---Chapter 2
Lenny was furnished with a notepad and a pencil, while Dansei instructed him to look as useless and wimpy as possible. His skinny build and watery hair made this not too difficult, though the Ninja kept telling him that the expression in his eyes was too hard and thoughtful.
“Not so much think!” Dansei kept repeating, pointing a finger at his own head. “You are just a dumb school boy coming to report something trivial, that you think is important, to the council. Look stupid!”
Lenny tried, but he had to admit, privately, that he wasn’t very good at it. When Dansei was at least partially satisfied, and had straightened his uniform out as best as he could, they left the other four in the empty lot and essayed out towards the capital building together. Dansei walked a step ahead, shoulders square and face showing only duty-bound concentration. Lenny tried very hard to look stupid.
It did not take them long to cross the huge, empty courtyard and mount the cement steps to the main doors of the capital building. These doors were unlocked and, in fact, opened themselves when anyone came near. The lowest story of the building was open to the public, filled with tourist attractions, friendly secretaries and other simple propaganda. With his cap announcing ‘Special Police’ Dansei was able to sweep right through it.
In the back, they came to a room with a more serious looking male secretary and two elevators in the back. The Ninja marched up to the desk.
“I have a young man here who wishes to speak to the chairman of the city council. he has important information on a wanted subject,” he announced, “is chairman Hrand in his office at the moment?”
Jax had supplied them with a few useful names and positions. The secretary nodded and pointed a thumb at a hall leading off of the room in the back.
“Use your badge to enter the back elevator. Hrand is in.”
Then the secretary paused and added with a suspicious squint of his eyes, “though I would expect you to report to your superior directly, with that sort of information.”
“I have my orders.” Dansei returned his look with a level one. “Do you want to question them? I can have my superior explain them to you, if you wish.”
The secretary started a little, glancing around as if to make sure that no one had overheard them. “No, no...everything is fine. Go on through.”
Dansei gave a condescending nod and beckoned to Lenny to follow. They went down the hall, through a door marked ‘restricted’ and into a room with a third elevator. There was a sort of podium next to it, with a slot for scanning a card of some sort, a few electronic devices and what looked like a security camera on it.
“Do you have a badge?” Lenny whispered, finding that the doors of the elevator would not open automatically.
Dansei nodded, reaching into his pocket to pull out a wallet. In it was the police man’s badge, a thin, rectangular piece of plastic with designs imprinted on it, along with the words, 'Special Police’ in magenta.
“Step up to the podium and slide it through that slot.”
The Ninja followed his instructions, slipping the car quickly through the crack. There was a beeping noise, followed by a flash of light from the camera. A second later a synthesized voice murmured, “facial recognition failed. Please try again and stand still in front of the camera.”
“Great.” Lenny shook his head in despair. “It has a recognition camera. You have to look like the right police man for it to let you through”
Dansei’s eyes became thoughtful slits, angled on his round face. “That’s bad. Is there a way to trick it, or perhaps pick the lock?”
“Please try again.” The voice repeated firmly.
“I don’t know...” Lenny moved over to look at the controls on the podium. There was a button to call for help, but they didn’t want that. There was a switch to turn the whole thing’s power on and off, but that would not make the elevator work. Then he noticed that there was also a connection port on the computer box, an electrical connection of a sort that he recognized.
“Wait a minute, maybe I can pick it electronically.” Lenny made sure that no one was coming and opened up his left wrist, choosing the matching wire end.
Dansei stared at him oddly, eyes sliding down to his opened arm. Turning red, Lenny realized that the Ninja had not known before that he was cybernetically enhanced. Neither Jackal nor Dansei had yet been told of it.
“It’s a long story,” Lenny hastened to say, reaching over to stick the connector into its place. “I’m not really a machine, I just have some mechanical parts.”
Dansei nodded once, in acceptance if not understanding. “Be careful.”
‘Feeling’ his way along the wire, Lenny engaged with the security computer. There was no screen to read out what was going on, so he closed his eyes and let the read-out play through his mental components. They hissed a little from the damage he had received when they were struck by lightening, but still functioned. The computer wanted a picture of the correct police officer to be played in the camera, matching all of the details that had been stored in its data banks. Lenny found an emergency bypass, which he activated immediately. But that brought him to a security code which needed to be entered. He tried to find the answer within the computer’s own storage, but was denied access. It began forcing him back to the code input, demanding that he enter one.
