knows a lot of secrets, that none of us would
ever suspect – least of all, my mother!”
“Like who shot
your dearly departed Director, for example?” Blue offered.
Scarlet
grimaced. Blue was referring to a
recent period of Britain’s history – far too recent for anyone’s liking – during
which monarchist democracy had been abolished, and martial law had been imposed
on the country, holding it for years under the iron hand of a tyrant who was
known only as The Director. Even years
after the civil war that had brought an end to his rule, his real identity was
still unknown. Or kept like a shameful
secret, Blue would rather think. His
death had come about at the end of the civil war, in rather obscure circumstances,
when he was killed by a U.S.S. agent – whose identity was also kept secret... Even
to this day, the real circumstances behind his death – whether it was an
ordered assassination or not, then viewed as necessary to end the terror regime
of the Director – was still one of the 21st Century’s most guarded
secrets. And nobody really expected the
U.S.S. to ever reveal the truth of what
had happened.
“Even the colonel
doesn’t know the answer to that one,” Scarlet remarked. “And at one point, he was head of the
British Division of the U.S.S.”
“Yes, but that
was after the civil war,” Blue
retorted. “Your grandfather, on the other hand, was deeply involved with the U.S.S. during that period.”
“The British
section didn’t officially exist in
those times.”
“But it did
exist, you and I know about that.” Blue
nodded thoughtfully. “You think he
might have had a hand in that?”
Scarlet raised a
doubtful brow. “My grandfather? Involved in the death of the Director? Well, if he was, then he would be Britain’s
least celebrated hero!” he remarked.
“But that would surprise me very much.
Murder was not really up his alley. Never has been…” He gave it a second’s thought. “At least, I don’t think so.” He shook his head, chasing the doubt from
his mind. “Anyway, he won’t say a thing
to my parents concerning the engagement.
He told me he would keep it to himself, until such time as I see fit to
tell them myself.”
“A really nice
man,” Blue said, musing.
“He gave Dianne
and me a gift.” Scarlet unzipped his
carry-on bag and fished something out of it, which he handed to Blue with a
large smirk.
“A Bible?” Blue
said, turning the big book in his hands.
“And obviously quite old.”
“It was given to
my grandparents by the vicar who married them,” Scarlet explained, as Blue was
opening the Bible. He failed to notice the expression of surprise on his
friend’s features as he continued: “So
my grandfather thought that… Dianne and
I could carry on the tradition.”
Blue turned a few
pages from the beginning. He stopped
and frowned. “With this book?” he
inquired, looking directly at his friend with a doubtful expression on his
face. “You’re sure?”
“What do you
mean?” Scarlet asked with perplexity.
Blue sighed.
“Well… I don’t know if a clergyman gave this to your grandfather, Paul, but he
obviously didn’t read from it. Check this.”
Blue’s statement
was unusual enough to intrigue Scarlet; he rose from the bed to look over his
colleague’s broad shoulder at what Blue was staring at in such a curious way.
Blue first showed
him the first pages of the Bible – which were completely blank, with no writing
of any kind of them. Then he turned a page and Scarlet opened his eyes wide
with surprise.
The interior of
the book had been cut, in such a way that a small device, of almost exactly the
size of the book, had been inserted inside.
It was made of plastic and metal, with a series of six squared buttons
covering half of it, and a larger metallic disc inserted on the other
half.
“What’s this?”
Scarlet murmured.
“I don’t
know…” Blue answered, shrugging. “A recording device, perhaps? Looks pretty archaic though…” He closed the book. “See?
You can’t see what’s hidden inside.
Clever…”
“Not so clever,
I’ve seen the exact same trick in an old western. Except the bad guy was hiding a revolver in it.”
“Why would a
clergyman hide this thing in a Bible?” Blue asked with a frown.
“That’s the same
question I was asking myself about the revolver. The bad guy was a clergyman
too,” Scarlet said matter-of-factly.
He smiled at the annoyed glance his friend gave him. “Maybe it’s not a recorder. It could be a player of some kind. That disc could be a speaker…”
“Doesn’t look
like any kind of player I’ve ever seen,” Blue mumbled.
“Doesn’t look
like a recorder either,” Scarlet pointed out.
Blue opened the
book and after a short moment of hesitation, started pushing some of the
buttons, but they clicked without anything happening. Scarlet took the Bible and did the same, and had no more success
than his colleague.
“Maybe we
shouldn’t touch it, after all,” Blue noted.
“We don’t know what it is.”
“You’re funny,
Blue,” Scarlet grumbled. “You’re the
first to try it, and when it’s my turn, you say we shouldn’t touch it.” He pressed the buttons again, and grunted.
“Well, whatever it is, it looks like it’s broken,” he remarked.
“Or maybe it’s a
matter of getting the right sequence?”
Blue suggested. He took the book
back and made a few more attempts.
Without any more success than previously. Scarlet sighed.
“This is getting
tedious,” he reflected, as Blue gave him back the book. “I’d better put it away for the time being,
and ask Granddad what this gift of his is all about. I’m sure I’ll be fascinated by his explanation.”
“I think that’s
the best thing you could do,” Blue
agreed. “In the meantime, I’ll leave
you. I’ve got paperwork to do – and if
I don’t start on it right away, I won’t be able to make it to this dinner with
Karen later on.”
“Off you go,
then,” Scarlet said, still trying for a new sequence on the buttons. “I’m going to have a shower, and get back
into uniform, before I report to the colonel.”
“See you later,
then. Don’t waste too much time on this
thing. You might break it, if it’s not
broken already.”
Scarlet didn’t
answer as Blue left, and the sliding door closed on him. He tried one last sequence, but since the
new command failed him again, he grunted in annoyance.
“What kind of
gift did you give me, Granddad?” he muttered.
He threw the Bible open onto his work-table with a frustrated sigh, and
didn’t give it another look. I don’t have time for this… I need that shower. He turned on his heel and took his
uniform out of his closet to lay it carefully on his bed, with his boots
standing in front of it. Then, he
swiftly removed his shoes, and directing his steps towards his small bathroom,
started disrobing on the way.
He never noticed
the lights appearing on the buttons he had pushed just a few seconds ago, nor
did he hear the faint buzzing sound that started coming out of it.
“What are you
doing out of your chair, Mr. Blake? You
know the doctor said you shouldn’t stand up for too long.”
Paul Blake looked
sideways at his nurse who had entered the library, carrying a tray on which
were a teapot, biscuits and a cup. He
gruffed and shrugged dismissively; her admonishments had become more and more
frequent as time passed, but he had grown used to them. Not that they had any effect on him anyway;
he would rarely listen to them – especially when he had something more
important on his mind. As he had at the
moment.
“I’m missing a book,”
he grunted, continuing to scrutinize the bookshelves in front of which he was
standing, leaning heavily on the cane that he used when out of his
wheelchair. He didn’t turn around as
she put her load onto the desk behind him. “Have you seen it, Hilda? I know you’re in the habit of removing my
books from the shelves from time to time to do some dusting…”
“Yes – dust is no
good for you,” the nurse replied.
“Especially at your age. You
know that… But you also know that I
always put the books back where they came from.”
“This book is very important… You should never touch it. Now I can’t find it.” He put his finger in an empty space on the
shelf he was staring at. “And there’s a
hole here, where it should be.”
“You gave one to
your grandson before he left,” the nurse reminded him matter-of-factly. “Such a handsome young man he is, Mr.
Blake…”
“That’s not the
same book,” Blake retorted, rather abruptly.
“That was a
Bible, yes?” the woman behind him
insisted, patiently. “You gave a Bible
to your grandson… The nice young lady
came in here looking for it. I showed
her your bookshelves and helped her find it.
It was this book we took.”
Blake
frowned. “Wait a minute…” His fingers grazed the spines of the book,
starting from the first one on the shelf.
“Fifth bookshelf… third book from the left…” He ended up on the empty space he had discovered.
“Ah!” Hilda said
victoriously. “You see? That is
the book in question.”
“I gave them the
wrong book,” Blake muttered. “It should
have been… third shelf, fifth book.” Saying that, he grazed the said shelf and found the fifth
book. He removed it from between the
others and checked it. “This is the Bible I should have given
them,” he said, turning to Hilda. “Not
the other one.”
She shrugged,
pouring tea into the cup. “A Bible is a
Bible, isn’t it?”
“This Bible was the one that was used at
my wedding,” Blake countered, turning around and leaning heavily on his desk to
lower himself down into his seat. “And
that other Bible I gave Paul… is
something else. Oh dear, oh dear, oh
dear… What a mistake I made. I really must be getting old…” He sighed.
“That book should never have
left this house. I was entrusted with it so many years ago…”
“Just call and
ask your grandson to bring it back to you,” Hilda suggested. To her, the
question didn’t seem to be all that serious.
Blake humphed
loudly. “You think it is as simple as
that?” he said almost ironically. She gave a dismissive shrug, and Blake
grunted with annoyance, at first considering her suggestion a foolish one. You
don’t call Spectrum like that for such a thing… Well, it could be serious enough, but Paul was a very busy man. And he was stationed on Cloudbase, far away
from here… At least, as far as Blake knew.
The location of Cloudbase was always changing, and a secret very
jealously guarded.
Thoughtfully,
Blake looked at the phone on his desk. Maybe
Hilda is right, after all…I should call Paul.
This is too important.
He picked up the
receiver. “Leave that for now, Hilda,”
he said, starting to dial a number.
“And leave me, please. It’s a
matter of … national – no, international –
security. So this will have to be a private conversation. I hope you understand.”
Hilda rolled her
eyes, but didn’t comment. Sometimes
this man could be so melodramatic over nothing. International security, really… But she decided to humour him.
After all, he was an old gentleman…
he was entitled to his own fantasies.
“Don’t be too
long,” she said, taking the empty tray with her. “Your tea will get cold.”
She left, closing the door after her.
Blake barely
acknowledged her departure. He got
through to Spectrum London HQ, and after he had given his identity and the
access numeric code required to get through security, he was put through to the
Cloudbase communication centre.
A lilting voice
answered him after a couple of minutes of waiting. “Cloudbase Control, Lieutenant Green speaking.”
“I’d like to talk
to Captain Scarlet, please,” Blake announced.
“I’m his grandfather.”
“Can I have your access code, sir?”
“I thought I just
gave it to your colleague in London?”
“It’s the second code you need to give me now,
sir. That’s the normal security
procedure. To make sure of your
identity. It was provided to you by
Spectrum security should you need to contact your relative on Cloudbase.”
“All right,”
Blake said with a sigh. He should have known that it would not be that easy to
contact someone directly on Cloudbase.
“It’s Alpha, Bravo, three, five, seven... I think.” He waited for a short instant, listening to
the silence. “Is that okay?” he asked
impatiently. “This is rather important.”
“Code accepted, sir,” Green announced diligently. “Captain Scarlet arrived on Cloudbase about an hour ago, and should
still be in his quarters. I’ll put you
through. If he’s not there, you will be
able to leave a message on his voice mail, and he will call you back as soon as
he can.”
“I suppose that
will have to do,” grunted Blake. “Thank
you, Lieutenant.”
“You’ll have contact in ten seconds. Have a nice day,
Mr. Blake,”
Green said in
closing, and Blake wasn’t surprised that he should know his name. He imagined that the information was held
against his security code. He waited the time announced by the communications
officer and then heard the tone at the other end. He hoped that Paul would answer himself, so that he would be able
to resolve the situation. I shouldn’t have kept that Bible, he told
himself. I should have put it into the U.S.S. security vault in London, years
ago. But I was personally entrusted
with it – and I gave my word to keep it with me. And keep it safe.
Oh yes… I did hold to my promise, didn’t I?
Nobody answered
the phone, and Blake heard the short message announcing that he would be
transferred to the voice mail box. He
rolled his eyes. Yes, of course… it would not be
that easy!
He sighed as a
buzzing sound told him it was time to leave his message. “Hello, Paul, this is me…”
After taking his
shower and drying himself off, Captain Scarlet emerged from his bathroom, with
only a towel around his hips, rubbing his hair vigorously with another, smaller
one, and whistling while going through the contents of his carry-all in which
he knew he had left the new aftershave he had just bought during his
leave. He found it at the bottom of the
bag, and opened the bottle, splashing a few drops of the contents into his
hands, and then onto his cheeks. . He threw the smaller towel onto his desk,
atop the open Bible he had left there; still he failed to notice the light that
was now illuminating all the buttons.
He did notice,
however, the blinking red light on his phone, telling him that someone had left
a message on his voice mail, while he was in the shower. He pressed the command
button and the numeric code to access the box, and went to his bed to start
dressing in his uniform.
There was only
one message in the box.
“Hello, Paul, this is me…”
There was a short
pause from the elderly voice of the speaker.
“… Your grandfather.” Scarlet nearly chuckled. Leave
it to Granddad to state the obvious! he told himself. The message continued as he pulled up his
pants: “You know that Bible I gave you…
I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake.
I mean… I did intend to give
you the Bible that was used at my wedding – but I obviously gave you the wrong
one. You see, this… Bible you have…
it’s not really a Bible at all. It’s
just a cover, to hide something inside… an electronic device…”
“No
kidding!” Scarlet muttered, slipping
his head through the collar of his charcoal grey pullover. “We already found
that out, Granddad…”
He combed his
still-wet hair, while listening to the rest:
“That book was entrusted to me by
a fellow U.S.S. agent – a long time ago.
He had just learned that he was ill, and would die soon, and needed to
give it to someone whom he knew would take care of it… because he didn’t want
the device the book contains to fall into the wrong hands.”
Scarlet was
putting on his socks when he heard those last words. He frowned and turned to the phone, approaching with curiosity.
“What is this thing, then?” he muttered to himself
“I can’t tell you what it is exactly,”
the voice of his grandfather continued, as
if answering his question directly. “But
what I can say is that it should never have left my house. I have two requests to make of you,
Paul. First, please, don’t try to turn the machine on. I doubt it would work – I know I’ve tried a few times already,
without success – but I would much prefer that you don’t try yourself – just in
case…”
“Too late,”
Scarlet said out loud, with a faint smile.
“And it didn’t work for me either…”
“Secondly, I need you to send the book back to me as
soon as possible,”
the voice of Paul Blake continued. “As I said, I can’t tell you what it does,
but Matthew told me that it was very
important that I keep it very safe.”
Scarlet nodded
pensively, his curiosity piqued. He
started looking around for the book, trying to remind himself where he had left
it. On
the desk. Of course, the towel is now hiding
it.
He removed the
towel. And frowned upon seeing the
illuminated buttons of the device embedded in the book.
He saw the
metallic disc glowing in turn as it steadily rose from where it lay, supported
on a short rod.
“What the…?”
The light became
brighter, and suddenly, Scarlet’s head started to spin and the room seemed to
move around him. Through the phone
speaker, the voice of his grandfather became remote: “So I would appreciate it if you would call me back as soon as
possible, Paul. To confirm to me that
you received this message… I know it
might sound a little ludicrous, when you think about it, but it is not, I can
assure you…”
Scarlet had
trouble keeping his balance, as his head became lighter and lighter. He felt giddy and numb all over; the light
from the disc was becoming more distant, but at the same time brighter, even
larger - as was the desk itself. He had
the absurd impression that everything was now growing…
… bigger…
Bigger and bigger…
Faced with this
unknown phenomenon, panic set in, and Scarlet’s heart started beating faster;
he stepped backward, trying to get away from the source of the light, and his
feet entangled themselves in something behind him. Something like a huge pile of cloth, lying on the floor; he
turned around, trying to catch himself, and he fell face first right into it;
at the same time, he had the very strange impression that the pile was mounting
toward him, getting larger with each split second – seemingly becoming as huge
as mountains, and as deep as valleys.
His head hit
something metallic. He never realised
it was one of the studs from his civilian jacket – which was now as big as his
head itself.
His world became
dark, and he lost consciousness, just as the last words of his grandfather’s
message were heard through the speaker of the phone:
“This is very important, Paul. I’m counting on you. Please call me back. I’ll be waiting for your call. Bye for now.”
Nobody was able
to hear the voice now, as it echoed through the room…
The now seemingly
empty room – on the floor of which
was lying a small heap of discarded civilian clothing.
When Captains
Ochre and Grey stepped out of the SPJ
that had brought them back from Spectrum New York Headquarters, they were
greeted by Captain Magenta, who had just come to meet the London shuttle to
pick up a package. He was waiting for
it on the hangar deck, when his two colleagues arrived.
“So, how was the
trip to my old home town?” Magenta asked with a grin.
“If at least we
had seen the town,” Ochre grimaced, “I guess it would have been less boring.”
“That bad?”
“You know how it
goes,” Grey sighed. “Security
investigations can be quite routine – especially when there seems to be nothing
to be found.”
“So there’s no
leak of information, like Lieutenant Tan suspected?” Magenta asked.
That was the
reason that had taken Ochre and Grey to New York. Lieutenant Tan, the security officer in charge of New York HQ,
had discovered unauthorised radio signals that were apparently coming from the
headquarters’ offices. The signals had
been intercepted, and Tan had launched a primary investigation, which had
turned up nothing out of the ordinary.
He’d reported this to Cloudbase at this point, and it was then decided
that further investigation should be carried out by senior officers – if only
to check if everything was indeed in order.
“Nothing to worry
about then,” Magenta pursued. “It might
only be a false alarm.”
“It would appear
that everything is all right,” Ochre said pensively. “But… Tan is still convinced that his suspicions were right. As for Major Brooks… he’s satisfied that the
investigation proves that security at New York HQ is as tight as he always
thought it would be.”
Magenta nodded
slowly, narrowing his eyes at his two colleagues, guessing at their opinion of
the New York HQ Spectrum commander’s judgement. “I have the impression that you don’t agree with Brooks… and that
you tend to share Tan’s suspicions.”
“Tan is not the
paranoid type,” Grey agreed. “If he says
there was something amiss… then you can bet your bottom dollar there was.”
“It is possible
that, whoever was trying to leak information, he or she stopped by the time we
arrived,” Ochre continued.
“The question now
would be: will that person stay quiet,
so not to run the risk of being identified,” Grey finished, “or will he/she
start again, now that they’ve avoided detection?”
Magenta was about
to answer when the speakers in the hangar suddenly came to life, and a
dreadfully familiar, ominous voice was heard:
“This is the Voice of
the Mysterons… We know you can hear us,
Earthmen… The secrets of Spectrum’s
Cloudbase will soon be revealed by an unexpected source. This will strike a crippling blow to the
Spectrum organisation’s effectiveness.
We will be avenged…”
Magenta, Grey and
Ochre stared for a minute at the now silent speakers; then, they exchanged
significant looks.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Magenta
remarked.
“Nope,” Grey
agreed. “I think we can safely say that
Tan was right – and that the target of those leaks has now simply changed. But I would never have guessed the Mysterons
were behind this.”
The speaker came
to life again, but this time, with the voice of Lieutenant Green. “We are now on Yellow Alert. All available senior staff captains report
to the Control Room at once.”
With
a common nod, and a hasty pace, Grey, Ochre and Magenta left the hangar,
without delay. The technicians were
finishing unloading the equipment from the SPJ and were preparing to taxi it off
the lift on which it was still standing.
