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deathpixie) wrote2003-11-21 04:35 pm
deathpixie) wrote2003-11-21 04:35 pm
In The Public Service - Chapter 2
By [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], with a contribution from [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
Far away, in North America, another helpless victim was falling prey to the Scientist's schemes.
Trisha opened her eyes and blinked. "So.... dude, with the-- ya know and the thing!"
Her boss looked over at her and said, "Huh?"
"The thing that we were talking about! With the wossname? You know?" She waved her hands about and went on for another five mintues, trying to describe something right in front of her, but all that would come out were variations of the word "thing", with lots of "Duuuuuuude!"s interspersed.
The senior editor sighed and lifted a handset. "Someone call Interpol.
The Blabber disease has struck again."
Later...
Bernadette looked up at the plane, it was a rather sleek-looking model and as Bernadette knew absolutely nothing about planes she decided it looked very pretty, in a plane kinda way.
Jo nudged her from behind, slinging her Backpack O' Doom onto her shoulders. "Mate, get a wriggle on, the pilot won't wait forever."
"Right"
Bernadette pulled her little wheely bag behind her, climbing up the set of stairs leading to the entrance way.
While they could have had a Super Hero Plane(tm), both Jo and Bernadette had decided it'd look a little bit suspicious having a futurist invisible stealth machine and had decided that a general run of the mill one. At least, that's what they'd said to Phil when he'd asked them how they wanted to travel. Jo had been somewhat tempted by the submarine option but then Bernadette had pointed out the fact that flying was faster.
Their pilot quickly started the count down to take off once the girls had taken their seats and in the blink of an eye they were into the wild blue yonder and on their way to Toronto. They were to meet a contact there by the name of John C.
Even later...
It was cold, bloody cold, freezing even. The kind of cold that made Australians wonder just what in hell they'd done to deserve this and then remember that they were on a mission, a mission to fight crime, or to get Phil some foreign beer... it'd been a little shaky there at the end.
Bernadette pulled out her mobile phone and dialled...
Slightly more later…
"I can't feel my feet."
"Don't be such a wuss. Besides, we're nearly there."
"Mate, there's snow. On the ground. In the city. Not up in the ski resorts like it's supposed to be."
"Of course there's snow, we're in Canada in December."
"Beats me why Mel chose here to flee to. She's a banana bender, why didn't she go for somewhere nice and tropical and warm?"
Bernadette cast and exasperated look at her companion. It was difficult to see much of Jo, bundled up in layer upon layer of clothing as she was. The effect, coupled with the Backpack O' Doom, was that the pack had grown legs of its own and was stumbling around Toronto of its own volition.
"Because it was the last place we'd look for her?" the IT expert replied. She stopped (causing Jo to pull up suddenly to avoid the wheely suitcase, skid on the snowy ground and fall over) and indicated a sign above the door of what was unmistakeably a pub. 'The Bishop and Belcher' it read. "See? We're here." Muffled swearing caused her to look down to where Jo was struggling to crawl out from under her giant pack. "What are you doing? We've got no time to play silly buggers." She reached down and helped her co-hero up.
"Thought I'd try out luge since I was in the right climate," Jo replied sarcastically, brushing snow off her front. "A pub? Goodie. I take back every mean thing I've thought about Phil since we got here."
"It's John C's choice, not Phil's, but I understand what you mean. Let's get inside, it's cold out here."
"Hah! And you thought I was a wuss!"
Bernadette ignored the gloating of her companion and pushed open the door to the 'Belcher'. It was sparsely populated this cold night, and she scanned the few people inside for someone resembling a secret organisation member. It was not hard - the man in the trenchcoat holding up the bar was the only one to fit the bill.
"John?" she asked, approaching him. Behind her Jo snorted and muttered something about "way to be subtle, Cupcake." Bernadette's ears burned, but she focussed her attention on the man who had turned at her approach.
"Call me Dex," he replied. "Can I get you two lovely ladies a drink?"
Bernadette raised an eyebrow for a second and then grinned. "Why yes, you can. A grasshopper, please. Jo?"
"Something large, and alcoholic... you can skip on the umbrella though."
Dex nodded and signalled to the barman, a large beast of a man, known as Redhawk to the regulars.
"So, I trust your flight was pleasant?"
Jo laughed out loud and Bernadette grinned, showing teeth. "Our pilot jumped out halfway across the ocean and I was forced to learn how to fly a plane very quickly. Other then that, and the ninjas Jo had to fight off, it wasn't too bad. We had the fish for lunch... Now, how about we cut the bullshit and get down to business?"
Dex raised an eyebrow. "Not much for the pleasantries, are you?"
Jo elbowed Bernadette under the guise of reaching for the pint of Moosehead Redhawk placed on the bar in front of her. "More action than talk, is our Cupcake. It's the whole Helpdesk thing - do rather than talk."
"And yourself?"
"I'm a public servant. We get paid to rattle on as much as possible. Add in the legal thing, and you practically can't shut me up."
"So you talked the ninjas to death?" Dex asked, clearly amused.