When he hesitated, the computer issued a warning. If a code was not entered in ten seconds, it would sound an alarm and treat him as an intruder.
Frantically, Lenny tried to shut it off or back out. He could not disengage: it forced him to stay focused on the security code. He could not even open his eyes now, or pull the cord away. The fuzziness in the back of his mind began to crackle.
Five seconds. What could the code be? He tried a random number and it failed. The seconds kept counting down. Two. He tried a handful of various words and phrases, all having to do with Special Police. Nothing worked. One. Zero.
Alarm, alarm, unauthorized entry. Alarm, alarm, security override. Repulse hackers.
Lenny felt a shock travel along the wire up his arm. Blue sparks irrupted in his mind and the fuzziness flared. His head filled with explosions of sparkling electricity.
He did not realize that he had cried out until he felt a hand yank him away from the computer and another put over his mouth to smother the cry. Blinking away sparks, he saw Dansei pulling him away from the podium with an anxious look in his dark eyes. Lenny clamped his mouth shut and staggered against the wall, trying to blink away the bluish mist that had fallen over the world.
Glitch.
“Th-thanks,” he stammered to the Ninja, who had stepped away from him with a wary look. “Something went wrong...it was trying to kill me.”
There was a sound of footsteps coming towards them down the hall. A long knife materialized in Dansei’s hands from his sleeve. Lenny realized for the first time that the alarm had not only been in his head. Somewhere out in the other room, an electronic chime was going off. He had awoken the bee’s nest.
Lenny began, automatically, to arm his energy cannon, before remembering what had happened when he tried to use it last time. It had almost shorted out his entire frame. Now it would have been even worse, he guessed, as the fizzling in his mind had turned into a decided crackling and the world was still a little misty.
Glitch.
Lenny gave an uncontrollable shiver, both of his hand compartments popping open without his meaning them to. He tried to shut them quickly, but just then the door slammed open and a group of Special Police burst in.
Dansei attacked as soon as the first one had come through the door, swirling the knife up to slash the creature’s throat open. Purple ooze coated his knife as he whirled towards the next one. But there was too many of them coming. Soon he would be overwhelmed by an oncoming tide of police men with better weapons. Lenny could not do a thing.
Then, just before Dansei’s knife touched the second one, something happened. All of the Special Police froze in place, flickered and disappeared. The Ninja ducked back against the wall, too surprised to react in any other way. Lenny managed to force his hands back into place on the end of his wrists as he stared at the empty hallway in astonishment.
A second later, a whirling noise seemed to split the air. Everything shivered, tilted and fell back into place. The world felt oddly different.
“Someone...something must have incapacitated the Power Core,” Lenny gasped hoarsely, realizing what had happened. There was only one reason the Special Police would have disappeared in that way, like the time he had hit Mendo Drann and the creatures had flickered out. But this time, the whole world had seemed to change afterwards. He wondered if the Power Core was not simply knocked out. Perhaps the Central Power’s grip on the world had been loosened.
That was when Lenny fell to the floor unconscious.
---
Jax felt the change when the world shifted. At first he thought that something had attacked him invisibly and jumped up, looking around wildly. Then he realized that his friends were also looking around in surprise. They had all felt it.
Amber shook her head in disbelief. “That smear on the wall over there...it just disappeared!”
“What do you mean?” Jax spun around to look at where she was pointing at the wall behind him. It was just a plain, cement wall with old graffiti on it, nothing special.
“There was a purple smear on the wall, from the corruption.” Amber got up from the ground where she had been sitting and moved over to run her manufactured right hand down the wall with a soft sigh of pneumatic pistons. “But as soon as that tremor happened it went away.”
“Really?” Jax came over to look at it too, then ran to the end of the gravel lot and looked out at the street. He gazed all around the town, before throwing his hands up in the air above him. “They’re all gone! All of the streaks have just disappeared!”
“And look,” Soleeryn put in quietly, pointing upwards, “the sky is blue.”
They all tilted their heads back to stare at the sky as if it were a new idea.
“This can only mean one thing. Don’t you see? The Power Core has been defeated! Come on, into the capital building!”
Without waiting to make plans or get an agreement, Jax threw down his hoverboard and blasted across the street, over the square towards the glittering pyramid of gold in the center of town.
