Mayhem, Chapter Two

4-H-N turned out to be the fastest worker, at any rate. She and Micro-Mallet were skimming secretively through the street-market’s bustling crowds when all of a sudden they chanced upon Flashtease, busy with shopping-bags at a stand selling interplanetary provisions. On such a breezy draughty planet the Mini-Flash had no hope of hiding his bright yellow distinguishing features from 4-H-N. Although that said, she’d been in the Avion Girls Task Force so couldn’t exactly talk.

Bidding Micro-Mallet take to the skies at once the clone skirted Flashtease’s field of vision from far above, flitting in and out of dusty hollows high up in deserted temple towers while ever pinning the unsuspecting one with her eye as he trotted on below. Soon the ramshackle village lay behind him and his small grey and yellow figure was wending its way down a deserted steep-sided valley, but even in wholly vacant airspace 4-H-N did no more than flirt with the periphery of his perception, tucking her shadow safely out of sight as she might have done a petticoat. This had been her element since she was a little girl, and her knowledge of how to navigate it exceeded substantially that of a flightless boy Mini-Flash.

As it happened, 4-H-N liked Flashtease. He had come to her rescue during that chaos at Nottingham Castle, and when their paths crossed fleetingly in the Solidity War they had fought together as friends. It made her uncomfortable to be spying on him now as if he was the crony of some criminal. But if things with Joe really were the way Phoenix and Dylan described, then 4-H-N knew it was time she started pulling her weight. So far she’d been no help. A crisis she was still convinced she’d caused seemed to be growing worse and worse, first Phoenix Prime’s abrupt departure and now Carmilla, having gone after her, mysteriously vanishing without word. If 4-H-N was to make amends and prove herself to her team-mates and kin, then this was one mission where she couldn’t afford to let any of them down.

The so-called secret hideout Contamination had scouted for Joe was a ruinous mansion in the middle of nowhere, built by prosperous colonizers with ill-advised and short-lived notions of being somebody on this forlorn world. Long neglect and the endless scouring of sandstorms had by now stripped away most of the grandeur and swank from this tall creaking pile, but with its shell still more or less intact it lent a roof over the head for its temporary residents, and beneath the rickety awning of what had once been stables their three space-cars were parked. 4-H-N and Micro-Mallet ducked behind a gatepost to watch as Flashtease crossed the courtyard with his bags and disappeared inside.

“Come on, Micro-Mallet, let’s take a look around,” whispered 4-H-N.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Miss?” fretted the robot. “Oughtn’t we just report back to Dylan like he said?”

“Not if we’re going to be proper agents,” she returned firmly. “Don’t get your circuits in a twist, I’m not suggesting we glide right in through the front door. That gloomy old window up by the attic will do!”

“And that’s supposed to untwist my circuits?” Micro-Mallet retorted, but obligingly carried 4-H-N to the third floor and through the glassless arch in one smooth ascension. The interior might have been some kind of small library or study, for it was wide and shady with bookshelves to the ceiling, several long lopsided couches and an antediluvian writing-desk. 4-H-N’s gaze was drawn to this last, or rather to the one small something upon it, which seemed to her to be casting an all-but imperceptible light unto the surrounding shadows.

She stepped down from Micro-Mallet and on tiptoe approached the desk, her heart beginning to beat. Could it be? She knew Neetra had left a message on Planet Eshcaton which Joe managed to get to before Dylan did. The latter had also told her it was presumably disguised so that members of The Four Heroes would be the only ones in the galaxy capable of knowing it for what it was. 4-H-N loved hearing stories of Neetra’s old adventures, and in several of these she flew a domed sapphire spaceship identical to the one which sat in scale-model form upon the table’s surface.

There was no doubt now that soft rays of gold and blue were indeed emanating from the orb. 4-H-N touched it with one finger. Having been unlocked once the capsule subsequently opened on demand, so the next instant 4-H-N was gawping dwarfed before a shining projection of her genetic originator which suddenly filled the drawing-room like an indoor sunset.