Nobody
noticed, through the still opened hatch leading to the cabin, the little furry
creature, that showed its nose outside, looking around attentively – before
dashing out and breaking into a run across the hangar floor and then directly
to the nearest air vent, before anyone could see it…
Mike
‘Dinger’ Bell looked around Captain Scarlet’s quarters with some puzzlement;
for the last few years he had been the captain’s batman onboard Cloudbase, he
could never recall him leaving his place in a mess – or even slightly untidy.
Now, there was civilian clothing lying on the floor, tracing a path towards the
bathroom, a couple of towels mixed with them; the shower had obviously been
used very recently, and not cleaned;
the red tunic of the captain’s uniform was still on the bed, alongside
his cap, his gun belt with the sidearm inside the holster, and a pair of shiny
boots looking as if they were standing to attention. Captain Scarlet’s luggage was still on the bed, open, with half
of the contents still inside. There was
even a big, thick book left open on the desk, right next to the telephone and
computer.
Bell
scratched his ear. He had heard the
call to yellow alert a few minutes ago coming from the speakers – just after
another of those enigmatic threats the Mysterons always issued. So he gathered that Captain Scarlet must
have left in a hurry to report to the Control Room, and didn’t have time to
pick up his things and unpack his luggage.
Which explained almost everything – except why he had left parts of his
uniform lying everywhere…
Bell
shrugged. The captain probably used a
spare uniform, or something, for whatever reason that the batman couldn’t think
of at the moment. It wasn’t his job to
try to understand anyway – he was just Scarlet’s orderly and only needed to
keep his quarters clean and take care of his things. Which he would do right now.
He
started by cleaning the shower and the
rest of the bathroom, and then came back into the living and sleeping
areas; he picked up in one lump the dirty clothes lying on the floor, but left
the uniform – which didn’t seem to have been worn at all – and threw it all,
unceremoniously, into his laundry
basket. He glanced towards the open book on the desk, but didn’t dare touch it;
he did notice the strange device embedded within the cut-out pages, and
shrugged at the sight of it.
You see odd things on Cloudbase,
he told himself. So he wasn’t that
surprised.
He
picked up his basket of dirty laundry and left the quarters, whistling
contentedly after a job well-done.
If
he had checked in his basket, he might have noticed the tiny arm emerging from
between the folds of the clothes it contained – and on the sleeve of which a
very small but nevertheless noticeable Spectrum logo was imprinted…
“Where
is Captain Scarlet?” asked Colonel
White.
The
four colour-coded captains seated around his desk glanced at each other with
inquiring looks, and then every eye turned toward Captain Blue. Ochre, Magenta and Grey had arrived at the
room together, and had not seen Scarlet.
Blue was probably the person who would know his regular partner’s
whereabouts..
“Last
time I saw him, Colonel,” Blue answered, “Captain Scarlet was preparing to
unpack his suitcases after his arrival on base. Then he was planning on taking a shower. He might not have heard the threat or the
call with the water running.”
“That
would be a plausible explanation,” White agreed with a nod. It was almost unheard of for Scarlet to miss
a staff meeting in the Control Room – especially after a Mysteron threat. The colonel turned toward Lieutenant Green,
seated in front of his station. “Try to
reach him, Lieutenant. Tell him to join
us as soon as possible.”
“S.I.G.,
Sir.”
“In
the meantime, we don’t have time to wait for him,” White continued, turning to
his remaining officers. “Any thoughts of what this new threat might mean,
gentlemen?”
“We
were just talking about it while coming here, Sir,” Captain Grey answered. “It would seem that the Mysterons intend to
pursue on Cloudbase what was attempted at New York HQ.”
White
raised a curious brow. “But according
to earlier reports, you and Captain Ochre didn’t find anything, Captain Grey.”
“The
fact that we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean there wasn’t something, Colonel,” Ochre noted. “Those signals Lieutenant Tan intercepted surely came from somewhere.
Our spy was just clever enough to stop his transmissions just short of
being discovered.”
“If
that is true… then what kind of information do you think might have gone
through?”
“Judging
by what Lieutenant Tan intercepted, and the location the signals came from, we
can count our blessings that it was non-essential information, Sir,” Ochre
sighed. “It was in a relatively
low-priority section of the building – but still, the access to it by
non-Spectrum personnel and public is next to impossible – and it’s even less
likely that someone would be able to sneak in a camera or any kind of
electronic device going through all the current levels of security. Captain Grey made sure that the system
installed by Captain Magenta months ago was still as efficient as it was meant
to be.”
“But
whatever caused those signals was very close
to a high security section,” Grey continued.
“We were lucky the transmissions were discovered at this point. Or there’s no telling just how far our spy
would have been able to go.”
“So
he just stopped,” Blue mused. “Just
like that. To avoid detection?”
“It
would seem likely, yes,” Ochre concurred.
“And
now we have this threat against Cloudbase,” Blue said pensively. “You think it’s related?”
Ochre
narrowed his eyes. “Think about
it: What if what happened in New York
was just a test?”
“To
see how far the spy can get through security?”
“Exactly,
Captain Magenta.”
“And
now he’s moved to Cloudbase?” Blue was
puzzled. “That would mean the Mysterons
were behind the attempt in New York, then.”
“Or,” Magenta countered, “that the spy in New
York, if an independent agent, was Mysteronised afterwards to do their dirty
work.”
“Either
way, it’s a possibility that the events in New York and this present threat are
related,” White remarked. He turned to
Lieutenant Green. “Any luck contacting
Captain Scarlet, Lieutenant?”
“No,
sir,” Green answered from his station.
“And I tried everything. His cap
microphone, his personal comm., the base speakers. Everything seems to be working fine, but he doesn’t answer.”
“Odd,”
White mused pensively. “It’s certainly
not like him to ignore a meeting.
Captain Blue,” the colonel continued, “you will go to Captain Scarlet’s
quarters and see what could be delaying him.
Inform him of the new developments and tell him to report to me at
once.”
“S.I.G.,
Sir,” Blue said, starting to rise.
“Scarlet’s
input in this situation could be essential.” White pursued. “After all, if anybody knows how the
Mysterons work, it is certainly him. He
is still our best asset against them.”
He then addressed his four officers:
“Gentlemen, I want you to study the incident in New York HQ and come up
with answers on how this ‘spy’ succeeded in getting through Spectrum security –
and how his success could be applied on Cloudbase, to get access to our most
vital secrets. I also want security to be increased, to stop the events in New
York from happening here.”
“S.I.G.,”
the four captains in front of White chorused.
“I
do not have to tell you,” the colonel insisted, “what it would mean if our most
guarded secrets were to be known by the public, or even worse, if they should
fall into criminal hands. It would have
devastating consequences… Spectrum
would not be able to function efficiently in its war against terrorism – and
the Mysterons. Indeed, gentlemen, as the Mysterons have said, it would be for
our organisation a most crippling blow.”
The
sound of whistling echoed in Scarlet’s mind.
Still fighting against unconsciousness, he didn’t recognise the tune at
first; and then, he was able to
identify one of his batman’s favourite refrains; he had often caught him
whistling it, while cleaning his quarters.
It
was as awful as he remembered it to be all those previous times.
Bell… for Heaven’s sake, cut that out…
You’re nearly as bad as Blue at carrying a tune…
He
was lying on something soft – fabric of some kind, which was also covering him
and weighing heavily on him. A strong
odour made him choke as he tried to take a deep breath.
And
then there was the sudden impression of falling, still entangled in the heavy
fabric. He couldn’t hold on to
anything, couldn’t see anything, as he tumbled down inexorably towards the
unknown.
He
fell head first into something soft, like a mattress, and found himself covered
by the same heavy and smelly fabric in which he had awakened, pressing him down
with a great weight. He gasped for air,
and tried to focus, as he attempted to push away whatever it was that was
covering him. But it was so heavy, it
was flattening him, and nearly choking him.
He couldn’t see a thing, so deep was the darkness surrounding him.
The
whistling Scarlet was hearing was now growing faint, to the rhythm of receding
footsteps. Bell – or whoever it was
that he was hearing – was walking away, leaving him to his fate. He tried to call for help, but his cries
never got through that ‘stuff’ covering him.
Feels like heavy canvas, he
told himself, now hearing only a deep, worrying silence. He couldn’t stand, so he crawled his way up
– hoping to eventually get out of
whatever this thing was.
It
seemed to Scarlet that it took endless minutes, and he was starting to feel
terribly hot, when he finally saw a ray of light; with a deep intake of air, he
sighed with relief and crawled toward the light. He finally emerged out of the darkness, breathing heavily under
the effort he had just made, and drenched with sweat. He crawled on his hands and knees out of what looked to him like
a tube, made out of a dark, bulky fabric; then he stood, stumbling on the
unsteady and soft ground under his feet; it was exactly as if he was standing
on some sort of canvas, untidily thrown on the ground. He wasn’t wearing his boots, not having had
the time to put them on earlier, and his toes bumped against something solid
and sharp under the fabric. He yelped
in pain, and nearly fell to his knees.
He stared down, wondering what it was that his foot had hit. He opened his eyes wide with surprise, when
he saw the metallic object protruding from the ‘canvas’.
It looks like… a giant zip?!
Scarlet
crouched to stare at it with curiosity.
The thing was at least ten feet long, probably longer as it disappeared
under the dark cloth onto which it was attached – no… sewed on. He shook his head in disbelief. No,
I’m dreaming, surely… who would build
such a thing and to what purpose? And
why would it be on Cloudbase?
I’m still on Cloudbase, aren’t I?
He
looked around, his eyes filled with wariness.
All he could see around him was lumps and bulges of canvas – of
different colours, and sizes, lying everywhere, like so many uneven mounds and
crevices… Beyond that, there seemed to
be a… palisade of some sort
–-smooth-surfaced and rising high above his head – surrounding him.
Where the bloody Hell am I?
Looking
behind him, he made a double take – staring with wide-eyed astonishment at the
dark ‘tube’ he had emerged from a minute earlier.
On
top of the tube, which appeared to be made of a dark grey fabric, he could see
a giant Spectrum logo; he looked down at the one he was wearing on his sleeve,
in some puzzlement. It was an exact
replica… And the more he looked at his
sleeve and at this ‘tube’… the more
he realised how very similar they were.
He slowly rose to his feet, his heart beating faster, thinking he was
dreaming. He nearly pinched himself to
make sure he wasn’t.
No this is real. I am really
seeing what I’m seeing.
Oh dear God, this thing is a giant sleeve!
“Paul,
are you there?”
Captain
Blue entered Captain Scarlet’s quarters after dialling the numeric code to open
the door. As it slid shut behind him,
he looked around into the empty living area with curiosity.
“Paul?” Nobody answered Blue’s call. He checked the
sleeping area, wondering if his friend might be taking a nap – which would be
surprising. Scarlet wasn’t the kind of
person to take impromptu naps – especially when on duty. Besides, since his Mysteronisation, the
English captain didn’t need as much sleep as any ordinary human being.
As
Blue expected, Scarlet wasn’t there; strangely, though, his open luggage was
still lying on his bed, most of the contents still packed. A pair of red boots stood right next to the
bed, just underneath a uniform tunic, a radiocap and a gun belt. It was as if someone was getting ready to
wear them.
“Paul!”
Blue crossed the room towards the bathroom, but he found it also empty. He came back into the living area and looked
around, puzzled. The Bible, with its
strange contents, was on the desk, right next to the computer, the buttons
still dark, and apparently devoid of life.
Except for that, and what was in the sleeping area, everything looked as
tidy as it always was.
“Now
where could he be?” Blue asked himself, muttering.
Could
Paul be with Rhapsody? That was
far-fetched, of course – Paul would never miss an important meeting concerning
a Mysteron threat, even to pass some
time with his girlfriend. If he had
been unaware of the threat and the meeting, by some odd chance, Rhapsody would
have known about it anyway, and would have made sure to tell him.
Well, just to be certain, I’d better go
check at her place,
Blue finally decided, pushing the button
to open the door. Discreetly.
As
he stepped out, he failed to notice the blinking red light on Scarlet’s phone,
signifying that there was still a message in his voice box…
The
first moment of surprise passed, Scarlet finally came to realise what had
happened to him. His last conscious
thoughts, before he woke up in this strange place, was of the bright, blinding
light coming from his grandfather’s Bible, then this sensation of dizziness
that had struck him – and the impression that everything was growing bigger
around him.
It wasn’t the things surrounding me that
were growing bigger,
he
realised in shock. But me, who was
getting smaller!
From
the vantage point of a smooth, rounded top, made out of a red, soft, satin-like
fabric, on which he was seated, he was now staring at the huge Spectrum logo he
had discovered earlier, rubbing his chin pensively, making a quick assessment
of his situation. A Spectrum roundel on
a sleeve was approximately one and a half inches in diameter. This one he was staring at was about half
of his present size. Which made him,
roughly, three inches high…
I’ve been reduced to the size of a bloody
action figure,
he growled to
himself.
HOW did THAT happen?!
Oh
sure – he knew he had to blame that damnable device he had found in that book
his grandfather accidentally gave to
him – now he knew what it did! – but
what he would have liked to know at the moment was how it could possibly be able to do such a thing. Reduce a man to such a height as he
presently was… it sounded so ridiculous!
And what could it possibly be useful for?
I’m sure the Secret Service must have
thought of a logical, applicable use for it – but for the life of me, I
can’t think of what it might be.
And how the Hell am I going to get back to
my normal size? Is this thing
permanent? Will it wear off eventually?
Please, let it not be permanent!
He
glanced around thoughtfully. Whatever
happened next with his present condition, there was one thing he was certain
of: he had to get out of here. One look at the ceiling he could see so high
above his head was enough to confirm that here
wasn’t his quarters. He remembered
having fallen straight into his clothes lying on the floor, knocking his head
against something – he couldn’t recall what –
and losing his senses in the process.
Next thing he knew, he had woken up in this place.
He
knew what ‘this place’ was – or rather, he had a pretty good idea.
This
was, in all probability, the laundry room.
Somebody – Bell, since I’m pretty sure
it’s him I heard earlier – must have picked up my clothes, and me in them, and
brought me here.
And
if he was to follow this line of thought, then Scarlet had to conclude that,
logically, he currently found himself in the middle of what looked like one of
the plastic baskets, in which he knew
all the dirty laundry of Cloudbase’s personnel
was sorted, before being put into the washing machine.
And
the thing he was currently sitting on was…
Startled
by the sudden realisation of what it
actually was, he nearly jumped down from his perch; and then, he stared at it
with mystification, before starting to laugh.
He
had to admit, there weren’t that many guys in the world who would have the
chance to say, in complete honesty, that he had been sitting on top of an
oversized brassiere cup!
That
reminded him of that old movie he had seen so many years ago – What was it… ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid
to Ask’? – he was still a teenager
back then, with raging hormones, and the title sounded so appealing… But if not for a couple of very funny
scenes, and especially the giant
breast featured in one of the movie’s multiple stories, he would have found it
rather disappointing…
He
was at this point in his reflection when he heard the sound of a hydraulic
engine starting up, and suddenly felt the ground shake beneath his feet.
No… That’s not the ground… It’s the basket moving.
He
looked up. The ceiling overhead was
getting closer, as if the basket was indeed being lifted from the floor; and
then there was a sudden jerk, that threw Scarlet down onto his back; the basket moved sideways, while he rolled
down onto the dirty laundry, to finally bump against the side of the basket.
Getting
unsteadily to his feet, as the basket continued to move, Scarlet raised his
eyes to the opening over his head. A
railing appeared in his line of vision, to which a huge arm was attached – a
arm on the end of which was a large metallic clamp, that was now holding the side of the basket. In one instant, Scarlet realised what was
happening; the fully automated features of the laundry room had been put into
motion, and the content of all the baskets of dirty laundry were being dumped,
one after the other, into the washing machine. The basket in which he was presently standing had just been
grabbed by the automatic system.
I’ve got to get the Hell out of here
before being washed to death,
he told himself with urgency. No
doubt he would drown in all that soapy water, and he certainly wasn’t looking
forward to it – even knowing he would eventually revive.
Would I?
Who knows what this… miniaturisation process might have done to my
recuperative powers! For all I know, I might not have them while I’m this size…
He
knew he was only seconds away from being dumped into the washing machine – and
ironically, he also knew it was only at that exact moment he might actually
have a chance to escape. He hurriedly
went through the clothing lying in his immediate vicinity; he found one of the
straps of the bra he had been sitting on earlier, and the unhooked fastener at
its end. It certainly wasn’t his ideal
choice, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. Fortunately,
the strap was delicate and light enough for him to make good use of it. If it had been larger, it would have been
useless to him.
He
looked up and aimed at the side of the basket – from his point of view,
something like ten feet over his head – and, after giving it some momentum, he
threw the strap like a grappling line.
He missed. A second try was
equally unsuccessful. As he felt the
basket rising steadily and finally coming to a halt, he made a last desperate
attempt. The hook from the strap end
finally caught hold of the side of the basket and Scarlet hung on to it… just
as the trap under the basket suddenly opened and emptied its load into the
washing machine underneath. Scarlet
felt the laundry falling under his feet, leaving him without anything to stand
on. The momentum sent him flying
roughly against the side of the basket.
Yet he held on firmly, gritting his teeth against the sudden pull on his
arms.
He
looked down underneath himself. Hanging
on to the strap for dear life, he could see the rest of the giant red bra
dangling below him. And beyond that, at
what seemed like metres from him, there was a huge, menacing, dark whirlpool,
half filled with laundry – the washing machine, with violent jets of water
already starting to fill it.
He
blew a sigh of relief when the basket, emptied of its load, slowly but surely
moved away from the washing machine.
From his vantage point, Scarlet could see that another giant mechanical
clamped-arm had grabbed yet another plastic basket and was now moving it over
the washing machine. For a second,
mesmerized by the vision presented by this oversized machinery, he followed the
trajectory with his eyes, before focussing on his problem yet again. The empty basket was being lowered, and if
he wasn’t careful, he would find himself yet again a prisoner inside of it.
The
floor was approaching, but it seemed yet so terribly far away. He would risk breaking his neck if he were
to let go too soon. Yet, what choice
did he have exactly?
There!
Just underneath him, there was some laundry lost from
one of the baskets, lying on the floor.
Maybe it would be enough to cushion his fall? It was almost un-hoped for.
He prepared to let go of his improvised safety line, and started
swinging, aiming toward the pile of clothes as the basket approached. Closer…
closer… just a couple of seconds more…
Unfortunately
for Scarlet, all this swaying to and fro, combined with his weight, was putting
too much strain on the delicate plastic hook he was using as a grappling
iron. It broke and let go suddenly,
sending both bra and Spectrum captain flying down toward the floor. Scarlet let out a yelp of surprise as he
fell the distance that he knew was still a little too high. His cry died out in a loud huff as he landed
heavily on the floor.
His
last, absurd thought, just before he finally lost consciousness from the pain,
was to remind himself to ask Rhapsody, when he was next able to see her,
whether or not she wore red underwear…
“Colonel
White, I can’t find Captain Scarlet anywhere.”
Colonel
White raised an inquiring brow at Captain Blue as the latter entered the
Control Room with the news. Captain
Ochre was still present, standing over Lieutenant Green, and checking
information on the computer screen that the communications officer was looking
at. Both he and Green looked up as Blue
approached their commander’s desk.