“Wait!” Grummage called out after him, “there might still be enemies around, you idiot!”
He sighed and kicked a stone as Jax did a jump up onto the banisters of the capital building’s stairs, slid along them and disappeared inside.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Phooey, he never listens to anyone. Well, come on, we have to follow him now.”
And they all three started (much more cautiously) across the square towards the huge building.
Meanwhile Jax had burst into the main reception room of the lowest story. A polite secretary there was looking distractedly towards a back room, where an alarm seemed to be going off. She barely glanced around as Jax put his hoverboard away and strode past. The next clerk asked Jax where he was going, but he just shouted back 'to find some friends!’ and kept going.
Phones were ringing on desks. The alarm chimes were still going off. A regular police officer stood looking down at a spilled cup of coffee on the floor, face pale with shock. Jax made his way unerringly back to the last room with the two elevators and hallway leading to a third, private one where Lenny and the Ninja had gone before. The secretary here was standing at his desk, mouth hanging open as he stared down the hallway. The hall appeared empty to Jax, except for a closed door at the far end, so he did not know what the clerk was looking at with such surprise.
“Excuse me.” He came up and rapped on the desk with his knuckles. The clerk jerked towards him, blinking wildly.
“They just disappeared! The Special Police. There was a whole squad of them and they just disappeared.”
“Do tell.” Jax grinned. That was more proof that the Power Core had been defeated. Now he only had to find his friends and congratulate them. And ask how they had done it, of course.
The secretary tried to get a hold on himself. It was a struggle, as seeing the Special Police disappear in front of him had been unnerving. He was hardly thinking straight at the moment. “Do you...what do you want, young man? We are having a very trying time here right now. Unless it’s important...?”
“I’m looking for some friends of mine,” Jax explained, “a dark-haired little fellow wearing a Special Police uniform and a guy only a few years older than me, with a silver jumpsuit. They came in here about fifteen minutes ago. Have you seen them?”
As if in answer, the door at the end of the hall swung open and two figures came into sight. One was Dansei, helping along a figure which was apparently Lenny. He was leaning heavily on the Ninja and wandering in his steps, barely keeping on his feet.
“That’s them!” Jax shot past the startled clerk to run up to his friends, grabbing Lenny by the free arm to help hold him up, while Dansei came to a stop.
“Len, what’s wrong with you? Did you get hurt in the battle? Did the Power Core do this to you?”
Lenny shook his head, blinking his eyes as if they were blurred. When Jax looked into them, he saw strange rings of glowing blue and metallic silver showing where the iris should have been.
“Tried to hack a computer...it fought back. Sounded an alarm. I don’t know what happened. Someone else must have defeated the Power Core.”
“We were in the middle of a fight with the Special Police,” Dansei explained, “but then they just disappeared. I killed one: the others went with a puff of wind. Your friend fell onto the ground as if fainting. But he has no injuries.”
“It’s his electronics acting up again.” Jax gazed at his friend with worry. “We really need to get him some help. Maybe bring him to Dr. Devi.”
While they were talking, the clerk had staggered over to his desk phone and was trying to get security. But the whole building was in a state of shock and upheaval. No regular security guards could be found and many of the inhabitants of the building were simply running about in surprise, asking questions of each other and looking for the Special Police which had been everywhere in the building not long before. No one had time to listen to the clerk’s report of three strangers acting suspiciously on the ground floor.
“I don’t understand.” Dansei shook his head wearily. “He is full of metal and mechanical pieces like an automaton. But it does not matter right now: you take him. I must find our other companions. They are still somewhere in the building.”
Lenny straightened, pushing Jax’s hands away with a shake of his head. “I’m alright. It was just the suddenness of the shock which did me in earlier. We can all go look for Patch, Raggsy and Jackal.”
Jax did not quite believe him, but he gave in for the moment. They tried to question the frantic clerk, but all he said was that prisoners were always taken to the tenth floor, eventually. He seemed too shaken up to say anything else, and they heard him continually repeating under his breath, “a whole squad of Special Police. Disappeared!”
“I guess we try the tenth floor.” Jax led the way over to one of the regular elevators, which did not require a badge or facial scan to be opened. It took a few moments for the elevator to become available and slide down to them. It was under heavy use. Three men dressed in business suits ran out, pushing roughly passed the boys and Dansei before disappearing towards the entrance. Lenny had just stepped into the elevator and Jax was about to follow him when Grummage, Amber and Soleeryn hurried up.