Joe, Neetra commenced. Because something tells me you’re the one who’ll hear this message first. I’m counting on you to do what you think best when it comes to my family and Dylan…

And it looked to 4-H-N like that was just what he’d done. Fuming, she shut off the playback and snatched the model spacecraft. They all had a right to see this, Neetra’s mother and father and her Four Heroes comrade and her sisters including herself. And they were going to. No matter what Joe thought best.

“Hey, ponytail,” said a girl’s voice. “You just got hip to a little too much.”

4-H-N whirled round. There stood Mini-Flash Splitsville and beside her Contamination, lean and radioactive and clad in black leather.

There was one other window in the room which 4-H-N was still able to get to. So she bolted for it, stuffing the message-capsule where she’d have stuffed a spare ball if she’d been playing tennis, while Micro-Mallet boomed the length of their musty confines and ventilated the weather-worn pane seconds before his mistress arrived. 4-H-N leapt out with the last of the shattering shower, slipped her feet free-fall into Micro-Mallet’s sockets, and together they were away over the top of the railings speeding for the canyons and escape.

On either side perpendicular cliff-faces rushed by at a dizzying pace, but in no time at all 4-H-N’s heart sank to the sound of engine-roar. Throwing a glance behind her she spied Mini-Flash Splitsville’s souped-up steed and Contamination’s single-seater of cobalt blue, closing down different trails to trap her in a pincer. Taking to open skies now would have only made 4-H-N a sitting target. So instead she swerved one way on her robot skateboard then surfed him to the opposite ravine-wall’s upper extreme, in desperate attempts to keep her fluttery skirt-hem out of the sizzling white fire Contamination had started letting fly.

“Kinda think Joe won’t want little Betty Burglar served up as the lunchtime special, hot stuff,” Mini-Flash Splitsville advised him as she pulled her ebony racer into the lead. 4-H-N didn’t much like its throbbing triple carburettor nor the purposeful look of its mean gleaming top-end, for as fond as she was of Micro-Mallet this was rapidly turning into the kind of drag-race from which he wasn’t likely to take home the gold. Resolute, though unable to supress a little gulp, 4-H-N whipped her head back to the road and cast about for some means of giving Splitsville the slip.

That was why she did not see the Mini-Flash lifting her hands from the steering-wheel, putting her palms neatly together, and parting them again.

Through the portal she opened in their path 4-H-N and Micro-Mallet plunged, to slam against the boulder into whose neighbourhood they’d been knowingly relocated. 4-H-N scraped to a grazing insensible rest on the roadway and seconds later Micro-Mallet clanked and clattered after her, accompanied by several smaller pieces of him. The two space-rods pulled up and their drivers disembarked.

“If I remember Joe’s briefing this must be 4-H-N, clone of Neetra Neetkins herself,” Contamination sneered shrilly. “All the source material’s dubious good looks and demonstrably none of her powers. As for whether they share the same charming traits I’d just as soon not know, though it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that that fool human has a soft spot for the housebreaker type.”

“All the cats dig a good chick gone bad, dad,” Mini-Flash Splitsville agreed. Then lugging the comatose 4-H-N over to her passenger-seat she dumped her inside, and the pair of pursuers set off back to the mansion.

It was not out of carelessness or cruelty that they left Micro-Mallet lying by the roadside like a hunk of scrap metal. It was merely that they thought he was nothing more than that, both being insufficiently acquainted with Grindo technology to know 4-H-N’s transportation was sentient mechanical life possessed of artificial intelligence and feelings. As soon as two sets of tailfins had vanished into the mesa and the desert-dust settled back upon the track, Micro-Mallet mustered a low shaky lift-off from his one remaining jet and proceeded limping and wobbling to the pre-arranged meeting-point.