"Something like that." An evil grin crossed Jo's face. "I hit them with a few Requests for Discovery, and whilst they were reeling from that, I shoved them out of the plane. Still, it's good IT Girl was with me - I'm hopeless with technical stuff and left the whole 'flying the plane' thing to her. She's good at picking up new systems."
"As long as you're having fun." Dex set down his beer and pulled an envelope out of the inner pocket of his coat. "The Scientist seems to be setting up her base of operations in a warehouse in the industrial district - here's the plans, plus some surveillance photos. It's hard to tell what she's up to, but she seems to have henchmen." As he was speaking, Bernadette had opened the envelope and was flipping through the photos.
"Not exactly holiday shots," Jo remarked, looking over her shoulder. Then she looked again. "Hey, isn't that…?"
Bernadette nodded grimly. "The insane Kiwi geneticist, Dr Michael Acetal. Otherwise known as Sheep Boy after a laboratory accident left him with wool instead of hair and the inability to say anything other than 'Baa.' If he's involved, we're dealing with something pretty diabolic."
Jo looked glum. "Bugger."
"Any idea when these were taken?" Bernadette asked, flipping through the photos, trying to find something that caught her eye.
Dex nodded. "About two days ago."
Dex drank the last of his beer and gestured for Redhawk to refill. Bernadette looked up from the photos, brow furrowed in thought.
"Why would Sheep Boy be here? I thought he and Mel had a deal never to work in each other's territory?"
"Looks like they found something important enough to work together on."
Jo took a sip of her Moosehead and pulled up her own stool, taking the photos from Bernadette. She might not have the knack her partner had for working out new systems, but she was damn good at spotting motives. Her insight had saved them a dozen times in the past and Bernadette had often said it was this insight that had meant the difference between getting the bad guy and mucking around in the dark.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing out a rather strange looking device in one of the picture. Dex and Bernadette leant in on either side of her and examined the picture.
"Looks like some kind of launching device." Bernadette opinioned.
"I've had some of my sources searching the local black markets for unusual requests. There seems to have been some rather large quantities of mind control agents purchased in the last couple of weeks." Dex sipped his beer thoughtfully. "Any thoughts on what they're planning?"
Jo shrugged. "Some. Nothing I can put into words yet, but none of it's good. How about we go check out this warehouse, see if we can't get a better idea of what's happening in there?"
Bernadette immediately agreed, but Dex shook his head.
"As much as it pains me to forsake the company of two such beautiful and dangerous women, I have a prior engagement," he apologized, finishing the pint without apparent effort. Jo privately thought the rumours about Phil and Dex going to the same spy school weren't exaggerated - the two men had almost identical drinking styles. Phil had once said to her, in a pub of course, that you would only really get to know someone properly if you went to a pub and drank with them. Then again, Phil seemed to think everything should happen in a pub, including strategy meetings and religious services.
Her train of thought was interrupted by Dex tossing a few bills on the bar and buttoning up his coat. "Good luck with your mission, ladies. I hope to see you again, under less pressing circumstances." With an elaborate gesture, he took Bernadette's hand and kissed the back of it, settling for a mere handshake as Jo's glower warned him repeating the action with her would result in the loss of teeth, or possibly a law suit for sexual harassment.
As the door closed behind him, Bernadette turned to Jo. "We'll need to check into our hotel, get rid of these bags, before going out to the warehouse."
Jo, flipping through the photos again, nodded absently. "Hm-hm." Something seemed to catch her attention and she peered closely at the picture, almost rubbing her nose on it.
"What? Did you find something?"
"I'm not sure…" Jo trailed off and then shrugged. "Nothing. Seeing things. C'mon, let's get rid of this crap and do the spy thing."
Outside...
Bernadette looked up at the iron-grey sky overhead and shivered in the biting wind that had picked up while they were in the bar. 'A day not fit for man or beast', a voice whispered in her head. She smiled at the memory; she'd been in Toronto before, some years ago. That had been before she'd met Jo and become one half of a dynamic duo, so to speak. She chuckled inwardly as she imagined what the owner of that voice would have said to that. He'd been a friend of her father's, a spy not unlike Phil and it was he that had actually introduced her to Phil.
She'd always wondered what had happened to him but like many of his profession, he'd disappeared without a trace a few years before and her enquires as to his whereabouts had been met with a stony silence.
Jo nudged her partner and pointed toward the Taxi waiting for them, "Wool-gathering?"
Bernadette smiled. "Kinda, just old memories, mate. You know the kind."
Jo chucked her Backpack O' Doom into the trunk of the taxi and laughed. "Don't I ever. If this visit is anything like the last one, then we should expect a blizzard at about 2am tomorrow. Well, that and the martial arts fights I can never seem to escape from. What is it about knowing how to kick in a rather interesting fashion that always seems to attract people who want to kill you?"
"Could be your charm, mate." Bernadette grinned and quickly ducked into the taxi as Jo made a joking swipe at her head.
Far away, in North America, another helpless victim was falling prey to the Scientist's schemes.
Trisha opened her eyes and blinked. "So.... dude, with the-- ya know and the thing!"
Her boss looked over at her and said, "Huh?"