“What’s going on?” they all three demanded. Jax ushered them into the elevator as he explained all that had happened. As he talked, he punched the button for the tenth floor and they shot up into the air.
“My,” Soleeryn gasped, putting a hand against the wall to steady herself. “Are we going up?”
“Yes, it’s a quicker way to travel to different stories, called an elevator,” Jax told her absently. He was still watching Lenny, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, staring off into space. Every once in a while he gave a little shiver or gasp, though he tried to hide it. There was something gravely wrong with him, no matter what he had said. Jax wished that he would be more honest and not stand on his pride so often.
They reached the tenth story and had to hustle out of the elevator so that two men dressed in security guard uniforms could get in.
The doors shut behind them and the elevator slid away. Jax looked around to see what sort of place he had come to. They were standing on a landing with a door off to either side of them and a long hall in front, leading to what looked like a reception room with an overturned desk in it. The doors to either side were stout, wood-paneled affairs. Dansei had already glided over to put his ear to one door on the side, listening intently. After a minute he shook his head and tried the door, but it was locked.
“I do not hear anyone in there. Let me listen at the other one.” He crossed the landing and put his ear to the opposite door. After squinting for a few minutes he crept over to whisper to Jax. “There is someone in there. Tied, perhaps, as it is not moving much. Just shifting on a chair and making grunting noises.”
“Maybe it’s one of our friends.” Amber was listening in on the conversation. “Can we find something to force the door open? A crowbar, perhaps?”
Jax reached into his coat and drew out an object that looked almost like a television’s remote controller. It was rectangular, thin and about as long as his hand.
“This is an electronic lock-picker, made by Spy Gizmoz. It should work on this door as well as electrically locked ones. Spy Gizmoz is great,” he explained with a grin. Moving up to the door, Jax put the end of the device up against the keyhole. There was a whirring and buzzing noise, followed by a soft beeping sound. A few seconds later, he was pulling the door open.
“See, nothing to--”
He stopped, breaking the words off short. Inside was a small, windowless room with cream walls and chocolate trim. The only furniture was an empty wheelchair parked in one corner and an armchair in the other. Bound in the armchair, a gag in his mouth, was an elderly man.
Jax’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. He stood staring for a long moment, while the man in the chair had stopped struggling and was staring back. Jax dashed into the room, one word breaking from his throat in a raw shout, “Iax!”
---
Though most of the ornaments had disappeared, Patch still thought that they might find some items of 'use’ in the fancy office room. Shoving the limp carcass of Omngox back on the wheeled chair, Patch began to methodically break open the desk drawers and search them. In the largest, bottom one, he found their weapons being held hostage and redistributed them fairly.
Jackal looked uneasily from the pirate towards the door. There were noises going on out there, noises that he did not like. Feet thumping up and down the floor. People shouting to one another. He listened as footsteps came towards the door, bracing himself for action if it was more attackers. But it was just the secretary from the reception room outside. He burst open the door, jumped in, stumbled to a stop and stared at Omngox over Patch’s bent back with an expression of horror.
“He’s dead!” The secretary screamed in a high-pitched whistle like a steam-train, before turning and running out of the door again. Jackal let out a relieved sigh and went to close the door again.
Raggsy was scrubbing a claw speculatively up and down his furry stomach, tail held carefully in his other hand. After a moment he commented, “ya know, guys, we might want to get out of this room soon. It’s not very safe in here, with that dead man pointin’ his fingers at us, so to speak.”
“Just a moment, just a moment.” Patch yanked out a drawer that had been locked, wood splintering with sharp cracking noises. He dug through it on top of the desk, spilling items left and right. Jackal exchanged a look with Raggsy and they both shrugged. Moving over to the window, Jackal noticed that the sky had turned blue again. It was nice to see a blue sky, instead of one tainted by the purple corruption. He tilted his head back and leaned it against the window, staring up at the natural azure dome.
Outside the door, somewhere beyond the reception room, a voice suddenly screamed, “Iax!”
All three of the escaped prisoners jumped. Raggsy dropped his tail and hurried towards the door, calling over his shoulder, “I know that voice. That’s Jax!”