Dylan’s Grindotron freighter was moored a short stretch from the marketplace, amid one of the expanses of emptiness which this planet held in such ready supply. He, Phoenix and the Mini-Flashes were on board and just starting to worry that their last two team-members were late, when one half of the missing duo lurched through the entryway and like a discarded hubcap crashed and rattled to the deck.

“Micro-Mallet!” Phoenix cried, as the humanoids hurried over to him. “Hang in there, buddy,” added Dylan, and in a swirl of magenta light used his Four Heroes powers to restore the little robot to full working order. What followed was a volley of report delivered in a state close to computerized hysteria, by the end of which all four listeners were staring with disbelief.

“Joe’s gang of punks have captured 4-H-N and they’re keeping her at his hidden lair?” Dylan repeated. “I used to watch cartoons like that. Micro-Mallet, are you sure your collision didn’t scramble a few memory-chips?”

“Someone roughed him up,” Mini-Flash Bloomer pointed out portentously.

“And 4-H-N’s still unaccounted-for,” Flashlight reminded everyone, more so.

Dylan had anticipated most of his command would be quick to think the worst of Joe, but for him to take the liberty of doing likewise was for many reasons a weightier matter. “Micro-Mallet, how did it happen?” he persisted. “Why would Joe and his supporters do this?”

“Because of the message!” the robot wailed. “Miss 4-H-N found Neetra’s message! They wouldn’t let her bring it to you!”

Phoenix’s eyes grew large behind her glasses. “Joe ’as ze message ’ere with ’im?” she breathed. “Could it even be zat Neetra’s communication is in some way connected to ’is reason for being on zis world?”

“My guess is it’s got everything to do with it,” was Dylan’s plain reply. “If Joe’s prepared to cross such a line in keeping it from us.”

“Cheri, you know I respected ’is right not to share ze message with us of ’is own free will,” cried Phoenix, “but to go so far as taking prisonairs…!”

“I know, babe,” Dylan told her softly, and stood.

“Our primary mission was gathering information on what’s brought Joe here, and why it’s got the Vernderernders all riled up,” he announced to the company. “I even had these crazy notions about starting to understand the situation that way. Instead, I’m understanding it less and less by the minute. But it sounds like the answers we’re looking for are in that message from Neetra, and though I never thought I’d say it of Joe, we may have a rescue on our hands too. No way we can go into this one knowing what to expect. The most we can do is go into it ready.”

So saying he threw a switch on the main control panel. Underfoot the decking heaved a mighty shudder as the storage hold’s hatchway floor seven levels below unlocked, and giant pneumatic pistons took the strain of lowering the freighter’s heavy cargo down to the planet’s surface.

“Ladies, gentleman and robot,” Dylan declared. “Let’s do it.”

4-H-N, outstretched face-down on one of the leather couches back in the mansion’s drawing-room, was regaining consciousness. She and Joe were alone.

“Welcome, 4-H-N,” he greeted her. “Dylan I see is as prompt as he ever was.”

Thrusting a hand behind her 4-H-N groped at once for the message-capsule. It came as some surprise to find it just where she’d tucked it last, and she shot a quizzical look Joe’s way.

“My associates manhandled you somewhat, 4-H-N, and for that you have my apologies,” said he. “I however envisaged talking to you in a civilised manner about the reasons I require Neetra’s message, then asking you politely if you would consider returning it. Let us not neglect that you and I were once friends.”

“A friend wouldn’t do what you’ve done,” 4-H-N retorted, eyes flashing as she jumped to her feet. “You’re supposed to help people, Joe. How are you helping my Mum and Dad, by not letting them near the only word Neetra’s sent since she went away?”

Joe wished 4-H-N could know how it broke his heart to hear her. The peace of mind he needs must deny Iskira and James gnawed at him every hour. Certainly 4-H-N was due some sort of explanation, even if it could not contain any of the truths Joe was now bound to keep at all costs from Grindotron. Seeing the difficulty in offering his guest a seat, he rose instead from his armchair that they might speak face-to-face, and opened his hands.