“I
searched everywhere I could think of,” Blue said, by way of explanation. “I even called him several times, using the
comm. It’s like he’s not on base.”
White
slowly nodded in acknowledgement of the news. “That’s strange… When was the
last time you saw him?”
“About
a half hour before the Mysteron threat, sir.”
“An
hour ago, then.” White turned to
Green. “Has any transport left
Cloudbase since then, Lieutenant?”
“No,
Sir,” Green answered. “The London
shuttle is getting ready to leave, though.
I was about to give them the green light.”
“Hold
it, until further notice,” White
instructed. “No craft is to leave base
until we find Captain Scarlet.”
“What
do you think happened to him, Sir?” Ochre asked from where he was standing.
“I
don’t know… But this is unusual enough
to be suspicious.”
“Do
you think this might have anything to do with the present Mysteron
threat?” Ochre was asking the question,
as he left Green’s side to approach the desk in turn. Blue gave his colleague a wary look, as he stopped by his side.
“Whatever
do you mean, Ochre?” he asked
suspiciously.
“Well,
like the colonel, I’m wondering where Scarlet might be,” Ochre answered with a
shrug. “It is unlike him to miss a
meeting, following a Mysteron threat.
And he’s not the kind to go AWOL like that. Something is afoot, that’s for sure. And considering the latest threat, I don’t believe that
Scarlet’s… disappearance is a coincidence.”
Blue
frowned, suddenly thinking he was hearing an accusation in Ochre’s tone. “How
many times does a man have to prove himself to you, Captain?” he asked
abruptly.
“Pardon
me?”
“Ochre,
two years ago, when he got free of the Mysterons’ control, you suspected Scarlet of foul play,” Blue
remarked in a cold tone. “You were
wrong back then, I will remind you. And
now, just because the Mysterons mentioned an unexpected source…”
“…
First of all,” Ochre interrupted quickly before even Colonel White could say
something, “I do not suspect Scarlet of any foul play, Captain Blue. I was just
voicing my concern that something might
have happened to Scarlet – in view of his sudden and apparent
disappearance. He’s been a thorn in the
Mysterons’ side for a long time, and they might have removed him from the game
early on, so they could pursue this threat. And secondly…” He addressed a faint smile to Blue. “I’m as worried about a friend’s well-being
– as you are yourself, Blue.”
Blue
felt embarrassed about his earlier suspicion and lowered his gaze. “My apologies, Captain Ochre…”
“Apologies
accepted,” Ochre said in a detached tone.
“Besides,” he added quietly enough,
“Scarlet was nowhere near New York when security discovered the
suspicious transmissions. So he’s
hardly a suspect…”
Blue
smiled thinly. “You’re just saying that
to annoy me.”
“You’re
sure of that?” Ochre retorted, raising a brow.
The wink he gave Blue was enough of an answer.
White
cleared his throat, to recall his officers to order. “That’s all very well, gentlemen, but whether his disappearance
has something to do with the present threat or not, Captain Scarlet has to be
found. Captain Blue, it would seem you
were the last person to talk to him.”
“Pardon
me, Sir…” Lieutenant Green was
approaching on his moving chair, calling to his commander to attract his
attention. “Captain Blue might have
been the last one to see Captain
Scarlet in person, but there might be someone else who talked to him afterward.”
“And
who that might be, Lieutenant?”
“About
fifteen minutes before the Mysterons’ threat, I received a call from England,”
Green explained. “Someone wanting to
talk to Captain Scarlet. His
grandfather, Sir.”
“His
grandfather?”
“A
Mr. Paul Blake, Colonel. He insisted
that the call was urgent.”
“Paul
Blake…” White muttered, pensively. “I didn’t know that old goat was still
alive…”
“You
know him, Sir?” Ochre asked in surprise.
“It
was a long time ago. He was director of
the U.S.S. when I joined. I knew he was
Captain Scarlet’s grandfather, but I thought he was long dead by now. By God, he must be pushing ninety, now…”
“Oh,
he’s very much alive, sir,” Blue explained.
“And according to Captain Scarlet, still in good health, despite frail
legs. Captain Scarlet went to visit him
during that furlough he just came back from.”
“And
Blake called him so soon after they had seen each other?” White said with a frown.
“With
an urgent call, sir,” Lieutenant Green remembered. “I don’t know if Mr. Blake actually reached Captain Scarlet,
though, or if he left a message in his voice mail, as I suggested, if he was
unable to reach him.”
White
was quick to make his next decision. “Captain Blue, return to Captain Scarlet’s
quarters. Search for possible clues to
his whereabouts. Since it seems unlikely
that he left base, then he must be
somewhere. Captain Ochre, assign
Spectrum personnel to conduct a search party.
We must find him.”
“S.I.G.,
Sir.”
“Lieutenant
Green,” White continued, turning his chair towards his aide, “try to contact
Mr. Blake. I don’t know if his call has
anything to do with Captain Scarlet’s disappearance, but at the very least,
we’ll know if Mr. Blake did indeed succeed in contacting him. And maybe then we’ll be able to put a more
specific time to when his disappearance actually occurred.”
It
was a constant humming that woke Captain Scarlet from his dreamless sleep. Groaning, he rolled over on the cold surface
of the floor, and sat up; he didn’t have his watch on, so he had no idea how
long he had been unconscious. It
couldn’t have been that long, however; the pain he felt all over his body was a
fair indication that his sleep hadn’t been long enough to be a healing one.
He
looked around, wondering about the sound that had awakened him, and at first
felt a little disoriented. He did
remember what had happened before he had lost consciousness, but somehow, he
had hoped that it would all turn out to be a bad dream.
Of
course, he wouldn’t be that lucky. It
was with dismay that he now found himself sitting in the middle of the laundry
room, which looked like a huge stage-set straight out of an episode of that
ancient, ridiculous Land of the Giants TV
series that he had caught Captain Ochre watching a few months ago. The humming sound he was hearing was, sure
enough, the washing machine, presently cleansing the dirty laundry.
He
rose to his feet and stood unsteadily, grimacing against the pain in his
back. He considered himself lucky not
to have – apparently – broken anything in that fall he had had earlier,
especially considering how hard the floor was, and that he had missed the heap
of clothes he had hoped to land on. Something must have cushioned my fall, he
realised instantly. He couldn’t recall what, exactly.
Not
far from him was the red bra that had served him so well as a means of escape
from the basket. A light flicked in his
mind. Now here’s the explanation, he mused. He probably fell onto it, before rolling to the floor. The
others will be so jealous when I tell them about this, he told himself, a
large, mischievous grin forming on his lips.
No way was he going to keep to himself the fact that during this
adventure, he owed the success of his daring escape and subsequent survival to
a flamboyant red brassiere…
The
humming sound had increased and was now reaching a crescendo that was getting
irritating to Scarlet’s ears. More than
that, he suddenly realised… the sound
was getting closer.
And
it was coming from directly behind him.
Scarlet
turned around, suddenly realising that the sound he was now hearing wasn’t
exactly coming from the washing machine – but was an added sound, coming from
another, different source.
He
just had the time to jump to the side to avoid being run over by a robo-vac which
was coming straight at him, vacuuming the floor.
As
far as Scarlet was able to judge – considering his now reduced size – this
model was larger than the small ones that often ran in Cloudbase’s corridors –
and which, after its sensors had picked up the presence of any member of the
base personnel, would follow the
walls, to avoid being trodden on. These
yellow, short, disc-like robots performed an invaluable task on base, by
picking up any dirt, lint and dust they would find on the floor, and then
scouring it thoroughly through a dry cleaning process, thus keeping the
environment clean and reducing the risk of germ propagation.
This
robo-vac, however, was not only bigger, but also seemed to be performing a
slightly different task, as it now stopped in front of the bra lying on the
floor and seemed to be considering it with interest. It was equipped with a small arm, ending in a pincer-claw, that
now moved to pick up the lost piece of clothing… and throw it into a small
basket mounted on its back.
Scarlet
watched the operation with quiet fascination;
his size was now giving him a new perspective on things, and he couldn’t
help but marvel at something that, up until now, he had taken for granted. To him, these small robo-vacs now looked
like giant machines, as if they had been built by – well, aliens from another
planet, come to think of it...
Scarlet
didn’t react at first when the robo-vac turned toward him and seemed to examine
him attentively.
Neither
did he react when it started moving in his direction.
He
only realised the danger it represented when he saw the arm putting itself into
position, directed towards him, and the pincer opened ominously.
Scarlet
didn’t wait much longer after that, and broke into a run; as if infused with
sentient life, the robo-vac gave pursuit.
Oh boy… it either ‘thinks’ I’m lint or a
piece of clothing that fell to the floor!
Either way,
Scarlet was very aware that those claws would hurt very much if the robo-vac
should get its… ‘hands’ on him.
Unfortunately,
the little robot’s engine was pushing it faster than Scarlet’s legs were able
to run and it was gaining on him fast.
The pincer was getting dangerously closer.
Scarlet
sidestepped and jumped behind an empty, discarded basket to hide, and the robo-vac, pushed by its momentum,
passed by, missing him by an inch. It
rolled for a small distance, before stopping again and ‘looking’ all around,
obviously in search of what it was trying to catch. From the safety of his hiding place, Scarlet watched it warily.
The
robo-vac wasn’t a sentient being, of course; so it seemingly forgot about
Scarlet, and simply continued ‘patrolling’ the floor, in search of lost clothes and lint. That would only be momentary, of course.
Scarlet knew he had only seconds before the robot would turn around, discover
him and give chase again. He wouldn’t
be able to play hide and seek with it for long. He had to find a better hiding place, to avoid being caught by
the robot, until someone eventually entered the laundry room, and found him. Then he’d be able to ask – shout – for help, in order to resolve
his dreadful situation.
There
was an air vent nearby, at the foot of a wall, and to Scarlet, it seemed like a
perfect place to hide and wait, and to be completely out of harm’s way. He gave a glance in the direction of the robo-vac and saw it
turning to direct itself toward the other side of the room, where a small piece
of unidentifiable cloth was lying on the floor. Since the robot’s sensors were ‘looking’ in the other direction,
Scarlet was able to safely race across the floor and straight towards the
vent.
There
was nothing closing the opening, so it was easy for Scarlet to slip in without
any problem. But after having gone a
few feet into the vent, it was so dark
inside that he couldn’t see where he was going exactly. His shoeless feet bumped against something –
the surface of the vent was obviously rough and uneven. He nearly fell face first, and just had the
time to catch himself against the side of the wall. He made one step further…
To
suddenly slide into another vent, opening right under his feet. He tried to brace himself against the wall
again, but with no success this time.
Scarlet
fell on his back with a loud huff that echoed through the vent… and started the
glide of his life, into a bumpy, dark, and narrow air vent, which slanted down
forty-five degrees into what seemed like the bowels of Cloudbase itself!
Captain
Blue was about to enter Captain Scarlet’s quarters for the second time that day
when he saw Mike Bell coming from one of the maintenance corridors, whistling a
happy tune, as was often his habit when he was working. In his arms, he was holding a neatly folded
pile of clothing. He stopped when Blue
beckoned to him and asked him if he had seen Captain Scarlet. Bell shrugged dismissively at the question.
“Not
since he left for his furlough, a few days ago, Captain,” he answered
truthfully. “I know he came back,
though. I’ve seen his luggage in his
quarters, when I went earlier to do the room. Most of his things were still
packed.”
“So
you didn’t see him at all?” Blue
insisted. “Did you notice anything
unusual in his quarters, aside from his unpacked luggage?”
“Well,
he had left his clothes lying on the floor, after his shower,” Bell
answered. “That is unusual for Captain
Scarlet, all right, he always tidies his quarters before leaving. I thought he had left it like that, the same
as the luggage, because he had been
called to a meeting following the Mysterons’ threat? There also was an unused uniform on the bed. Probably the captain’s spare uniform… Must
have put his other one on.”
Blue
shook his head thoughtfully. Obviously,
he had gone into Scarlet’s room after Bell had cleaned it up.
“Anything
else?”
“No…
not that I can think of.” Bell showed
the pile of clothes he was carrying.
“I’m going back there right now, though. This is Captain Scarlet’s clean laundry, from the other day. I just picked it up from the laundry room
after leaving the new batch.”
“Leave
it to me, Bell, I’m going there myself,” Blue said. “Thank you for your help.”
“You’re
welcome, Captain.” Bell handed the clothes to Blue and was about to leave to
carry on with his work, when a thought suddenly struck him, and he turned to
Blue who was pressing the numeric code to enter Scarlet’s quarters. “Oh, I saw an open Bible on Captain
Scarlet’s desk, earlier…” Blue looked
over his shoulder in the man’s direction, just as the door slid open in front
of him. Bell offered a bashful
smile. “The captain never struck me as
a God-fearing man, so I thought it was… a little unusual for him to have that
Bible. Besides, it looked kind of
strange.”
Blue
nodded pensively, remembering Paul Blake’s gift to Scarlet. “Thank you, Bell,” he said, simply.
“As
I said, Captain: you’re welcome. I’m glad I was able to help.”
Bell
went on his way, and Blue entered Scarlet’s quarters, still very
thoughtful. As the door slid closed
behind him, he went into the sleeping area, and threw the clothes onto the bed,
quite carelessly, before walking to Scarlet’s wardrobe to open it. He found there his friend’s spare red tunic,
still on its hanger. So, contrary to
what Bell had thought earlier, Scarlet had not taken it.
Where could he be?
a frustrated Blue asked himself. He slid the door of the wardrobe closed and
turned around, musing. His eyes fell on
the desk. “The Bible,” he
muttered. Well, not exactly a Bible, he reminded himself. “That device inside…” He went to the desk. The book was still there, of course, and
open on the device Scarlet and he had tried to make work earlier – without any
success. Blue looked at it
suspiciously. What if Scarlet had finally worked out how to power this thing up? he
pondered. But it seemed unlikely that
it could be responsible for his colleague’s disappearance.
Well… how can I say, really?
His
attention was caught by a blinking red light on the phone standing right next
to the open book. Blue remembered
Green mentioning earlier that he had suggested that Paul Blake leave a message
on Scarlet’s voice mail if he was unable to reach him. Seems
like old Blake DID leave a message after all, Blue mused. So
Scarlet probably disappeared before he was able to answer the phone? I wonder what his grandfather wanted of him,
that he had to call him so soon after their last meeting?
His
conscience had no problem with deciding to press the button to listen to the
message. After all, he considered, his
friend was missing. And if the message
left on the voice mail could provide with a clue to where he could be, Blue
figured that it was justifiable for him to listen to it.
“Hello, Paul, this is me… your
grandfather…”
And
the rest of the message made Blue even more suspicious of the device that was
embedded in the old Bible, and that he was presently watching with a wary eye.
The
vertiginous ride finished abruptly when Scarlet landed in a heap of dirt and
fluff that, quite fortunately for him, cushioned most of his fall. The impact raised a cloud of dust that
engulfed and covered him, making him cough and gasp. He rolled and then crawled
to get away from the cloud, to finally stand on his feet, holding himself
against the wall, wheezing and trying to regain his breath. He couldn’t see
much of anything. It was dark, inside
this vent, and only faint rays of light were getting through skirting grilles
fitted into the left wall, at relatively equal distances from each other.
Still
trying to find his normal breathing rate, Scarlet approached the grille closest
to him and looked through the slits, to discover where he had ended up.
From
where he was currently standing, he had a good view of one of Cloudbase’s
anti-gravity generators, which was humming steadily. If he leaned to the right, he could even get a glimpse of the
second generator. Already huge, by
normal size’s standards, they looked even bigger
now that he was looking at them in this reduced size.
He
blew a deep sigh. The engine room. The lowest
possible part of Cloudbase. It was a huge area of the base; barely a soul
ever came down here as everything was monitored remotely from the Engine
Control Room, by sensors, control panels,
and strategically placed cameras.
If Scarlet wasn’t missing his guess, and judging from what he was able
to see from this point of view, the Engine Control Room – set in a
glass-enclosed balcony, about one storey up, so it oversaw the entire place –
was situated at the opposite side of the room.
He couldn’t actually see it from where he was.
Scarlet
tried to push and pull on the grille, but it didn’t budge. It was solidly fixed; he couldn’t get
out. He sighed again and abandoned the
idea quickly. Even if I succeed in escaping this vent and was to walk through this
place towards the Engine Control Room lift, I’d have to find a way to reach the
command button to open the door. I also
have no way to reach the comm. and call for help. And the chance of being spotted on the wire and pipe-covered
floor by a technician in the control room was next to nil.
I have to find another exit,
Scarlet told himself. To a
place where I’ll be more liable to find someone who can help me. A
more ‘inhabited’ section of Cloudbase…
He
wasn’t that far from sickbay. Well,
relatively speaking, in terms of real distance! It was still two storeys up and to the right wing of the Control
Tower. As far as he was concerned, it
might just as well be on a far away continent… The walking distance alone
seemed like a discouraging and harrowing task, and he was dismally
contemplating hours of walking –
without boots, and in the worst of conditions.
And that was without counting his odds of being able to find his way in
this ventilation maze – not to mention how the bloody hell he was going to
climb up two storeys.
Okay… first things first – finding a way
out of the engine room – then I’ll improvise.
Maybe I’ll get lucky. People
must have noticed my disappearance, and are looking for me…
Right… but they’re not searching for a
three inch tall midget now, are they?
It’s unlikely they will look under the rugs and through the vents…
He
shrugged, dismissing those negative thoughts;
there was little he could do but get on with it. He started by orienting himself, judging by
what he could see of the engine room, and finally decided to walk down the path
in front of him.
He
had only walked a very short distance, when he heard a sound echoing straight
ahead. He stopped and listened
carefully. It sounded like something
grating on the surface of the wall – or the floor – inside the vent.
The
sound was moving in his direction, coming from a junction he could see ahead,
barely lit by the light coming from yet another grille. He narrowed his eyes when he saw a shadow
come in front of the light and stop.
I am not alone in this vent,
he told himself. This is strange… what could
it be?
He
soon received his answer when, from the corner of the junction, he saw a dark
furry head appear, with small ears and a pointy nose, sniffing the air. Scarlet held his breath and kept very
still. The ‘creature’ looked in his
direction, but didn’t seem to see him, as he was standing in the darkest corner
of the vent. Then, it came into full
view, to stand in front of the skirting grille, to look through the slits into
the engine room beyond.
A mouse!
Scarlet observed, as the light coming through the
grille gave him a much better view of the creature. Or a rat, hard to tell
while I’m this size. Big, ugly bugger, too.
And probably dangerous for me in my present condition; those fangs look
like they could cut me in half. I’d
better not get close to it…
He
started to step back, very slowly, hoping not to attract the rodent’s
attention.
He
wasn’t very lucky with that.
As
if it had suddenly become aware of his presence, the animal turned its enormous
head in his direction and stared straight at him…
“Holy… Now this is unusual.”
“What
is it, Lieutenant?” Colonel White, from
his circular desk, had raised his head upon hearing Lieutenant Green’s sudden
imprecation. It wasn’t that often that
the young man would voice his reflections in such a way, so any such reaction
from him warranted the interest of the Spectrum commander. But Green reddened when the colonel
addressed him, and seemed suddenly embarrassed at his outburst.