“Aye, you’re right.” Patch crammed a few shiny items into his pocket from the drawer and ran after him, while Jackal trailed silently behind.
Outside the door, they ran around the tipped-up desk of the hysterical clerk and came out of the hall next to the elevator. There, crowding into a small room to the side, was not only Jax but all of their traveling companions. Jax and Dansei had just untied and taken the gag from a figure on a chair inside the room. He had thin, white hair cut stiffly short, stooped shoulders that had once been robust and an old, narrow face full of harsh lines. It was a face that once must have looked much like Jax’s, with a narrow chin and high cheek bones, but was now worn by the heavy trample of life.
His voice was high and querulous as he cried, “Jax! What are you doing here? I’ve been spending all of my time making sure that they didn’t find you.”
“It’s safe now, you old curmudgeon,” Jax explained, kicking the wheelchair so that it rolled over by the seat. “And we’ve come to rescue you. What were you doing to make them tie you up, chewing on the walls?”
Iax reached up and slapped him on the face. “You don’t speak to your elders that way, son. I just broke all of the furniture, that’s why. I was trying to escape so that they couldn’t lure you here with me!”
Jax turned red from the slap, but said nothing. Reaching down, he pulled his father upright and helped him into the wheelchair. Everyone stood clear as he began to push Iax out of the room.
“I guess it’s just too bad for you that I came here. You might have hoped to escape me by getting captured Pops, but you know how stubborn I am. I always show up where I’m least wanted.”
Iax turned his head at an awkward angle to look up at him, staring for a long moment before saying in a quieter, husky voice, “but I am glad that you’re here now. Where have you been all this time?”
Jax stopped pushing and let out a sigh, closing his eyes and dropping a hand on Iax’s shoulder. “all over the universe, Pops. And even beyond it.”
Meanwhile, the others had caught sight of the three escaped prisoners, who were still standing watching the scene from behind. There was cries of greetings and surprise on either side, Amber running up to the Ratperson to say, “Raggsy! Did they hurt you?”
“Not much.” Raggsy gave her a rakish grin, holding up the tip of his tail. “Just bent my tail a liddle, but it’s not bad. See?”
“Poor Raggsy, it’s broken. Who did this to you?”
“Just some non-exis’tant police men. Heh heh, they all disappeared when Patch killed Omngox.”
Asking questions, chattering and bantering, the whole group made its way back to the elevator and down to the lowest story. Everything was going oddly quiet in the capital building now, as the problems settled out. The travelers left as quickly as they could, hurrying away into the city.
There was a feeling of difference to everything outside. It could not be attributed to the change in the color of sky alone, or the absence of purple scars on the buildings. It was as if the air was clearer, easier to breath and less oppressive. There were no more streaks of strange color on the buildings, only a few cracks where the smears had eaten into them. Those could soon be fixed.
Some people were standing around looking at the cracks, or pointing out places where the corruption had disappeared from. Other inhabitants hardly seemed to notice the difference, still walking, running and driving about their business in the city.
“Whew,” Jax said after twenty minutes of pushing the wheelchair with his father in it. “We need to find some sort of transportation. It will take us until the middle of the night to walk home, this way.”
Looking up, Patch noticed that the sun was starting to slide down towards the horizon. “Aye, it will be time to turn in before long. And I’m ready for it. But we wouldn’t all fit in one of those flying carriages like we rode here in.”
“Stop at the bus station, then,” Iax grumbled, “all you people can fit in a bus, I hope.”
“Good idea.” Jax perked up, shoving the wheelchair along quicker. Soon they came to a round, covered structure standing next to the road, with a large, red button on the inside wall. Jax slammed it with his fist, before he stood as if waiting.
“What’s that do?” Amber asked.
“Tells the nearest bus driver that we’re waiting here to be picked up.” Jax shrugged. “One should show up in the next ten minutes. Now, let’s hear a little more about how you, Jackal, Patch and Raggsy, defeated the Power Core. Raggsy said that Patch killed it?”
They told the story as they waited for the bus, which was nearer fifteen minutes in coming than ten. When it did come, they saw that it was a tall, rounded vehicle with huge jets supporting it, hovering only a few inches off of the ground. It was painted silver and green, with advertisements in little marked-off squares all down the side. They all piled in, eliciting stares from both driver and passengers. But no one challenged them as they took their seats. This world was used to eccentric oddities.