“All that is transpiring now, 4-H-N, was contrived by my son to serve his ultimate objective of eradicating The Four Heroes’ cause,” began Joe. “I must ask you therefore to trust me when I tell you the content of Neetra’s message must not become common knowledge. The reasons for this I am unable to divulge. But surely even as it is, you see that if an open confrontation between our respective parties occurs on this world, Harbin’s gamble will have paid off?”

“Then put aside your differences with Dylan!” 4-H-N implored him. “Beat Harbin at his own game by fighting him together, like you’d have done before!”

Joe sighed. It was not as if this had never occurred to him.

“I cannot, 4-H-N,” he declared. “To do so would facilitate Harbin’s ends still more disastrously than any battle. Too much depends on those who follow me. I must remain their example of the true interpretation of our cause. Were I to show Dylan and Phoenix any latitude, any compromise, the struggle for perhaps the universe itself would be already lost. Let me remain unwavering in this one matter, 4-H-N. At times such as these, there are some few of us who must.”

“So you think you’re Julius Caesar?” remarked 4-H-N, thinking back to English literature class. “That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing, Joe. Take away this Four Heroes’ cause stuff which most of us barely even understand, and the picture I get is you just wanting to keep Neetra all for yourself.”

This observation, which Joe was not hearing for the first time, went unaddressed.

“You know Phoenix’s deed was wrong,” were the words he chose instead, though they were not delivered unkindly. “You have felt its consequences with more acuteness than most.”

4-H-N flushed. “Just because you saw me cry that day doesn’t make you an expert on how I’m feeling now,” she warned him, far too fiercely for there to be any doubt Joe had touched a nerve.

“Your desperation to redeem yourself in your family’s eyes is clear enough nevertheless,” he persisted. “Dylan would never have instructed you to infiltrate this place alone, nor to take such foolhardy risks as you have thus far done.”

“Don’t worry about me!” flung back 4-H-N. “I can always do what we Neetkins sisters seem to be doing best these days. I mean, first we find each other and it’s all sentimental reunions for a bit, but from the looks of things lately what comes next is us all just falling apart again. Neetra, Phoenix Prime and now Carmilla too…well, if I’m no use anymore and they don’t want me around to mess things up, I’ll do the same. I’ll just leave,” she finished, not without tears.

Joe could remember Carmilla coming to him with an almost identical problem, when she herself might have been only a little older than 4-H-N seemed now and he was no more than a boy. All of a sudden Joe caught himself contemplating how far it would be the act of a hardened miscreant to do precisely what the clone had accused him of wishing for – that was, to find Neetra and be with her, but to opt out of further dealings with her unremittingly tragic dynasty. Perhaps a vision of two little twins playing in their grandparents’ sunny garden stayed Joe from resolving there and then he would seek this. But he contemplated it. Even though he knew it was what Harbin desired, he contemplated it.

Funnily enough, that same conversation with Carmilla had been interrupted by Dylan. So it was that almost as if on cue, an explosion directly outside wracked the mansion to what remained of its rubbly foundations. There was no structural damage – not yet – for this was a shot across the bows, meant to be noticed and nothing more.

In that however, it succeeded. Joe was out of the study upon his next breath, 4-H-N all but forgotten as he bolted for the rooftop stairs. Halfway up he was joined by Flashtease, who exclaimed: “Well, I guess you told me already you didn’t err!”

“Until this moment I privately hoped I might have done,” confided Joe, as they hastened out onto the leads. Past the mansion’s parapet the paved backlot stretched below, bordered by its fence of tarnished iron bars. Beyond this a rising sand-dune made up the rim of Joe and Flashtease’s near horizon, and atop its summit they now beheld the daunting dimensions of their immediate destiny.

END OF CHAPTER TWO