“Sorry,
Sir… I didn’t mean to disturb you. It escaped me. It was a report from Lieutenant Mulberry.”
“Mulberry? From Environmental Control?”
“Technician
Terracotta’s military assistant, Sir.
He replaces her during leaves of absence. His report surprised me.
The infra-red sensors have detected movements in the air vents in the
Engine Room.”
“Meaning?”
White asked, frowning, failing to see the point the lieutenant was trying to
make.
“Meaning
we have rodents in the vents, Colonel.”
“Rodents? Rats?”
“Possibly,
Sir. The detected movements are
specific to one section of the vents and are quite minimal. Which would suggest that we only have one or
two of those… unwanted visitors.”
White
rolled his eyes. Rats on Cloudbase. Now that
certainly was a rare – nearly impossible – occurrence. With the closed environment of the base,
security in that field was made as tight as it was humanly possible to have it.
All transports departing for Cloudbase were checked and double-checked
before they could leave, with infra-red sensors that would detect any rodents
that might slip in; all Spectrum craft were equipped with the same technology,
to make sure that they were clean all the way through their flights… It was standard procedure, of course. No rodents could be allowed to board
Cloudbase – the consequences of having them onboard could be disastrous, considering
that they might gnaw away at every wire and electronic device they encountered… Not to mention that they could procreate at
such at quick rate. And then there was
the hygienic aspect of the problem, of course…
Despite
all the security to prevent any rodents from clandestinely entering Cloudbase,
and the unlikely event that it would actually happen, the base had been
equipped with the proper equipment to counter the problem should it ever
present itself. It was swift and
efficient, and there was no way it would fail.
White
shrugged indifferently. “Environmental
personnel know the drill, Lieutenant. Tell Mulberry to follow procedures: to
seal the section of the vents where the ‘suspicious activities’ have been
detected, and gas that section. The
robo-cleaners will take care of the… remains when they get there afterwards.”
“S.I.G.,
Sir,” Green answered, turning to convey the orders received.
“And
don’t disturb me with reports of rodents again, Lieutenant,” White
grumbled. “We have quite enough to do
right now, with Captain Scarlet’s disappearance and the present Mysteron threat…”
Just
as the rat started to move towards Scarlet, the latter heard an almost
deafening sound echoing through the vent.
The grilles suddenly slammed shut, preventing any light from entering
the vent. He just had the time to see
the rat turning toward the grille in front of which it was standing, before he
completely lost sight of it.
Plunged
into total darkness, he waited, trying to figure out what was going on. He could hear the rat moving in front of
him, but couldn’t guess so far if it was approaching or not. Then suddenly, he saw two red dots, blinking
in the dark – and realised it was the rat’s eyes, as it was staring at him.
Apparently,
it had not moved from its spot yet…
As
he was waiting for the rodent to make its next move, Scarlet became aware of a
hissing sound. It seemed to come from
all around of him. Sounds like air,
escaping from a breach, or something.
No, not air, he realised suddenly. Gas…
Scarlet
knew all about the security features installed in Cloudbase air vents, in order
to get rid of unwanted guests like this rat in front of him. They had all been briefed about them, in the
earlier days of Spectrum, when they were given all the details of the floating
carrier – even the most boring, or those which sounded insignificant for them
to actually know. Scarlet wished now
that he had given them more attention.
Not that it would help me much…
It
took barely seconds after he had realised what was going to happen before small
traps snapped open and a concentrated fog was sprayed inside the vent,
enveloping both current occupants; Scarlet coughed loudly, suddenly unable to
breathe properly. He took a lungful of
gas and fell down, face first, onto the rough surface of the vent, his mind
clouding instantly.
The
last thing he was aware of was the eyes
of the rat, glaring with a odd red glow, as the creature approached dangerously
close to him…
“Okay,
I give up… What is it?”
After
his search of Scarlet’s room, Captain Blue had gone to give his report to
Colonel White, showing him the Bible that he had brought with him and telling
him about the message Paul Blake had left in Scarlet’s voice mail. White had not waited a minute longer to ask
Lieutenant Green to access the voice mail and make a copy of the message so he
could listen to it himself. Then, he
had called for Captains Ochre and Magenta to go to the conference room and
ordered Blue to join them, and explain his findings to them. White would join
them in a few minutes.
In
the conference room, Captains Ochre and Magenta were looking with perplexity at
the Bible that Captain Blue had put on the table, just between the three of
them. He had opened it and showed them
the device embedded inside, before telling them about Paul Blake’s
message. To Ochre’s question, Blue
could only shake his head.
“I
don’t know, Rick. And apparently,
Scarlet’s grandfather doesn’t seem to know either. But he seemed to think that
this thing might be so important that he had to call Scarlet to get it back –
as soon as possible.” He kept silent
for a second, staring at the book. “What are you willing to bet that it might
be responsible for Scarlet’s disappearance?”
“How?” Magenta asked, raising a brow. “By disintegrating him or making him
invisible?”
“If
he was invisible, he would still be able to talk
to us,” Ochre remarked with a
mocking smile. “And we would know where he is, unless he wants to make us
search for him…”
“This
is no time for jokes, Captain,” Blue retorted sternly. “Scarlet is missing, there is no question
about it.”
“I
know. Security is still searching all
around the base for him,” Ochre sighed, regaining his seriousness. “And so far, not a single clue to where he
might be.”
“Or
if he’s still on base,” Magenta added grimly.
“If
he’s not, then how would he have
left?” Blue remarked. “Nothing’s taken
off from Cloudbase since his return…”
Magenta
hesitated. “Well… I don’t like to point
out grim possibilities, but… how about if he’s been thrown out through an airlock?”
Blue
gave him an odd look. “All of
Cloudbase’s airlocks are under automatic supervision. If one of them was to open, it would send an alarm directly to
the control centre.”
“So
scratch that possibility,” Ochre
confirmed.
“And
what if… he’s been thrown into the incinerator?”
Ochre
groaned loudly, noticing Blue’s annoyed – and slightly worried –
expression. “For someone who doesn’t
like to point out grim possibilities, you have an over-active imagination,
Patrick.”
“Hey,
I don’t like thinking about that anymore than you do,” Magenta protested. “But the fact remains that Scarlet is
nowhere to be found – and that we’re running out of places to search for him.”
Before
Blue could reply, the door behind him slid open, and Colonel White
entered. The three officers stood up
and waited until their commander had taken his seat before sitting again. They had barely settled down when White
started addressing them:
“I
have bad news,” he announced grimly.
“Lieutenant Green has not been able to talk to Mr. Blake so far. So
we’ve been unable to ask him about this device.”
“What
is the problem?” Blue asked.
“It
seems that Mr. Blake has gone to bed for the night,” White explained. “And since he’s taking sleeping pills, it’s
next to impossible to wake him up. No
matter how urgent the situation might be.
Or so his nurse keeps claiming.
She didn’t seem to be all that moved by the fact that it might be a
question of worldwide security.”
“So
we’ll have to wait until Blake wakes up to question him?” Magenta asked.
“I
had Captain Forest in London sent to his house. Maybe he’ll be able to get through that nurse in person, better
than Green through the phone.” White
pointed to the book in front of him.
“In the meantime, I’ve done some checking of my own and came up with
some details that might be related to that device and might be of use to us.”
“You,
Sir?” Ochre asked with curiosity.
“Of
course. I was with the Universal Secret
Service, before I became Spectrum’s commander.
So who better than me to check for information involving the
U.S.S.? I kept contact with friends
there – who are in high places.”
“You
found something then, Colonel?” asked Blue.
“Yes,
I checked Paul Blake’s background and cross-referenced it with the U.S.S.
personnel databank to find out if he had been in professional contact with
another agent called ‘Matthew’. As it
turned out, I found a ‘Matthew Harding’ with whom Mr. Blake worked closely, at
the beginning of his career. Both of
them worked at The Bishop Department, but Harding was a senior agent, while
Blake was just a junior agent. “
“Sorry,
Sir… The Bishop Department?”
“A
very restricted department of the U.S.S., Captain Magenta. It was before my
time, but it already was the ‘stuff of legend’, as they say. It handled some of the most difficult cases
of its time. It was very selective. At
its most active, it never had more than five agents at a time working
there. I didn’t know that Blake was one
of those rare agents – which is quite notable, even if he only was a junior
one. “
“You
think that this Matthew Harding was the same man Paul Blake mentioned in his
message to Captain Scarlet, Sir? Blue asked.
“It
seems likely. Harding left the U.S.S.
when The Bishop Department closed down…
He kept in contact with Blake, apparently. Ten years after retirement, he was diagnosed with cancer, and
died less than two years after that.”
Blue
nodded. “Does seem to be our man. It would be somewhere during those two years
that he gave that book to Blake.”
“Whatever
that device might be,” White remarked, “ it would seem that Harding acquired it during his time in the
U.S.S.”
“Isn’t
there any mention of this device in the U.S.S. records, Sir?” Ochre asked with
surprise.
White
sighed, staring at the book. “I didn’t
find anything, no.” He reached for it
and pulled it towards him. “But… considering what we heard on this recorded
message, Harding thought this thing might be either important – or
dangerous. So much in fact, that he
didn’t even trust the U.S.S. with its
safekeeping.”
“But
he trusted Blake with it?” Blue noted.
White
gave a brief nod. He scratched his ear
and cleared his throat, almost uncomfortably.
“I think I know how it went. In
those times, the U.S.S. was the centre of many… irregularities. Corruption, treasons, briberies, sales of
state secrets, murders… Those things occurred on a daily basis. So in those circumstances, it was
understandable that Harding had second thoughts about entrusting the U.S.S.
with something he considered of the utmost importance.”
Blue
narrowed his eyes. “Yes… I think I can
understand the dilemma he was facing.”
“You
would indeed,” White acknowledged, remembering that Blue had to face a similar
situation while Head of Security at the World Aeronautic Society. “Paul Blake was one of the rarest men within
the U.S.S. whose loyalty could not be disputed. So logically, Harding would give him the book – with the device
inside.”
“Without
telling him how it worked?” Ochre remarked.
“Maybe
Harding didn’t know?” Magenta suggested.
“Well,
that’s something we will never know,”
White asserted in a low voice.
“Harding died a long time ago.”
“Actually,
we’re not sure that Blake doesn’t know how this thing works,” Blue
intervened. “In that message to
Scarlet, he just said that he ‘can’t tell’ what it was all about. That can also mean that he knows but won’t tell.”
Colonel
White shook his head thoughtfully. “Either way, we just have to hope that Blake
will be able to give us some indication of what this thing could be.”
“Sir… do you really think this device has
something to do with Scarlet’s disappearance and the present Mysteron threat?”
Ochre demanded. “If you don’t mind my
saying so, I don’t see any real indication that it could… In either case, but
especially concerning the Mysterons.”
“Quite
frankly, Captain Ochre, I have to agree with you. But… you know the Mysterons as well as I do. They make use of anything that comes their way to forward their plans. Blake might
not know how this thing works and what it does… but maybe the Mysterons do. And maybe they will use it to their
advantage – if they haven’t already, to get rid of Captain Scarlet.”
Ochre
nodded quietly. “That is a… reasonable
assumption, Sir.”
“We
should try to decipher what this
thing is and what it can actually do,”
White declared. “Maybe that will
shed some light on what happened to Scarlet.”
“I
just hope he is all right, Sir,” Blue said grimly.
“Of
course, he will be,” Ochre retorted, thumping his compatriot’s shoulder in an
encouraging way. “He’s indestructible,
don’t you remember that?”
“Yes,
I do remember that,” Blue answered in the same sombre tone, glaring at his
fellow officer. “But I also remember
something else: none of us knows exactly how indestructible he might be. And that, Ochre, is scaring the Hell out of
me…”
Scarlet
was now slowly regaining his senses; he felt fine, if a little light-headed,
and had no trouble breathing anymore.
He was lying on his back and had an impression of motion underneath him. As if he was being carried away.
He
opened his eyes. He was still in the
air vent and faint light was coming through the skirting grilles once
again. He was indeed moving – or
rather, the thing he was lying on was, steadily, and very smoothly. He could hear the faint sound of a nearly
silent engine, and feel a slight vibration coming from underneath.
Scarlet
rolled onto his stomach and crawled to the side of the platform he was
presently on, to find out what his improvised vehicle might be. He discovered he was lying on another model
of robo-vac, this one built with the specific task of clearing air vents of the
dust that might accumulate inside. It
was designed to glide smoothly inside the vents, on an air cushion, exactly
like a small hovercraft, to catch everything it might encounter.
Obviously,
it had picked Scarlet up, when he was unconscious – or dead. Which was a logical course of action. The robots would not see the difference
between the miniaturised captain and any dead rodent – or any alien object that
might accidentally find itself in the vents, for that matter. Anything found in the vents by the robo-vac
would be picked up and carried away to wherever it would be dealt with. In the case of a dead rodent, it would be
disposed of quickly; there was no way it would be left inside the air vents,
where it would rot freely and eventually upset everyone with a very
disagreeable odour.
Scarlet
speculated that in all probability, the rat, now dead, had also been picked up
by another robot; it was nowhere in sight, and considering how quickly the gas
had acted with Scarlet, it had had no chance to escape either. Scarlet couldn’t say he wasn’t pleased with
that. As far as he could tell, that rat
had decided to make him its next meal, when the gas had struck them both.
Almost
despite himself, Scarlet chuckled. In a way, by killing me, the gas actually
saved my life…
Well, now I know that my recuperative
powers are working as they should, while I’m at this reduced size.
Scarlet
wondered where the robo-vac was now carrying him. One look through the grilles told him that he wasn’t exactly
going where he had previously planned to go.
In fact, he had gone in a completely different direction. He now had a view of the interior of the
Spectra-Mart. Which was empty and dark
at the moment.
Must be the middle of the night,
he reflected. The Spectra-Mart is open
from seven in the morning to midnight. He
had no way to determine how long he had been in this… reduced state. He had been conscious and unconscious much more
often than he’d care to admit. That last ‘nap’ might have lasted a few
hours. Considering I was probably
dead. But then again, once my lungs had
been cleared of the gas, it would take only a short time for me to revive…
Now
what was he to do? He had to admit,
sitting on this robo-vac and letting it carry him sure beat having to walk
inside these dark vents, until he could find a way to get out – especially
considering that didn’t have his boots on.
Sure, it wasn’t going in the direction he had first chosen, but it was
still heading towards a populated area.
And eventually, an exit would offer itself, and he would be able to find
help.
And eventually, I’ll get back to my rightful size,
he told himself grimly.
Hopefully.
In the meantime, I might as well enjoy the
ride…
“Any
news from Adam yet?”
Dressed
in a rather attractive powder blue ensemble she had bought recently, an
off-duty Symphony Angel entered the Amber Room where she knew she would find
Rhapsody Angel, on standby duty. Sure
enough, her English colleague was seated on one of the room’s orange sofas,
reading a magazine – or rather, holding it the wrong way up and turning the
pages absentmindedly.
“No,
no news yet,” Destiny Angel answered from the counter where she was putting
down her empty cup, after having finished her last cup of coffee. “We were hoping that you would bring us
some.”
“Sorry,
I don’t know anything.” Symphony sat
down on the sofa right next to Rhapsody.
“They didn’t find Paul yet.” She
caught sight of the worried expression on her friend’s face and put a soothing
hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, Dianne,
I’m sure he’ll pop up soon.”
“Who
said I was worried?” Rhapsody asked, turning yet another page.
“Well…
unless this is an old exercise specifically designed for spies in training, I’m
quite sure you’d feel more comfortable reading that mag the other way up…”
Rhapsody
glanced at her magazine, noticed what her friend was driving at and sighed,
before closing it and putting it down on the low table in front of her. “All right, I admit I am slightly
concerned.”
“Slightly?” Destiny repeated in a
doubtful tone, approaching. “Ma chérie, I would say you are beside
yourself with worry.” She sat down on
the other side of the sofa, while Rhapsody glared at her. “You are just being your English self by not
showing it, that’s all.”
“Thank
you for your kind words of encouragement, Destiny,” Symphony said in a somewhat
cold tone.
“Oh,
that is nothing…” Destiny took
Rhapsody’s hand. “Do you not worry,
Dianne… He will be all right, you’ll
see.” She produced a large, beaming
smile. “Like he’s always been!”
Rhapsody
gave a deep sigh. “I wish I could be sure of that,” she said, almost
whispering. “It is rather strange when you think about it. Just a few minutes earlier, we were
returning from our furlough, talking casually, making plans… And then, he suddenly goes missing.”
“Well,
I know the circumstances of his disappearance might look bad, but knowing Paul,
I can assure you that… EEEEEEEEEEK!”
The
strident shriek from Destiny nearly made both Rhapsody and Symphony jump out of
their skins. Their ears still ringing,
they stared at her with annoyance and surprise. She was white as a sheet, and had quickly gathered her feet up
onto the sofa in a fearful way.
“For
God’s sake, what’s the matter with you?!”
Rhapsody snapped angrily at her.
“I swear, you nearly burst my eardrums!”
Destiny
was gesturing wildly in the direction of the floor, right behind the other sofa
in front of them. “I saw a rat
running on the floor. It’s behind there!”
“A
rat?!” Symphony was puzzled. To her knowledge, there had been no previous
story of rodents ever being sighted on Cloudbase. The security about that particular aspect of the base was so
tight it was nearly inconceivable. She
left her place on the sofa and slowly walked toward the spot indicated by
Destiny – the latter was following her with horrified eyes.
“What
are you doing? You’re not going to
check, are you?”
“Why
not?” Symphony retorted without turning
back, and keeping her eyes peeled for anything suspicious. “If there is a rat in here, I…”
She
stopped suddenly in the middle of her sentence, upon seeing a little grey
creature darting from behind the sofa and scurrying across the floor, towards a
nearby open air vent, situated just at the bottom of the furthest wall. The creature was just small enough to pass
through a small hole caused by a dent in the grille and disappear inside the
vent.
“There
it goes,” Symphony remarked quietly.
“And that’s not a rat, actually.
Only a cute little mouse.”
“I
don’t care how cute you find it,”
Destiny retorted obstinately. “That
beast can be a menace!”
“Quite
right,” Symphony acknowledged, giving it some thought. “It could chew on anything it finds, and do
some serious damage. We will have to
report this to Environmental Control.”
She
turned around towards the table where the comm. link was installed and then
noticed that Rhapsody was gathering her feet up onto the sofa as well, but in a
very poised and dignified way. Symphony
gave her a reproachful – and surprised – glance.
“Oh
no, Dianne, not you too! Don’t tell me
you’re afraid of mice!”
“I’m
not afraid of them,” Rhapsody defended herself loftily. “I just don’t like them very much.”
Symphony
sighed deeply. “Fearless pilots and
ruthless fighters indeed,” she muttered.
“Really girls, you are embarrassing me…” She pressed the comm. link button. “Amber Room to Environmental Control. This is Symphony Angel.”
“Lieutenant Mulberry speaking,” a male voice answered almost immediately. “What can I do for you?”
“I
have an official complaint, Lieutenant.
We have mice in here.”
“What, again?!”
the voice
answered, obviously perplexed.
“What
do you mean by ‘again’?” Symphony asked with a frown.
“Yes,
what does he mean?” Destiny echoed. She
didn’t think it was still safe for her to dare put her feet down to the floor.
“We had a rodent alert earlier today,”
Mulberry explained. “In
the vents, near the Engine Room. We thought
that it had been taken care of. Must be
another one… Strange that it escaped
the heat sensors, and that we didn’t get another alert up until now.”
“Mice
rarely come alone,” Symphony remarked.
“Well, maybe the sensors didn’t pick up that one because it wasn’t in
the vents…”
“Still bizarre. We should have been able to see it anyway.”
“Well,
it is in the vents now. It just ran in there.”
“Stand by…”
There
was a moment of silence. Then the voice
of Mulberry was heard again, confirming Symphony’s report.
“Yes, the sensors are picking it up
now. My, this is a fast one… It’s
already fifty metres down the vent in the Spectra-Mart direction. Oh wait…
It seems to be coming back your way.”
“DON’T
let it come back here!” Destiny nearly pleaded.
“Say again?”
Symphony
gestured at Destiny in annoyance. “You heard, Lieutenant,” she then said with a
sigh. “I have a hysterical woman on my
hands. You’d better do something quick
with this mouse, before the situation becomes intolerable.” She ignored Destiny’s expression of outrage
– which became even more incensed when Lieutenant Mulberry openly laughed,
hearing the American Angel’s remark.
“I
am not hysterical!” Destiny objected.
“I despise rodents. The convent was
full of rats when I was studying there. Plus, I’m allergic to animal fur.
You know that.”
“Checking what can be done…”
the voice of Mulberry said. “Well, obviously, we can’t
use gas in these circumstances. That
vent is the only one for the Amber Room and we can’t close it, without causing
you discomfort. Besides, if it’s the
same mouse, for whatever reason, the gas didn’t work on it earlier. So maybe it won’t work this time either. We’ll have to check on that.”
“Is
there an alternative to get rid of that mouse?” Rhapsody asked. “Or will we have to go into the vent and
chase it ourselves?”
Destiny
seemed horrified by the possibility.
However, Mulberry’s soft chuckle and the following answer reassured her:
“That vent is too narrow to let a man get
through it. I even doubt it’s large
enough to let one of you squeeze inside it, even the smallest of you. You’d get stuck and might get hurt. But there’s an alternative, yes. It seems that there’s a robo-vac in the vent
right now, near the ‘intruder’ – nearly on top of it, if I can believe the
sensors. So maybe it can take care of
it.”
“How?” Symphony asked. “By vacuuming it to death?”
“No…
But it can electrocute it. The robot must have sufficient juice in it to
kill such a small animal. And when it’s
dead, the robot will pick it up and dispose of it, like it normally would.”
“Neat. Get rid of that pest then, Lieutenant.”
“S.I.G., Symphony Angel. It won’t take long, you’ll see…”
Scarlet
was starting to get a little too comfortable on his ride which was steadily
moving along the vents when he felt it coming to a sudden stop. Intrigued about what might be happening, he
leant down to check on the robo-vac.
The lights on it were flickering as it was turning on itself, just as if
it was searching for something.
It
was twirling more and more wildly, to the point where Scarlet, starting to feel
dizzy, found himself with no other alternative but to jump from the robot and
onto the floor of the vent. He stumbled
and turned toward the robo-vac, watching it with perplexity, wondering what
could be wrong with it.
Was
it suddenly malfunctioning?
The
robo-vac stopped spinning; the sensors were now directed in the opposite
direction from Scarlet, as it if was marking a pause.
“So,
what seems to be the problem with you?” Scarlet mused. Tentatively, he reached for the robot with
his hand. He felt a sudden power surge
upon touching it and instinctively stepped back, muttering a curse. His hand was tingling, and felt numb.
Electricity?
The
robo-vac then slowly turned around towards Scarlet – and seemed to consider him
with attention.
Somehow,
to Scarlet, that didn’t bode very well.
The
robot started to move towards him, sizzling as it came.
Bloody Hell… it’s after me… And it’s
giving electric shocks now. The blasted
thing must think I’m a damned rat!
He
didn’t wait to discover if the amount of electricity contained in that tin can
would be enough to actually do him any lasting harm. That first surge he received, seconds earlier, hurt… and hurt badly. He turned on his heels and started running down the vent, putting
as much distance as possible between himself and that robot.
The
robo-vac gave pursuit, gliding faster and faster each passing second.
Scarlet
didn’t have to turn around to know it was gaining on him.
I might be a good sprinter, and
retrometabolism might give me stamina, but what good is that against a machine
that doesn’t feel fatigue? I’m done for
if I don’t find a way to escape these vents!
Scarlet
suddenly skidded to an halt when, at a turn of a corner, right in front of him,
bathed by the light coming from the other side of a nearby grille, he saw a
furry head appear.
Oh no!
Not another rat!
He
briefly looked over his shoulder to check on the robo-vac. It was quickly getting closer. He returned his attention to the rat, and
watched in total disbelief as it stared straight at him, with its ugly and
fiery little red eyes. Scarlet could have sworn right there that it was the
same rodent he had encountered before and that it had actually recognised him.
But… it’s impossible, isn’t it? That animal must be dead, surely… This one can’t
be the same…
Unless…
it had been Mysteronised or something…
Get a grip, Metcalfe! Why would the Mysterons take a rat
over?! This is the stupidest idea you
could ever imagine!
The
rat started moving towards him. Scarlet
groaned.
On
one side, an electrified robot; on the other, a rat… Out of the frying pan into the fire. How much worse could it
be?
He
froze for a second when the rat suddenly pounced in his direction, silently,
without any warning, its mouth wide open to reveal its sharp teeth, and its
clawed front paws extended towards him.
At the same time, Scarlet could feel the robot’s presence, just behind him, so uncomfortably close.
Years
as an experienced soldier made him dodge almost instinctively – at the last
possibly second. He barely made it, as
he plunged under the leaping rat; he felt the razor-sharp claws tear into the
sleeve of his right arm and the back of his uniform, deeply grazing the flesh
underneath. He was unable to hold back
a curse against the fiery pain as he rolled on the dirty floor, putting himself
out of reach of both machine and rodent.
He
heard a screeching sound as the rat landed squarely on the robo-vac, stopping
its advance on the spot, and their encounter produced a blinding flash of
electrical light.
Protecting
his eyes with his uninjured arm, Scarlet quickly attempted to crawl away to
avoid the dangerous sparks which were falling everywhere around him, creating
images of shadows and light against the surface of the vent. He tried to stand, but he felt something
heavy falling onto his left leg and tearing into it; he let out a brief cry as
he felt it crack, and the sharp pain pulled him down.
He
looked over his shoulder; his leg was trapped under the robo-vac, which was now
leaning to one side, its lights blinking sporadically, and dying out one after
the other. Obviously, the rat’s furious
attack had severely damaged it.
As
for the rat itself, it was now lying on its side and wasn’t moving.
Fantastic,
Scarlet thought grimly. They took each other out…
A
repulsive smell of burned hair hit Scarlet’s nostrils, as he lay there, looking
with disgust at the scene, and he noticed the smoke coming from both motionless
opponents - and starting to invade the vent.
He was unable to move; his leg was pinned down, and hurt every time he
tried to disengage it; he could feel something warm running against it.
Open fracture,
he realised with a practiced knowledge of
these situations. He was starting to feel chilly.
Bleeding out…I’ll be out cold before long.
“Yuck!
So that’s what an electrocuted rat smells like? It’s horrible!”
Trying
to regain his focus, Scarlet blinked in surprise. The voice had echoed into the vents. A voice he knew very well.
Destiny’s…
“It was not a rat, just a tiny mouse. I still
can’t believe you are afraid of them!”
And
now Symphony… Scarlet could barely
believe it. Their voices were coming
from beyond that grille in front of which the mouse had previously been
standing.
And
close to which he was presently lying…
Well
not that close. He could see the light coming through it but
not that much more. He desperately
reached out to it, trying to get even closer, and stretched his neck to get a
better look through it, just as a third voice made itself heard:
“You do realise, of course, that a thing
like that would not have happened if we had a cat.”
“Bite your tongue, Dianne!”
was the swift reply from Destiny. “Do you want my death? Don’t you remember
what happened to me the last time Cloudbase ‘adopted’ a real live animal? I wheezed and choked every time I came
near to it.” She marked a
pause. “Besides, what difference would it have made if we had a cat? I can’t very well see how it would have
chased that mouse inside that vent!”
Scarlet’s
mind was working fast, trying to work out where he could be. Amber Room…
It must be the Amber Room… He
had confirmation of that when, through the grille, he was able to see the
floor, which he recognised instantly.
The Amber Room had a very distinctive, unique décor. At some distance from where he was, he could
see the bottom of a sofa, and a pair of very expensive shoes along with a pair
of white boots in front of them, thus demonstrating clearly that two people
were seated on it. Another pair of
boots was pacing on the floor just at the limit of his line of vision.
At
last seeing an end to his ordeal – at the very least, he would get out of this
vent, if not regain his normal size – Scarlet took a deep breath of air and
nearly choked, as, in the process, he swallowed a mouthful of smoke. He coughed to clear his throat, feeling
beads of cold sweat forming on his brow.
Quickly, before I lose it…
Then
he shouted at the top of his lungs:
“HELP! ANGELS, CAN YOU HEAR
ME? GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
For
long, agonising seconds, only silence answered him. He coughed and shouted again, desperately: “ANGELS!
CAN YOU HEAR ME?! I NEED HELP!”
In
the Amber Room, Rhapsody, Symphony and Destiny, upon hearing the muffled, faint
voice, looked at each other with perplexity, each of them wondering if she had
not dreamed it. The look they could see
on each others’ faces was enough to convince them that it wasn’t the case.
They
heard faint coughing, and then the voice called them for a third time: “Angels! Get me out of here!”
“Paul?!” That was Rhapsody finally voicing the three
Angels’ common suspicions. “Paul, is
that you? Where are you?”
“Down here!”
the voice answered faintly.
“Where?”
insisted Destiny as she and Rhapsody stood up and joined Symphony in looking
around, frantically searching for the elusive captain.
There
was another cough. “In the vents!”
“What?!” a stunned Symphony replied. “That’s impossible! How did you get there?”
“Never mind that! Get me out of here
before I suffocate! The smoke is
getting to me!”
Rhapsody
was already kneeling in front of the vent, through which a thick white smoke
was coming out. As the two other Angels
gathered behind her, she peered inside, but could not see a thing. To her, it seemed impossible that her lover
could be inside that dark and narrow vent.
And even more impossible to get him out of there. The hole through which she was looking was
barely big enough to let the mouse get through.
“We
need a screwdriver to remove that grille,” she started. Just saying that sounded absurd enough. Destiny’s voice echoed her thoughts.
“How did he get in there and how can we
get him out? He must certainly be
stuck!”
“I AM stuck!”
Scarlet confirmed.
They could hear his voice more clearly, now that they were leaning close
to the vent. Which was even more
puzzling.
“Then
how can we help you?” Symphony asked.
“Just get your hand through the hole,” Scarlet answered, coughing as he did. “You’ll be able to release me… That’s all I
need to get out.”
“What?!”
The Angels were beyond being perplexed now.
In fact, they were beginning to be very much annoyed. And the fiery-tempered Rhapsody was close to
getting angry.
“Paul
Metcalfe,” she warned, “if this is some kind of a joke that you concocted with
Rick…”
“It’s not!”
Scarlet now sounded almost desperate. And his voice was growing weaker. “Angel,
I’m stuck here, with a broken leg. PLEASE,
you’ve got to get me out of here quickly.
I assure you, you will all understand in a minute…”
“That’d
better be true,” muttered Rhapsody.
“All right, Symphony: I think that Melody has a tool box somewhere on
those shelves over there. Give me a
screwdriver, and we’ll get him out of there.
And I hope for his sake that we don’t find a mike in there…… Because I will not be very happy with
that.”
“Colonel
White! I’m picking up an unauthorised
signal!”
At
the sound of Lieutenant Green’s frantic voice, Colonel White raised his
head. The young man was leaning over
the controls of his station, and was staring at the information appearing on
his monitor.
“What
kind of signal, Lieutenant?” White asked urgently.
“Radio
signals, Sir!” Green briefly looked up
at his commander. “The same kind of
transmissions that were intercepted in New York Headquarters!”
“So
our spy did move on to Cloudbase!”
White commented swiftly. “We were
right, then. Someone is trying to
transmit information through our security!”
“Looks
like it, Colonel.”
“Can
you stop those signals from getting through, Lieutenant?”
“Working
on it, Sir! They won’t get by me, if I
have anything to do with it!”
“Good
man. Where do those signals come from?”
“Locating
them…” Green’s voice cut off
short. He looked at the information on
his screen with a puzzled look on his face.
“They seem to come from the Amber Room, Sir!”
“The
Amber Room?! But how…” White let the
rest hang. For now, the how wasn’t important. Someone – something – in the Amber Room was trying to get information –
secret information – out of Cloudbase to a third party that would certainly
make illicit use of it, in order to weaken Spectrum’s security and
efficiency. He could not permit that to
happen, and whoever the culprit might be, he or she had to be apprehended. Leaving Green to scuffle with the controls
to stop the transmissions, and confident that his aide was proficient enough to
succeed, White swiftly turned his attention to the other problem at hand, and
slapped the base-wide communication control.
“This
is Colonel White. Spectrum is Red! We
have a security leak on Cloudbase!
Security, proceed immediately to the Amber Room and secure the area! Search for any suspicious device that might
be used to send unauthorised transmissions. If need be, apprehend ANYONE you
find down there. Spectrum is Red! Move it, people! This is not an exercise!”
Waiting
in the semi-darkness of the vent, Scarlet was beginning to feel sluggish from
the loss of blood he was suffering. His
leg felt so very numb now and he didn’t feel pain anymore. He considered letting himself fall asleep,
and allowing his retrometabolism to do its usual stuff, but he didn’t
dare. He felt that he had to stay
awake, at least until he had been retrieved from this dreadful place – if only
to give guidance to the Angels concerning his position and even maybe some
explanation of what had happened to him.
Well, at least the little he knew of the facts, anyway…
He
was listening to the reassuring whine of the screwdriver Rhapsody was using to
unscrew the grille, waiting with expectation for light to fully invade the
vent, when another sound caught his ear.
It was a screeching sound, coming from the opposite direction – very nearby.
Almost
dreading what he would find, Scarlet turned his head towards that direction –
looking at the still robo-vac under which his injured leg was trapped. It was
still smoking, but he could see it was still motionless, and all of its lights
were snuffed out, indicating that its power was definitely down. But beyond it…
Scarlet
narrowed his eyes. Through the smoke, he could see movement; the screeching
sound was picking up in intensity, and he saw something rise steadily from
behind the robo-vac. He recognised the furry outline, and saw the long, fine
tail moving, whipping through the air and casting shadows against the walls of
the vent.
Oh no… not again!
The
mouse stood up on its back feet, with, surprisingly, enough strength to lift
parts of the robo-vac in the process.
Scarlet felt the pressure on his trapped leg lessening, so he grabbed
that chance to free himself from his position, and crawled away, as quickly as
he could.. It was just in time, as the
robo-vac fell back onto the metallic surface, exactly where his leg had
been. The crashing sound echoing
through the vent almost deafened Scarlet, and for a moment, it seemed to drown
the sound of the screwdriver. It took a
moment for Scarlet to realise that, in fact, that sound had actually stopped.
“Paul?”
That was
Rhapsody’s voice calling to him, with a note of anxiety in her voice. “Are
you are right? What was that noise?”
Scarlet
was about to answer, but thought better of it, as he fixed his eyes on the
mouse that was now stumbling on its feet, just on the other side of the
destroyed robo-vac. It looked unsteady,
dazed, as if it was trying to regain its focus. Scarlet was wary of it.
He wondered if mice were like rats – if the smell of blood would send
them into a frenzy, as he had heard would happen with a band of hungry
rats. He was injured, and by the way he was presently feeling right now, he
had lost a lot of blood – just enough, he was prepared to wager, to actually
learn if his suspicions were right.
“Paul?
Are you all right? Please answer
me!”
The
sound of Rhapsody’s voice pulled Scarlet out of his thoughts; his eyes still on the mouse, he tried to
make his way towards the nearby grille, crawling on his back.
Unfortunately,
the obviously dizzy mouse had also heard
Rhapsody’s voice – and became aware of his
presence as well.
It
swiftly turned its head to look over its shoulder.
Scarlet’s
eyes became wide with total shock.
One
of the rodent’s eyes, staring right at him, was bright red – and blinking
unsteadily like a Christmas light, while on that side of its head, from the ear
to the start of the jaw, all the fur and ‘flesh’ surrounding it had burned away
to reveal an intricate piece of circuitry and mechanical parts.
“Oh
my God…” Scarlet whispered. “That’s not a real mouse at all… it’s a
robot!”
“Paul?”
That was Rhapsody
again. Scarlet looked in alarm in the
direction of the grille and saw the shadows beyond it move. Huge, feminine fingers appeared through the
mesh and closed on it. “We’re opening the
vent now. You’d better have a good
explanation of what is going on, or else!”
The
robot mouse also turned to look towards the vent, its ears moving as if
listening to the voice; Scarlet could hear the whirring of its now damaged
mechanical components as the mouse gathered its feet beneath itself, obviously
getting ready to pounce. He wasn’t the
target; the robot’s eyes were fixed on the grille.
It
was planning an escape.
A
sharp jerk wrenched the grille out and it was slowly removed from its frame.
“Look
out!” Scarlet called loudly. “The mouse
is…”
His
cry died on his lips as the mouse made its leap. It skimmed over Scarlet,
knocking him down to the floor in the process.
Dazed, the diminutive captain looked up as the mouse disappeared through
the opening – and what he imagined to be cries of shock and horror echoed
through the vents and into his confused mind.
Women… That’s so typical. They’ll bravely face any Mysteron assassin,
but they’re unable to cope with a tiny mouse…
That
was his last thought before finally giving in to unconsciousness.
The
three Angels gathered around the now opened vent couldn’t help crying out in
surprise, when they were startled by the unexpected appearance of the mouse
suddenly emerging from the opening. The
most surprised was certainly Rhapsody, who had started leaning in front of the
opening, in order to get a look inside and find out what exactly was going on
with Scarlet. The mouse passed
literally right in front of her nose and slipped by the side of her head,
grazing her ear and hair as it did.
Gasping, she instinctively threw herself back.
“Dirty
little bugger!” she muttered under her breath.
She watched with dismay as the rodent quickly darted across the floor,
in no particular direction, in an obvious attempt to escape those nasty humans
surrounding it. It was by pure chance
that it headed straight to Destiny, who had stepped away as soon as she saw the
mouse coming out of the vent. Symphony
was giving chase, and Rhapsody was unsure what the American actually expected
to do if she could get her hands on
the mouse.
The
small creature was now at the foot of the bookcase on the far wall, and
suddenly everything came to an abrupt halt.
A
very large and heavy book dropped on top of the mouse, squashing it on the spot
and putting an end to its getaway.
Symphony skidded to a stop and looked with mystification at the spot
where the book had fallen. The words ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica, Book of the Year
2070’ were written in huge golden letters on the cover and seemed to be
taunting her.
Booted
feet came into view and Symphony raised her eyes from them and up the legs and
body to finally find Destiny’s features, looking down with obvious irritation
at the huge book.
“And
that, petit salopard, will teach you not to mess with me!” the French girl
seethed between her clenched teeth.
“Congratulations,”
Symphony said matter-of-factly. “You
just killed your worst enemy.”
“Hardly,”
Destiny said, glaring at her. “I just
rid ourselves of an annoying pest.”
“In
the meantime, we’ll have to clean up that mess,” Symphony noted.
Destiny
made a face, disgusted at the idea. “I am not
looking under that book,” she protested.
“Of
course not,” Symphony said, amused at her friend’s display. She leaned down and carefully lifted the
book, under Destiny’s wary eyes. Both
Angels fully expected to find a crushed corpse of mingled hair, bones and flesh
in the middle of a little puddle of blood.
Instead,
they discovered a destroyed mechanical object, made of false fur, wires, and
electronic circuits, bathed in what looked like oil…
“Well,
I’ll be…” Symphony lifted the ‘mouse’
by its tail and looked at it with curiosity, imitated by Destiny. “It’s a small robot…”
“A
what?!” Rhapsody called. She was
kneeling in front of the vent opening again, and had raised her head upon
hearing Symphony’s comment.
“A
robot,” Symphony repeated. “Probably
remote-controlled…”
“I
can’t believe it...” Rhapsody’s temper was getting the better of her
again. She leaned in front of the
opening and looked inside the vent, trying to see through the darkness
inside. She could see the interior of
the vent and now had confirmation that it was definitely too small for her fiancé to slip inside of it. She could barely fit in there herself! She now suspected that something was
terribly wrong. “Paul, do you hear me?
I swear to you, if all of this, mouse included, is part of an elaborate
hoax, I will personally wring your neck!”
“And
I’ll be helping her!” Destiny declared, moving from her spot to get close to
Rhapsody.
Before
an answer could reach them, the door suddenly slid open, and a group of five
security guards entered the Amber Room, startling the Angels, and quickly spread
around the room.
“What
is going on now?” Destiny demanded with a perplexed frown. She watched as the guards started looking
around, into all the corners, obviously in search of something. Captains Blue and Grey entered in turn, and
were now giving instructions to the guards, much to the Angels’ surprise. Captain Ochre followed behind, a Mysteron
detector in his hands.
“Don’t
let anyone out,” Grey ordered. “Look
everywhere, don’t leave a single cushion unturned or a book unopened. We must
find this communication device.”
“What
communication device?” Destiny asked, approaching. She watched warily as Ochre pointed the Mysteron detector in her
direction.
“I’m
sorry for the intrusion, Destiny,” Blue apologised. “But Lieutenant Green discovered an unauthorised radio
transmission coming from the Amber Room.”
“A
what?!”
“She’s
clean,” Ochre announced, after checking out the picture from the detector.
“Of
course I am!” Destiny protested angrily, as Ochre turned to face Symphony.
“Have
you noticed anything in the Amber Room lately?” Blue asked, trying to dismiss
Ochre’s verification of the American Angel from his mind. “Anything strange, remotely out of
place?”
Destiny’s
frown deepened. “Do you want a list?”
Blue
frowned, not appreciating the sarcastic note behind Destiny’s tone. Behind the
French woman, he could see Grey’s epaulettes flashing white, and his colleague
answering the call from the Control Room in a hushed tone.
“Clean
too,” Ochre announced, after checking on Symphony’s picture. Blue smiled
widely, seeing the X-ray image in Ochre’s hand.
“Did
you have any doubt?” Symphony asked, raising a brow.
“It’s
just a formality, Angels,” Ochre said, with a reassuring smile. “Your turn, Rhapsody…” For the first time, he and Blue discovered
the English pilot crouched in front of the opened vent. He frowned in perplexity. “What are you doing there?”
“I’m
afraid you won’t believe me,” she said with a sheepish smile, looking up with
slight apprehension as a guard cautiously approached her. She realised that her strange position now
looked rather suspicious, in view of what was presently happening.
“Try
us,” Blue stated brusquely, while Ochre pointed the detector at Rhapsody.
She
hesitated. “Well, it all started with a
mouse running through the Amber Room and into the vents…”
“A
mouse?” Blue repeated.
“…
And then we heard Captain Scarlet’s voice coming from there…”
“Scarlet?!
Rhapsody, that doesn’t make sense… Mice
and Scarlet?”
“One mouse, to be exact,” Symphony
corrected. Blue turned to face her, disbelief plain on his face. She continued, quietly: “Destiny killed
it. Squashed it with the Book of the
Year from the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
to be precise.”
“This
is no joke, Angels,” Blue said rather abruptly.
“We
are not joking, Captain,” Symphony retorted.
“Blue,
Ochre,” Grey then announced, attracting attention to himself. “I just received a message from Green. He lost the transmission. He says it went dead all of a sudden.”
“Did
any of it get through security?” Blue asked.
“None,
fortunately. Green was able to
intercept and block it. And then,
apparently, it just… died. As if
suddenly cut off in the middle.”
“How
bizarre,” Blue murmured thoughtfully.
“Did our presence suddenly interrupt it?”
“Rhapsody’s
clean,” Ochre then announced, presenting the last picture from the Mysteron
detector to his colleagues. “None of
them are Mysterons. Not that I really
thought they would be, but better safe than sorry, as they say…”
“Very
reassuring to hear that,” Rhapsody said rather dryly. “Captain Blue, we did hear
Captain Scarlet’s voice through the vents.”
“Now
then,” Ochre said in a mocking tone, “are you telling us Scarlet has been
transformed into a mouse and that Destiny squashed him?”
“Don’t
be absurd, Captain,” an annoyed Rhapsody retorted harshly, at the risk of
seeing herself accused of disrespect towards a superior officer. Her patience was wearing thin. “All I know is that at the moment, we don’t
hear him anymore. He told us he was
injured and trapped.”
Blue
was still perplexed; he approached
Rhapsody’s position and crouched in front of the opened vent. “Scarlet has been missing for hours,” he
said, leaning to look into the darkness.
“We’ve been looking for him all over the base. We thought his disappearance might have something to do with the
present Mysteron threat.”
“Maybe
he was captured by whoever is responsible for those transmissions we
intercepted, and he’s being kept prisoner somewhere?” Ochre suggested. “Maybe this vent communicates to wherever
he’s being held? And he’s been using that vent to call for help?”
“But
where could that place be?” Blue
muttered. “I thought we searched every
inch of Cloudbase… We might need the
base blueprints if you are right, Ochre.”
“That
doesn’t explain why the transmissions
were coming from here,” Grey remarked suddenly, as Blue was poking his head
inside the vent to look deeper inside. “Nor why they stopped suddenly, when we
arrived.”
“It’s
the same as in New York,” Ochre remarked.
“Those signals stopped, so we couldn’t find their source.”
Symphony
was pensive, watching as the security guards continued their search by throwing
all the books off their shelves and looking behind them. Before long, she realised, the place would
be a fine mess. “Captain Grey, when did
those signals stop exactly?”
“According
to Green, about one minute before we came in here,” Grey answered. “Why?”
“I
think I know why those signals
stopped, then,” she said thoughtfully.
“You
do?” Ochre asked with surprise.
“Uh-uh. I think their source was effectively
destroyed.” With both Grey and Ochre
turning their undivided attention to her, she theatrically raised her hand, and
produced the half-shattered electronic mouse she was still holding by the
tail. She smiled impishly, when they
opened disbelieving eyes. “And you
thought we were kidding you?”
Destiny,
standing only a short distance away, nodded her sudden understanding of
Symphony’s line of thought.
“What
is this thing?” Grey asked with a frown.
“The
remains of the mouse Destiny smashed,” Symphony replied. “That’s when we discovered it wasn’t really a mouse.”
“That’s
some kind of robot,” Ochre realised.
“Yep. And I’m sure that if you examined it
carefully, you’ll find inside whatever communication device was used to send
those transmissions you intercepted earlier – and which were interrupted when
Destiny heroically destroyed this mouse.”
She delicately deposited the electronic mouse in Ochre’s hand, and he
looked at it thoughtfully, musing about this new discovery.
“I
bet we’ll find more than a
communication device,” he grumbled.
“How do you wanna bet there’s also
in there a miniaturised but complete kit for the perfect little spy?”
“I’m
not betting,” Grey retorted. “Because
I’m sure you’re right.”
“People,” Blue called urgently, pulling his head out
of the vent to look over his shoulder.
“I need a flashlight, quickly. I
found something in there… But I can’t
see what it is!”
“There’s
the emergency torch right next to the door,” Rhapsody said, getting to her feet. “I’ll get it for you.”
It
was a warm feeling across his face that pulled Scarlet out of his momentary
unconsciousness, and that prompted him to slowly open his eyes. He still felt a bit drowsy, but the blinding
light now flashing in his eyes made it impossible for him to go back to
sleep. He groaned against the far too
bright light, and raised his arm to try to protect his eyes, and at the same
time, tried to see what could be causing it.
He heard a loud gasp echoing into the vents and leaned his head to the
side, still unable to see past the warm light.
It
looked like a powerful projector of some sort – no, he realised, suddenly, it
was a torch. He could see giant fingers
holding it steady, and beyond that, there was a giant blue eye, surmounted by a
blond eyebrow, which was opened in obvious disbelief upon discovering him.
“Oh,
my God…” a very recognisable voice said, in what was probably a murmur, that
echoed loudly inside the vents. “I
don’t believe it!”
Scarlet
gave a faint but still very genuine smile upon finally being able to perceive
the giant blond head that he was now seeing stuck inside the opening of the
vent, looking in his direction, slack-jawed and wide-eyed with complete
incredulity. “Hi, Adam,” he said in a slurred voice. “So glad to see you… I never thought I would ever tell you this,
big fellow, but… would you give me a
lift, please? I would very much like to get out of this dreadful place…”
“Very
ingenious,” commented Colonel White. He
was in the Conference Room, standing in front of the table, and looking down
with interest at the motionless object lying in the middle of a handkerchief. Half destroyed, with little metallic bits
and wires lying all around it, and fake hair half burned by the electronic
parts that had short-circuited underneath it, the robot-mouse was lying on its
side, its electronic eyes now dead and dark, staring into nothingness.
Captain
Grey, standing next to White, had just finished making his report concerning
the incident.
“Very
ingenious indeed,” White repeated, taking the mouse by the tail and raising it
in front of his eyes to check on it more closely. “So that’s what has been causing us so much trouble in New York
Headquarters – and then here, on Cloudbase.”
“Yes,
Sir. A closer examination told us that
this robot is equipped with a miniature camera, recorder and radio transmitter.
This is definitely the spy we were looking for.”
“How
did it get from New York to here?” White asked with a raised brow, putting the
mouse down onto the table.
“The
most likely answer, Sir, would be that this… ‘mouse’ simply stowed away in the
SPJ that brought Captain Ochre and me back to Cloudbase. That should be easy to check, mind you. Surveillance cameras in New York should have
picked up the mouse’s presence at some point.
Maybe even caught it as it slipped inside the plane.”
White
nodded slowly. “And once on Cloudbase,
following the Mysterons’ threat, this robot started patrolling the base, in
search of anything worthwhile to record.”
“Yes,
Sir,” Grey concurred. “It seems that
its micro-circuitry permitted it to make ‘decisions’ about what was worth
filming and recording, to be subsequently stored in its memory – amazingly extensive, for the size of that
thing. Apparently, the mouse was
capable of logical ‘thoughts’ – and would be able to make decisions about where
to go and what should be recorded or not.
It also had built-in security features. Most of them made the robot act
like a normal mouse… for example, it would run and hide whenever it was
spotted.”
“Like
a real mouse would do,” White remarked.
“Exactly. But when cornered, it would also fight back
– even attack, if need be.”
“Did
it get much information while roaming the base?”
“Quite
a surprising amount, Colonel. This
mouse has been nearly everywhere on the lower deck of Cloudbase. Mainly in the Engine Room. It’s a good thing we intercepted the
transmission right at the start, or we’d be in a lot of trouble right now.”
“And
you are sure it didn’t send a message
earlier?” White insisted. “Considering the amount of information you
say it had gathered, it would seem to me that it might have tried to pass it on
to its… ‘owner’, as soon as possible.”
“Lieutenant
Green, and the rest of the communication team, are quite positive: no unauthorised message had been able to
pass through. Our security net was
quite effective.” Grey sighed. “Apparently, following the failure of the previous
break-in in New York, the mouse had been able to analyse that any attempt to
transmit a signal would be detected and intercepted. So, it is possible that, once its mission was finished, it would
have returned to the hangar and waited for an opportunity to stow away inside a
departing plane.”
“Then,
once on the ground, it would have slipped out of our sight and started
transmitting the information it had stored, to whoever was waiting for it.”
Grey
nodded, concurring to that statement.
“The robot only attempted a transmission at the end, because it was
trapped, and in danger of being destroyed.”
“An
ultimate, desperate effort, until Destiny smashed it to pieces,” White murmured
with dry humour, looking down at the mouse. “Do we know where it comes from and
who it was supposed to be
transmitting to?”
“Ah,
yes… Searching records with appropriate
key words did provide us with information about this – from old FAB files. A counter-espionage agency had been working
on a similar project – dubbed ‘the Mighty Atom’ – some forty years ago. One of
the prototypes had been stolen, and was never found. But they had worked on a second one – more advanced – only to
abandon the project once complete because it didn’t seem that there could be a
useful application for it. The new
prototype had been stored in a vault since then.. And then, everyone forgot about it. Until two weeks ago, when it disappeared.”
“Stolen,
of course.”
“The
security cameras picked up a rather indistinct image of the thief, and we’ve
been given a description of the man.
And it is a rather familiar description, Sir: tall, dark-haired, male Caucasian with a pale complexion, dressed
in black …”
“Captain
Black?” White said, raising a brow.
Grey
nodded in confirmation. “I’ve asked for
a picture of the culprit, just to make sure.
But I have no doubt that it is him, Colonel.”
So,
I suppose we don’t need further proof that the presence of this mouse on this
base is indeed the work of the Mysterons, then.”
“There’s
no doubt about it, Sir,” Grey agreed.
“Yes,
this is indeed very ingenious. Small, swift, capable of getting anywhere
unnoticed… The heat sensors would not
even be able to pick it up, because, as it’s not a warm, living being, it would
not generate any heat.”
“The
only heat the sensors in the vents actually picked up was in fact Scarlet’s,”
Grey confirmed.
“And
they mistakenly assumed he was a rodent,” White concluded. “Mmm…
I suppose this is kind of amusing, but I doubt that Captain Scarlet
would be able to see the humour in it.”
“I
don’t think he would, Sir,” Grey agreed, fighting to keep the smile off his
lips.
“Especially
since he was gassed, because of this mistake,” White continued. “The gas, of course, had no effect
whatsoever on the mouse – since it wasn’t alive to breathe it.” He paused for a second. “How is Captain Scarlet, anyway?” he asked.
“Aside from… ‘being small’, that is.” He had seen Scarlet earlier, not
long after he had been recovered from the vents by Captain Blue. White had to admit, at that very moment, it
was probably one of the biggest surprises he had ever had in his life, seeing
his best man reduced to a midget only a few inches high. Well, right next to discovering the
Mysterons’ existence, probably…
And
then, right next to finding out a man can be brought back to life after having
been killed…
Why does it always have to happen to
Scarlet, anyway?
Grey
sighed. “He’s very frustrated,
apparently. Mind you, Sir, anybody
who’s been reduced to three inches tall would feel the same way as he does at
the moment. I know I would.”
“As
would I,” White said. “Well, Doctors
Fawn and Lavender are examining him – and the device in this book, that seems
to be responsible for Scarlet’s present state.”
“Captain
Magenta is also studying that device, Sir,” Grey confirmed. “But so far, nothing has been found to –
help Scarlet get back to his normal size.”
A
buzzing sound interrupted him before he could continue and White leaned over
the table to press the comm. button.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“The SPJ from Bristol just arrived, Sir,” the
voice of Lieutenant Green announced. “With
Captain Forest and his guest.”
“Thank
you, Lieutenant. I’m on my way to the
hangar.” White turned to Grey, taking
his cap from the table. “With any luck,
here’s someone who might be able to shed some light on the mystery surrounding
this strange device and Captain Scarlet’s present state. At least, let us just hope so… for
Scarlet’s sake.”
Captain
Forest was gently pushing the wheelchair down the ramp leading off the SPJ and
onto the concrete floor of the hangar, towards the waiting Colonel White. The latter was fighting the urge to actually
salute the elderly man sitting quietly in the chair, with his cane across his
knees, and looking around him with barely-contained curiosity.
When
Charles Gray had joined the Universal Secret Service many years ago, Paul
Blake, then a junior Director, was already close to retirement. But due to the many irregularities that
occurred daily in the British Section of the U.S.S. at the time – such as
infiltration by double agents, corruption, treason and even murders – Blake, a thoroughly honest man in a period
where such men were absolutely invaluable to the Service, had stayed a few
years longer. Along with a few other trustworthy agents – such as Charles Gray
himself – Blake had contributed greatly to the investigation and the subsequent
cleaning up operation that followed.
Blake’s last action within the U.S.S. was to recommend Gray as head of
the U.S.S. British Section in London, knowing full well that the younger man
would pursue the task of keeping the U.S.S. clean and safe.
As
he watched the old man being rolled in his direction, Colonel White could see
the spark of recognition in his blue eyes, from behind those thick lenses he
was wearing.
“I
know you,” Blake said, nodding his head meaningfully, staring into White’s
face, as Captain Forest stopped the wheelchair in front of his commander.
“Welcome
to Cloudbase, Mr. Blake,” White declaimed formally. “I am Colonel White.”
“Colonel
White, mmm?” Blake said with a raised brow. “A lighter shade of pale, it would seem to
me.”
Colonel
White smiled faintly. Close to ninety
or not, the old man still had all his wits.
I hope to be as sharp as he is
when I’m his age…
“It
is good to see you again, Sir,” he told Blake candidly.
“So
this is where you ended up,” Blake pursued.
“Commander in Chief of Spectrum…
Nicely done, Charles… or should I say, Sir Charles? They couldn’t
have got a better man for the job… or the honour.” He smiled in turn. “It is
good to see you too.”
With
a motion of his hand, White invited Blake to follow. He walked alongside the wheelchair, as the older man pushed a
button that powered up the chair’s silent motor, and send it rolling forward. As for Forest, he followed just behind,
silently, as they all moved towards the airlock leading out of the hangar.
“I
hope the flight wasn’t too inconvenient for you,” White told his guest.
“Are
you kidding? It’s been ages since I had such an exciting time!” Blake
protested. “And the view from the
window of the plane of this… floating
carrier, was worth the whole trip. Too
bad I didn’t bring my camera…”
“My
officers would have had to confiscate it,” White said matter-of-factly. “Naturally.”
“Naturally,”
Blake repeated, in almost the same tone.
“Though it’s not as if I would have sold the pictures to the highest
bidder, is it?”
As
a sudden thought struck him, remembering the content of the last Mysteron
threat, Colonel White turned towards Captain Forest, with a look of
interrogation, without even slowing his pace.
“He’s
clean, Sir,” Forest responded reassuringly to his commander’s mute question.
White
knew the answer referred to the fact that Blake was free of any weapon or recording
device – and to the confirmation that he had successfully passed the Mysteron
Detector test as well. He thanked his
junior officer with a brief nod, just as Blake stopped his chair. He glared meaningfully at White, who had
stopped walking.
“Now,
surely, Charles, you didn’t think for a second that I…”
“Forgive
me, Mr. Blake,” White interrupted him quickly.
“But we had a little… problem, recently, with… er… unauthorised
recording devices, here on Cloudbase.
Surely you would understand
that we’re not leaving anything to chance.”
“Even
to the point of suspecting me?” Blake grumbled.
“Believe
me,” White replied in a conciliatory tone, “Spectrum has to stay vigilant every
minute of the day… Especially in our
fight against the Mysterons. They have a way of apparently using
‘friends’ and ‘relatives’, people you thought you knew and trusted all your
life, to carry out their plans.”
“They
fight dirty, these Mysterons,” Blake reflected, narrowing his eyes.
“Indeed,
they do, Sir.”
“I
think I can relate to that kind of fight, ‘Colonel’. As you may well know.”
Blake gave a sigh, the question now obviously settled in his mind. He put his chair in motion again, directing
it towards the exit. Colonel White
started walking by his side, Forest still following behind. Blake turned again to White. “Right, so since I’m… ‘clean’, as your
captain so delicately put it, I suppose I’m permitted to ask for a grand tour
of your base, then? Of course, we’ll
leave out any restricted area…”
“I’ll
be glad to give you the tour myself, Mr. Blake,” White answered with an
approving smile. “That is, as soon as
we have attended to the business that brought you here.”
“Ah
yes… Of course,” Blake confirmed. “I’m guessing it has to do with that ‘Bible’
I gave my grandson by mistake?”
“In
a nutshell, Sir… yes. We… encountered a
small problem with the device it contained.”
At
the sound of these words, Blake stopped the chair again, and spun it towards
White, who had stopped in his tracks.
The older man narrowed his eyes to the colonel in an inquiring way, a
suspicion forming in his mind.
“Knowing
my grandson, I’m fairly sure he’s in
some kind of trouble.”
White
raised a brow. “You know your grandson
well, then,” he noted.
“Of
course I do. Now, then. What has he done to himself, this time?”
White
shook his head. “All right, I will tell
you… and then show you. But I have to
tell you: you might not believe any of this…”
In
one of Sickbay’s laboratories, Captain Scarlet, seated on a small box on a
table, and now healed from his earlier wounds, was waiting impatiently. Right
next to him was a huge microscope, through which Doctor Fawn was looking,
examining a sample of his blood, while Doctor Lavender, head of Cloudbase’s
Research and Development Centre, and Captain Magenta were working at a nearby
table, studying the device inserted inside the Bible, and consulting between
themselves. Captain Blue and Captain
Ochre were also present as observers, standing next to Fawn, and impatiently
waiting to see what results the research had turned up concerning their friend
and colleague’s appalling situation.
To
say that Scarlet was not in a good mood was putting it mildly.
As
far as he was concerned, nothing was going right; he was still a three-inch-high midget, but now, of all the
humiliations, he was out of proper
clothes to wear. His uniform had taken
quite a beating during his adventure in the vents, so he had been forced to
take it off. He was now wearing a kind
of tunic that Blue had improvised for him, made of a piece of handkerchief with
a hole cut in it for his head, and tied around the waist with a rather-too-long
strip of the same fabric.
The oh-so-tiny uniform
desperately needed a good cleaning before it could be worn again. Rhapsody Angel had volunteered to wash it,
stating that she didn’t really trust the Laundry Room not to lose it, if it was
put in with a regular load of washing.
Since she couldn’t be present in Sickbay while
people were attempting to find a way to get Scarlet back to his rightful size –
at least, not without the risk of revealing their relationship – Rhapsody was
feeling rather powerless, and welcomed the opportunity to make herself useful. Scarlet was also only too pleased to accept
her offer, considering that that uniform might be the only decent thing he had to wear, if the efforts to bring him back
to his normal size took much longer. He missed Rhapsody, but in a way was also
grateful that she could not be there.
He couldn’t bear the look on her face when she saw him in this
too-vulnerable form – he had seen it earlier, and although she was trying to
present a brave façade, she could not hide her distress from him. He could also see a very similar expression
on all of his friends’ faces – Blue’s especially, whose sympathy and compassion
were so very obvious…
And perhaps... a
certain amount of amusement? Scarlet pondered. He had seen a peculiar spark in Blue’s eyes earlier - and he wasn’t all that sure that he had
not seen the same – ever so brief – in
Rhapsody’s eyes either.
Do I
REALLY want to know what that was all about?
On
the same line of thought, Scarlet barely could tolerate to be yet again
considered an object of curiosity, and
to be treated like a guinea pig, by Fawn – whom he knew, however, to have only
his best interests at heart – but
especially by Lavender, whose inquisitive mind was only fascinated by whatever
scientific information such a situation presented to him. At least, Scarlet knew he could fully count
on Edward to actually do everything in his power to help him. After all, he was his friend…
“It’s
a fine mess you’ve got yourself into this time, Captain.”
Hearing
Fawn’s grunted remark, Scarlet came out of his fugue and raised his head,
furrowing his brows in protest and glaring at Fawn, who was still looking
through his microscope.
Some friend…
“Me?!” Scarlet lashed out in surprise. “What are you saying, Doc? That I put myself into this situation on
purpose? Need I remind you that I am the victim, here! I had my leg nearly torn off by a mouse,
and…”
He
was suddenly interrupted by the loud guffaw of Captain Ochre; Blue looked a
little embarrassed by the obviously amused attitude displayed by his compatriot
and was nudging him with his elbow to try to shut him up. Since he had come into the room a good
half-hour before, to see what was going on, Ochre had tried to keep quiet – but it was obviously too much of a temptation
for him not to say anything and have
a good laugh at Scarlet’s expense.
Scarlet
knew Ochre well enough to suspect it was his colleague’s own way of hiding his
own discomfort and concern for a friend.
Maybe he was attempting to make the situation less strained. However, even knowing that didn’t help to
calm Scarlet’s fiery temper in the slightest. He doesn’t have to try so hard, though… Scarlet’s temper rose one
degree.
“And
what are you laughing at?” he asked angrily, lashing out at Ochre.
“You
should have heard yourself,” Ochre answered, wiping a tear from his eye. “‘I
had my leg nearly torn off by a mouse’,” he said, giving an almost perfect
imitation of Scarlet’s English accent.
“My God, this is too funny…”
“There
was nothing funny about it,” Scarlet
complained forcefully. “If you had been
in my place, Ochre, you wouldn’t think so, either!”
“Sorry,”
Ochre said, with an expression that plainly said that he was anything but
repentant. “I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t
all that peachy for you down there… in the vents.” He obviously had tremendous
trouble not to laugh, and was hiding his smile behind his hand, in a falsely
thoughtful posture. “Say, it must have
been interesting too. While you were
gazing into the Amber Room, you had a good vantage point from the floor – I
think Symphony was wearing a skirt, did you…”
“OCHRE!”
Blue objected loudly, suddenly worried that his colleague would go too far in
his train of thought.
“I’m
kidding!” Ochre said with a mischievous smile.
“Say,
why are you here, exactly?” Blue asked with irritation. “Don’t you have anything to do, anywhere you
have to go – anyone else you might
want to pester?” The tone was becoming
insistent, but Ochre affected not to notice.
“I’m
here for moral support,” he said in a casual tone.
“Well,
you’re not helping any!” Magenta said from his station.
“Don’t
listen to him,” Scarlet called in Magenta’s direction. “And concentrate on finding a solution to my
problem.”
“I’m
afraid it’s not as easy as it sounds, Captain,” Doctor Lavender then remarked,
standing up straight and removing his glasses.
“Captain Magenta and I have been studying this device for several hours,
and have not even come close to discovering how
it actually works.”
“Do
you really have to find out how it
works?” Scarlet said irately. “All you
really need to know is the right combination to get me back to normal size,
isn’t that right?”
“No,”
was the combined answer from Lavender, Magenta and Fawn alike. The latter still had his eyes glued to the
eyepiece of his microscope.
“What
do you mean, no?”
“We
mean that if we don’t actually know how it works, and considering we don’t have
any idea of the combination that was used to ‘downsize’ you, it might be
dangerous to try any combination on
you and see if it will work,” Fawn explained.
“What
danger could there be?” Blue asked.
“He’s indestructible, yes?”
Lavender
made a sucking sound. “Oh, well… that might be part of the problem, you
see… If we get the combination wrong
and the experiment goes haywire, how would the captain feel if he should end up
as an indestructible and formless mass of flesh, bones and blood?”
There
was a stunned silence, following which Scarlet swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t like
that at all,” he confirmed.
“So,
that’s why we need to take this easy,” Fawn said, still looking into his
eyepiece. “Be patient, Scarlet.”
“Easy
for you to say,” Scarlet mumbled,
scowling. “You’re not the one who
hardly comes up to the knee of a Barbie doll.”
“Let
alone a real life, grown-up woman,” Ochre said with a grin.
“Captain
Ochre,” Doctor Fawn said warningly, “if you are unable to hold your tongue, I
will have you forcibly removed. We need to work in peace and quiet and you
are not helping with your idiotic comments!”
Before
Ochre could reply, one way or the other, the door slid open. An elderly man in an electric wheelchair
entered, followed closely by Colonel White.
Everyone stopped what they were doing;
at the sight of the visitors, Scarlet jumped from his box and stood up.
“Colonel
White,” he said in confusion.
“At
ease, Captain,” White said with a gesture.
“I brought you a visitor…”
“Granddad,”
Scarlet said with surprise in his voice.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dear
God in Heaven,” Paul Blake answered, rolling astonished eyes at the sight of
his reduced grandson. “Paul, what on
Earth have you done to yourself? I told
you not to touch that device. Look what it did to you!”
“Now
wait a minute here, Granddad,” Scarlet protested in annoyance, frowning
deeply. “You should know that your
warning came a little too late.”
“A little all right,” Ochre said in an
undertone, chuckling. That won him an
incensed glare from Captain Blue, apparently the only one to have heard
him.
“Did
you know what this device could do?” Scarlet asked as his grandfather stopped
the chair in front of the table.
“Well,
yes… and no, actually,” Paul Blake confessed.
“To tell you the truth, Matthew never told me exactly. I just had some suspicions of what it might
be used for, you see. Rumours going
around the Bishop Department at the time… and some barely concealed comments
made by my superior. They all sounded
ludicrous, really… And I even thought
at some point people were leading me on…
Now I see it was not the case.”
“No,
it certainly is not the case,”
Scarlet mumbled.
“I
had no idea a man could be reduced to that
size,” Blake continued.
“What
size do you reckon the people using that device would go for?” Colonel White
asked.
“Oh…
in what I thought was only banter, my superior mentioned something of about one
to two feet tall, I suppose.”
“Which
is a lot taller than I am at the moment,” Scarlet remarked. “So probably a different combination of the
keys would give a different size.”
“That
seems to be the case,” Lavender approved, leaving his table, and approaching
with Magenta. “We need to find what
numeric code was used, before you were reduced to that size, Captain Scarlet –
and find what numeric code will ‘undo’ the process.”
“Can’t
you remember that code, Captain?” White asked.
Scarlet
sighed. “No, Sir. I’m sorry to say.”
“Sir,”
Captain Blue then added, “Captain Scarlet and I – we punched so many different
keys in so many different orders, it’s simply impossible to recall. I’m afraid I can’t be of any help,
either. I wish I could…”
Blake
sighed. “Well, when I was told earlier
that there was some sort of problem concerning the device, I took the
precaution of bringing this with
me.” He searched in the inside pocket
of his vest, and produced a small black notebook; he handed it to Fawn. “Matthew gave it to me. At the same time he entrusted me with the
device, all those years ago,” he explained as Fawn opened the book to look
inside, with Lavender leaning over his shoulder to get a look too. “It’s filled with graphics, scientific
formulae, notes…”
“…
And what looks like numeric codes,” Lavender murmured, in an interested
tone. “Well, I think this thing might
help us a lot in our research, don’t you think, Doctor Fawn?”
“Do
you reckon?” Blake asked with a brow raised in doubt, and shrugging his
shoulders. “I tried reading that stuff,
it was all Greek to me. Couldn’t help
me to work out how to use the device either.”
“Well,
we might be able to understand it
enough to help your grandson,” Fawn told the old man, with a reassuring
smile. He closed the book, much to the
dismay of Doctor Lavender who was still reading it with absorbed interest. “We
had better get on with it, too,” Fawn continued, turning around. “If you will excuse Doctor Lavender and me…”
“Of
course, Doctor,” White acknowledged with a nod.
“This
is so very interesting,” Lavender said, following as Fawn stepped towards the
other table. “Have you read that note
on the second paragraph, Doctor? So that is how it is done… How fascinating…”
The
rest was lost to prying ears as the two doctors put the book down on the table
and started studying the contents, consulting in low tones and oblivious to
everyone else’s presence. Colonel White turned to Blake.
“I
think we’d better leave our resident scientists to their work, Sir. If I know them, I’m sure they’ll come up
with a solution in no time – and will get your grandson to his regular size,
once they have deciphered the contents of that notebook.”
“I’m
so very sorry about what happened to you, Paul,” Blake said, looking at Scarlet
with a contrite expression. “I’m aware
that this is all my fault…”
“No,
it’s not,” Scarlet reassured him with a smile.
“You couldn’t know what would happen, Granddad. You were right: I shouldn’t have touched that thing, without knowing what it
would do.”
“Well,
you could hardly know that it could
do that to you,” Blake reasoned.
“That’s
a fact,” agreed Scarlet. “So maybe we
should blame it all on a very foolish accident?”
“An
accident that actually had a purpose,” Blue remarked with a smirk. “Let’s face it, Scarlet, if you hadn’t been
reduced in size the way you were, this spying mouse would never have been
discovered in the first place.”
“And
the Mysterons might have succeeded in their threat this time,” Ochre agreed,
with a smile of his own. “But they
failed. All that because Spectrum’s
tiniest hero ever ended up in the same air vents as their diminutive, furry spy
robot…”
“Mouse? Air vents?
Spy robot? What are you all
going on about?” Blake sounded and
looked perplexed, as he looked inquisitively at each officer surrounding
him.
“It’s
a long story, Granddad,” Scarlet said with a deep sigh.
“Indeed,
and a very interesting report it will make, Captain,” White remarked,
permitting himself a slight smile.
“That is – when you’re big enough to use your computer keyboard. In the meantime, I’ll take your grandfather
to the guest quarters, and bring him up
to date with what you and your colleagues have been telling me of what
happened. I believe you’ll be quite
busy, in a short while, when the good doctors attempt to ‘enlarge’ you.”
“To
six foot one, not an inch shorter,” Scarlet said in a gloomy tone. “At least… I hope they’ll get it right and
it’ll be over soon!”
Following
the departure of Colonel White and Paul Blake, and then of Captains Blue and
Ochre, Doctors Lavender and Fawn, with the help of Captain Magenta, became very
absorbed in studying the notebook Blake had handed them. A few hours after that, they felt confident
enough to put their newly acquired knowledge to work and attempted three
experiments to get Captain Scarlet back to his own size.
All
of them, unfortunately, failed miserably.
The
‘Minimiser’ – as they learned it was called, from the notes in the book – did
produce a display of blinding light and sound, as the book said it would – and
as Scarlet had reported from his previous experiment – but nothing actually
happened. Much to Scarlet’s growing
frustration, but to Fawn’s actual relief.
“Back
to square one,” Scarlet muttered dejectedly , sitting down heavily on his box,
after the last failed attempt.
“Don’t
be a pessimist,” Doctor Fawn said encouragingly. “At least, you didn’t end up a pulsating lump of living flesh…”
Scarlet
grimaced. The Cloudbase medical chief
officer had not hidden his concern during the tests that they might go terribly
wrong and something dreadful might happen to Scarlet. Going against Lavender’s wishes to go right ahead with the
experiments, he had insisted that a series of trials were run on inanimate objects
– a baseball, a piece of cloth, even a few fruits. The objects had not been reduced, unfortunately, but at least
they had stayed intact. And Fawn had
finally agreed to submit Scarlet to the effects of rays produced by the
device. After all, the results might be
more encouraging with a living person…
It
was not to be the case.
And
it had not done anyone’s morale any good. Especially Scarlet’s.
“That
should have worked,” Lavender had proclaimed, checking in the notebook. “Are we
sure we have the right number sequences?”
“Those
we tried seemed the most likely,” Fawn sighed.
“Maybe
Green and I should get together,” Magenta offered, “and run a program listing
all possibilities of number sequences.
Taking into account the information in the notebook, we’re bound to find
one that works.”
“It
might take an awfully long time!”
Scarlet reflected. “It sounds like
playing the lottery.”
“We might not have much choice,” Fawn
retorted. “And we could program it into
one of the medical robots, to keep pressing sequence after sequence, to make it
quicker…”
“Still with me playing guinea pig,
though,” Scarlet grunted.
“It
might not be a solution,” Lavender intervened, thoughtfully. “Maybe one of the sequences we tried was the
good one. We might be overlooking
details, a few relevant data that we should have taken into consideration. Like
an outside source, maybe… that might have caused the process to fail.”
“Like
what?” asked Fawn.
“How
about nuclear radiation emanating from Cloudbase’s reactors?” Lavender
offered. “I mean, it could have caused
an interference that might have somehow changed – or temporarily disrupted –
the normal miniaturising effects – or even the enlargement effects.”
“I
doubt it very much,” Magenta retorted.
“Considering that this base runs round the clock, with state-of-the art
equipment that need to be
ultra-efficient, and that people are living here twenty-four hours a day,
Cloudbase uses the cleanest form of nuclear energy you can imagine. Our
reactors are under constant watch.
Possibility of nuclear emission – however faint – is close to zero. Nothing to cause any
harm to personnel or equipment. So I
can imagine that it would not affect
the Minimiser either.”
“How
about solar flares?” Lavender asked.
“Don’t
you think they were taken into consideration when they put this base up here,
in the stratosphere?” Fawn remarked in turn.
“Cloudbase has been equipped with the best solar shields you can
imagine.”
“I
don’t mean your ‘regular’, run-of-the-mill flares, Doctor – I mean something
huge, that might have disrupted the device, even temporarily – of course, one
would have to admit that it would have also been felt throughout the base – it would have disrupted the instruments
too.”
“And
we would have known about it,” Magenta remarked.
Lavender
went pensive. “Cloudbase is equipped
with a cloaking device, yes?”
“Stealth
capacity?” Scarlet said. “Yes… The best
there is, actually.”
“So
the base can move about without being spotted by every radar and satellite in
the world,” Magenta continued.
Lavender
nodded slowly. “If it had been turned
on at the moment the Minimiser reduced Captain Scarlet…”
“It
could have caused a magnetic interference,” Magenta admitted.
But
Fawn shook his head dismissively. “But
Sickbay is normally informed every time the stealth capacity is used. Because we need to shield our equipment
against the effects of the stealth. I
don’t remember having received such a call.
I will have to check the logs.”
He stared meaningfully in Scarlet’s direction. “And there is Captain Scarlet’s unique physiology we might also
consider...”
Scarlet
scowled. “It didn’t stop me from being miniaturised to begin with,” he noted.
“No…
but we do know that the average size this device usually reduced its subjects
to was between one and two feet tall,” Lavender remarked in turn. “Your
Mysteronised and retrometabolic body does generate a faint, nearly undetectable
radiation that might cause havoc with the Minimiser’s circuits.”
“The
same kind of radiation that causes Scarlet – or a Mysteron – to be impervious
to X-rays,” Magenta said with a slow nod.
“Exactly,”
Lavender confirmed. “Now to find out if
it has caused irreversible damage to the effects of the device… “
“Let’s
not jump to conclusions,” Fawn cut in suddenly, seeing that Scarlet was getting
ready to protest Lavender’s assumption.
“It might be that this radiation – or whatever else might have caused
possible interference with the Minimiser –
is simply delaying the reversal effects. Scarlet might still regain his size with time.”
“What do you
mean, ‘with time’?” Scarlet asked with a frown.
“It is possible,”
Lavender agreed, not listening to the worried captain.
“And another
thing: what if it was possible for
Scarlet’s own retrometabolism to eventually have the opposite effect?” Fawn continued.
“You
mean it might actually bring him back
to his normal size?” Magenta queried.
“Granted,
the miniaturisation effect is not exactly
an injury or an illness – but it’s also not a normal state for Scarlet.”
“No
– but it’s not far off of one,” Lavender retorted.
“Can
I disagree with this assertion?” Scarlet tried again. “It is not normal for
me.”
“The
way the Minimiser works,” Lavender continued, addressing Fawn and ignoring
Scarlet’s interruption, “is by somehow ‘shrinking’ the space of the constituent
atoms of the object or person – as far as we were able to ascertain. In that
case, it’s not taking it very far off
‘normal’ if the subject is two feet tall instead of six.”
“Try
three inches,” Scarlet corrected.
“Still,
the spaces between the atoms are not the same,” Fawn observed. “And if the retrometabolism should consider
that ‘abnormal’… It might bring Scarlet back to size by
itself.”
“Why
didn’t it do so already?” Lavender asked.
“Good
question,” Scarlet concurred.
“I
don’t know – retrometabolism is still a
mystery in itself. We’re still unsure
of how it works. Maybe it needs a
‘boost’ – something to trigger it.”
“Like
Captain Scarlet being injured?” Magenta remarked.
“I’m
stopping you right there, gentlemen,” Scarlet suddenly interrupted, unsure if
he liked the direction this conversation was taking. “I have been injured – a number of times already – since I’ve
been in this condition. Remember – open
fracture of the leg and loss of blood?
And that was only the last injury I received.”
“Now
then,” Lavender remarked, as if finally acknowledging Scarlet’s presence, “it
seems that refutes your theory, Doctor Fawn…”
“Maybe
not, Doctor. Maybe that, just as in the
case of your ‘solar flare’ or ‘stealth field’ theories, the re-growth effect
might be delayed, for some reason.”
Lavender
shrugged. “You are the expert on
Scarlet’s physiology, Doctor. So, what
do you propose we do?”
“Tonight,
I propose nothing.”
“Doc?”
a concerned Scarlet queried.
“It
is late,” Fawn continued, looking at his watch. “Past one in the morning.
We’ve been at this for hours, without a break. And I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered. It’s been a long day, and I can’t think
straight anymore. I suggest we call it
a night, and continue tomorrow.”
Scarlet
didn’t seem too pleased with the suggestion and was looking down, with a scowl
on his face – like a kid who didn’t get the toy he wanted so much. It made Captain Magenta smile, almost
despite himself.
“You
probably need sleep as much as we do, Paul,” he noted in a affable tone. “You
must be dead on your feet – if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“I
hate to admit it, but it’s true I’m shattered,” Scarlet answered with a
sigh. “To the point where I will
probably need a whole night of sleep.”
“All
right then, I will ask a nurse to prepare you a room,” Fawn interjected,
fearing the normally uncooperative captain would change his mind.
“Don’t
worry, Paul,” Magenta offered reassuringly to Scarlet. “We will
get you back to normal.”
“Of
course we will,” Lavender concurred.
“You couldn’t be in better hands, Captain. Me with my scientific and electronic knowledge… Doctor Fawn as
the definite expert on your physiology…
And Captain Magenta with his… er…”
“…
Wits?” Magenta offered with a raised brow.
“Thank
you. We will find a solution of your
problem, Captain Scarlet.”
“For
starters, tomorrow, Green and I will work on that program,” Magenta added. “While the good doctors work on examining other avenues.”
“And
who knows,” Fawn interjected quickly. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong
too. Maybe the effects of the Minimiser
are only temporary and they will wear off eventually, without any help from
us?”
“We’re
bound to find a solution,” Magenta added. “Just wait and see.”
“I
just hope it’ll be soon, Pat,” Scarlet said grimly. “ ‘Cause I will admit – I don’t think I will ever feel
comfortable living in a doll’s house for the rest of my life. For starters, you
can be sure that I would not hear the
end of it from Captain Ochre. And that
is something I would not be able to bear at all, believe me!”
It
was dark in the Sickbay room assigned to Captain Scarlet when Rhapsody Angel
silently pushed the door and entered, carefully tiptoeing so not to make any
sound at all. There was only a small
lamp, on the table right next to the bed, barely lighting a corner of the room,
where a man was sitting on a chair, almost dozing. He straightened up when he saw the visitor and acknowledged her
presence with a nod.
“How
is he?” Rhapsody asked in a whisper.
“Asleep,”
Captain Blue answered, standing up.
“Which is more than I’ve been able to do myself. Lucky dog…”
“I
would hardly call him ‘lucky’, Adam,” the young woman remarked with a faint
smile.
They
approached the bed cautiously. It had
not been turned down, and on top of it, there was a cardboard shoebox, which
had been lined with several pieces of cloth, to act as mattress and
blankets. His head resting on one that
was rolled to form a pillow, and
covered by another, Captain Scarlet was sleeping peacefully and soundly. He didn’t even stir at their approach.
“Sleeping
like a baby,” Rhapsody acknowledged in a whisper. “I don’t remember having seen him sleep that deeply, except when
he’s regenerating.”
“Or
so stressed out he’s ready to drop with exhaustion,” Blue pointed out. “I can only guess that this present
condition isn’t easy for him to swallow.
Not to mention the ‘experiences’ he had in the vents…”
“Poor
Paul,” Rhapsody sighed. “Even this shoebox is too big a bed for him.”
Blue
smiled faintly. “I’m sure he’s very
mortified with all this – ‘being treated like a guinea pig again – or worse, a toy’, he told me earlier.” He chuckled. “I think the one thing
he might die of would be embarrassment.”
“He’s
a proud man,” Rhapsody concurred. “You
have to put yourself in his shoes.”
Blue
threw up his hands. “Believe me, I do –
and I hope something like that will never
happen to me.”
“I
shouldn’t be surprised that you are staying here, watching over him,” Rhapsody
said with a fond smile. “You’re a good
man, Adam,”
Blue
shrugged. “Hey, he’s my partner – and
more important, he’s my friend. The
fact is, he looks so vulnerable at the moment – almost as much as when he’s
asleep, retrometabolising. Frankly, if
by some odd chance, something were to happen to him, or someone went after him
while he’s that way, I doubt he would be able to defend himself. Even if there’s a guard at the door, I feel
I have to be here. He would do the same
for me.”
“You
can’t help worry about him, can you?”
“No.”
Blue tilted his head to the side. “The
same for you, isn’t it?”
“Of
course,” she answered, shrugging. “I
felt miserable not being able to come
earlier. To stay away from him during
all that time, waiting to see if he
would be all right. I nearly decided
not to give a fig about our secret anymore and actually come over. But I thought twice about it, and I realised that – well, Paul was in good
health – just reduced in size. So he
really didn’t need me to make a fool of myself right there by fretting over
him.”
“It
didn’t stop you from coming here now,
though,” Blue remarked.
“Of
course not – I waited as long as I could.
And I have a cover story, anyway, if someone should wonder what I’m
doing here at this hour of night.”
“You
just finished your stint in the Amber Room and you decided to pay a visit to a
friend before going to bed?”
“Well,
that and…” She smiled and produced from her pocket the tiny grey uniform
that she had taken earlier in order to wash.
It was now clean, dry and neatly folded. “I can always say I brought this back for him to wear when he
wakes up.”
Blue
chuckled. “He’ll be eternally grateful
to you, Dianne. Having nothing more to
wear than a crude tunic made with my… er… handkerchief … is something else that’s upsetting him.
He told me earlier that if he had been reduced to an Action Man or a Ken
size, instead of an action figure’s, at
least he could wear different clothes!”
Blue’s
attention was suddenly attracted by a very faint mumble, coming from the
shoebox on the bed; also hearing it, Rhapsody turned in that direction. By the way the box was moving, it was
obvious that Scarlet was agitating himself in his sleep; indistinct mutterings
were reaching their ears, but they were unable to make out what he was saying.
“Nightmares?”
Rhapsody suggested.
“Must
be dreaming of giant mice,” Blue remarked.
Rhapsody glared at him, but said nothing. He cleared his throat. “I
think we’d better wake him…”
The
two of them stepped closer to the bed, and Blue was wondering how he would
actually be able to wake his friend up,
without being too rough with him in the process, when he noticed the box
was now moving more wildly as Scarlet’s thrashing increased considerably. Now beginning to worry, he leaned down to
peer into the box, and prepared himself to call to his friend loudly – and
stopped, his jaw dropping and his eyes wide open with wonder.
Scarlet had started growing…
Already,
his size had reached the length of his makeshift bed, and as he continued to
grow, the cardboard sides started breaking up.
As they gave out under the pressure applied to them, Scarlet suddenly
opened his eyes, dozy with sleep. He
first noticed Blue and Rhapsody standing over him, gawking with obvious
astonishment, but then, in a split second, he realised something was happening
to him.
The
shoebox finally collapsed underneath him, and dazed and confused, Scarlet
wrestled with what was left of his improvised blankets, as if they were enemies
trying to choke him. They were growing
smaller in his hands by the second, barely enough to cover him now, and he was
still growing, at considerable speed.
He sat up, and in his disorientation, tried to step out of bed. He naturally miscalculated the distance
between his feet and the floor, before Blue and Rhapsody could even stop him.
He fell face first onto the floor, grabbing the bed sheets in an ineffectual
attempt to stop himself, and dragging them along with him. Fortunately for him, he was now big enough
for the fall not to cause him any serious injury.
Sprawled
on the floor, the stress on his body was now so tremendous that he was shaking
like a leaf, and drenched with sweat all over. He was gritting his teeth against the pain and moaning. His head
felt as if it was exploding. Why does it
hurt so much to grow, when I felt next to nothing when I was shrunk? That doesn’t seem right… He tried to
force his eyelids to open but screwed them shut again almost immediately, the
room spinning around him, amplifying the effect of dizziness and vertigo he was
feeling.
It
seemed to take an awfully long time – longer than it actually was. Scarlet barely felt the hands reaching for
him, and the sheet that someone covered his shoulders with; the pain was
finally fading away, and the pressure against his temples vanished. Breathing hard, he rose on one elbow and
finally dared to open his eyes, very carefully.
The
room wasn’t spinning anymore, and there were faces – concerned faces – hovering
in front of him.
Normal-sized faces…
Those
of Rhapsody and Blue.
“Paul?” Rhapsody asked with obvious
apprehension. “Are you all right?”
“I
am,” Scarlet murmured wearily. “I’m back…”
“You
certainly are!” Captain Blue said with a wide grin, squeezing Scarlet’s
shoulder in a friendly fashion. He had a
feeling that his colleague probably preferred Rhapsody’s brand of welcome: she had knelt in front of him, and put her
arms around him to embrace him warmly.
“You
gave us quite a scare,” she told him.
“You don’t know how glad we are to see you back to normal!”
She
kissed him on the lips and he responded to the kiss, but it was brief, and Blue
and Rhapsody helped Scarlet to rise to his still unsteady feet. He swayed momentarily, a wave of sudden
dizziness hitting him; Blue held him up, as Scarlet, shivering, instinctively
gathered the sheet around him to cover himself.
“Whoa,
take it easy, big fella,” the blond captain recommended. “That ‘re-growing’ process you just went
through looked like it was difficult – and painful.”
“It
was,” Scarlet confirmed. “Although I
don’t know if it was normal to be that painful. But hey… I’m back. That’s all that counts.” He looked down at himself, and realised he
was stark naked under the sheet. No wonder I’m cold, he reflected. He wondered what exactly could have
brought him back to size. Did one of
the previous sessions to which he had been subjected finally kick in, after,
according to one of Lavender’s theories, its effects had been delayed by
whatever outside source? Did his
retrometabolism reverse the process?
Or
did the effects of the miniaturisation rays simply wear off?
“I
bet Fawn – and Lavender – will want to run a battery of tests to see how I am,”
he muttered darkly. “I’m so not looking forward to this…”
“Well,
we’ll make sure they will leave you alone for a little while,” Blue
offered. “After all you’ve been through
these last few hours, I think you deserve a good rest.”
“I’m
all for it.” Scarlet was looking
intently in Rhapsody’s direction. There
was a spark in his eyes that Blue had no difficulty interpreting. He gave a slight smirk. Despite Scarlet’s
previous statement, it was fairly obvious that resting was not foremost in his
mind.
Blue
cleared his throat. “I think it would
be best to inform Fawn that you’ve woken up – and that you are now back to your
normal size.”
“Am
I?” Scarlet eyed up his friend,
evaluating the difference in height between the two of them. Blue was already taller than he was, by a good two inches. Scarlet was just making sure that it was still only two
inches. He smiled approvingly. “Yes – I think I’m really back to my
normal size.”
Blue
chuckled. “I’m pretty certain that Fawn
will want to make sure of that,” he asserted.
He looked at Scarlet, then Rhapsody in turn, musing, noting the way they
were looking at each other. Then he
nodded, and gave an encouraging pat to his friend’s shoulder, before moving
towards the door, slowly, still looking at them. “I… think I’ll get a coffee
before going to Fawn… And take my time drinking it. We’ll be back… say, in a
half hour?” Scarlet smiled thankfully
at him, and Blue answered with a smile of his own. “Good to have you back.”
“Good
to be back,” Scarlet answered simply.
“And please, bring me some clothes when you come back – before I freeze
to death!” Blue grinned, and went
out.
Left
alone with his fiancée, Scarlet turned
to her. She was looking up at him, with
eyes as bright as his.
“Half
an hour?” she grimaced.
“A
shame it isn’t an hour…” Scarlet conceded quietly. “I guess there’s limits to how long Adam can wait before telling
Fawn – without risking his just wrath.
At least, we’ll have a few minutes, just the two of us. Alone.”
The
smile on Rhapsody’s lips spoke volumes. “I… brought you this.” She showed him the tiny uniform she still
held in her hand. He chuckled.
“I
don’t think that’s going to fit me now…” he reflected with good humour.
She
gave him a odd look, but didn’t answer to the barely-concealed tease.
She
used her hand to measure herself against him, and nodded thoughtfully, when her
hand reached a certain position near his shoulder. “Does look as if it’s the right spot,” she remarked
matter-of-factly.
“Does
look like it,” he approved, nodding in turn.
“Is
there… a way we can make sure you’re back to your right size again?” Rhapsody
asked, almost innocently.
Scarlet’s
smile broadened as he extended his arms, and brought her against him, holding
her as close as he could, and leaned to kiss her tenderly, longingly.
He
hardly paid heed to the fact that the sheet covering him was now starting to
slide off him. He was just in time to
catch it and wrap it around his hips before it ended up on the floor. Rhapsody caught his movement with her eyes,
and smiled mischievously.
Oh, this was so tempting… But…
“Later,”
he whispered, bringing her close to him once more.
They
exchanged another passionate kiss, and Scarlet grinned inwardly. He wondered
for a fleeting second if he should ask her about red underwear…
The
thought quickly fled his mind.
THE END
Okay,
I will admit it – this is not really a Halloween story, as Halloween has
not been mentioned anywhere in it. But
– you might want to consider this very odd story might find a place in the
Halloween selection because of its weirdness – and that it could be, in fact, a
‘treat AND trick’ tale. Hope it
has been as fun for you to read as it was for me to write.
‘Paul Blake’ was a recurring character of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s
last Supermarionation series, ‘The Secret Service’©, in which he was
‘portrayed’ by the Captain Scarlet puppet – under a brown wig and wearing
spectacles. As it was already
speculated by Century 21 that Paul Blake was Captain Scarlet’s grandfather, I
simply extrapolated that he was his maternal grandfather.
The ‘Minimiser’, of course, also comes from ‘The Secret Service’©,
as it was the tool used by Father Stanley Unwin to reduce secret agent Matthew
Harding to a – ahem! – puppet-sized midget.
‘Thunderbirds©’ fans will also have recognised
in the tiny robotic ‘spy mouse’ featured in this story has been inspire by, and
is an upgraded version of ‘The Mighty Atom’, from the episode of the
same title.
Mike ‘Dinger’ Bell, Captain Scarlet’s batman, was created by Marion
Woods for her story ‘Silent Majority’.
I’m grateful that she let me borrowed him. There is also a mention in this story of Engineer Terracotta,
although the character does not appear – who also is the creation of Siobhan
Zettler for the story ‘Sikako’.
Lieutenant Tan, Captain Forest and Doctor Lavender are my own creations
– they had previously appeared – respectively, in ‘A Question of Trust’
‘Spectrum is White’ and in ‘Parallax View’.
Other characters, except for the original cast of ‘Captain Scarlet
and the Mysterons’©, also are my own.
The ‘robo-vac’ has been inspired by a mention of similar machines in one
of the Captain Scarlet annuals or magazines.
Similar robotic vacuum exist today, although obviously not as
sophisticated as those patrolling the different sections of Cloudbase in this
story. The name ‘robo-vac’ as been suggested by my friend Mary J. Rudy.
My thanks go to Hazel Köhler and Mary J. Rudy for their invaluable help,
notably at beta-reading this text, and to Marion Woods, Siobhan Zettler, Sue
Stanhope, Clya Brown and Caroline Smith for their continuing encouragement and
either suggestions or inspiration.
‘Captain
Scarlet and the Mysterons’ ©, is still the creation of Gerry Anderson and Sylvia
Anderson, and the rights of the classic
series, once owned by Century 21, ITC/Polygram and now by Carlton International. I do not own any of those rights, and
simply had borrowed the characters for a fraction of time in order to write
this story.
Thanks to Gerry and Sylvia
Anderson and to all who have been involved in the original series, which still
provides us today with much joy and entertainment.
Happy Halloween 2005.
Chris Bishop.
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comments? Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM HEADQUARTERS
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