"The thing that we were talking about! With the wossname? You know?" She waved her hands about and went on for another five mintues, trying to describe something right in front of her, but all that would come out were variations of the word "thing", with lots of "Duuuuuuude!"s interspersed.
The senior editor sighed and lifted a handset. "Someone call Interpol.
The Blabber disease has struck again."
Later...
Bernadette looked up at the plane, it was a rather sleek-looking model and as Bernadette knew absolutely nothing about planes she decided it looked very pretty, in a plane kinda way.
Jo nudged her from behind, slinging her Backpack O' Doom onto her shoulders. "Mate, get a wriggle on, the pilot won't wait forever."
"Right"
Bernadette pulled her little wheely bag behind her, climbing up the set of stairs leading to the entrance way.
While they could have had a Super Hero Plane(tm), both Jo and Bernadette had decided it'd look a little bit suspicious having a futurist invisible stealth machine and had decided that a general run of the mill one. At least, that's what they'd said to Phil when he'd asked them how they wanted to travel. Jo had been somewhat tempted by the submarine option but then Bernadette had pointed out the fact that flying was faster.
Their pilot quickly started the count down to take off once the girls had taken their seats and in the blink of an eye they were into the wild blue yonder and on their way to Toronto. They were to meet a contact there by the name of John C.
Even later...
It was cold, bloody cold, freezing even. The kind of cold that made Australians wonder just what in hell they'd done to deserve this and then remember that they were on a mission, a mission to fight crime, or to get Phil some foreign beer... it'd been a little shaky there at the end.
Bernadette pulled out her mobile phone and dialled...
Slightly more later…
"I can't feel my feet."
"Don't be such a wuss. Besides, we're nearly there."
"Mate, there's snow. On the ground. In the city. Not up in the ski resorts like it's supposed to be."
"Of course there's snow, we're in Canada in December."
"Beats me why Mel chose here to flee to. She's a banana bender, why didn't she go for somewhere nice and tropical and warm?"
Bernadette cast and exasperated look at her companion. It was difficult to see much of Jo, bundled up in layer upon layer of clothing as she was. The effect, coupled with the Backpack O' Doom, was that the pack had grown legs of its own and was stumbling around Toronto of its own volition.
"Because it was the last place we'd look for her?" the IT expert replied. She stopped (causing Jo to pull up suddenly to avoid the wheely suitcase, skid on the snowy ground and fall over) and indicated a sign above the door of what was unmistakeably a pub. 'The Bishop and Belcher' it read. "See? We're here." Muffled swearing caused her to look down to where Jo was struggling to crawl out from under her giant pack. "What are you doing? We've got no time to play silly buggers." She reached down and helped her co-hero up.
"Thought I'd try out luge since I was in the right climate," Jo replied sarcastically, brushing snow off her front. "A pub? Goodie. I take back every mean thing I've thought about Phil since we got here."
"It's John C's choice, not Phil's, but I understand what you mean. Let's get inside, it's cold out here."
"Hah! And you thought I was a wuss!"
Bernadette ignored the gloating of her companion and pushed open the door to the 'Belcher'. It was sparsely populated this cold night, and she scanned the few people inside for someone resembling a secret organisation member. It was not hard - the man in the trenchcoat holding up the bar was the only one to fit the bill.
"John?" she asked, approaching him. Behind her Jo snorted and muttered something about "way to be subtle, Cupcake." Bernadette's ears burned, but she focussed her attention on the man who had turned at her approach.
"Call me Dex," he replied. "Can I get you two lovely ladies a drink?"
Bernadette raised an eyebrow for a second and then grinned. "Why yes, you can. A grasshopper, please. Jo?"
"Something large, and alcoholic... you can skip on the umbrella though."
Dex nodded and signalled to the barman, a large beast of a man, known as Redhawk to the regulars.
"So, I trust your flight was pleasant?"
Jo laughed out loud and Bernadette grinned, showing teeth. "Our pilot jumped out halfway across the ocean and I was forced to learn how to fly a plane very quickly. Other then that, and the ninjas Jo had to fight off, it wasn't too bad. We had the fish for lunch... Now, how about we cut the bullshit and get down to business?"
Dex raised an eyebrow. "Not much for the pleasantries, are you?"
Jo elbowed Bernadette under the guise of reaching for the pint of Moosehead Redhawk placed on the bar in front of her. "More action than talk, is our Cupcake. It's the whole Helpdesk thing - do rather than talk."
"And yourself?"
"I'm a public servant. We get paid to rattle on as much as possible. Add in the legal thing, and you practically can't shut me up."
"So you talked the ninjas to death?" Dex asked, clearly amused.
"Something like that." An evil grin crossed Jo's face. "I hit them with a few Requests for Discovery, and whilst they were reeling from that, I shoved them out of the plane. Still, it's good IT Girl was with me - I'm hopeless with technical stuff and left the whole 'flying the plane' thing to her. She's good at picking up new systems."
"As long as you're having fun." Dex set down his beer and pulled an envelope out of the inner pocket of his coat. "The Scientist seems to be setting up her base of operations in a warehouse in the industrial district - here's the plans, plus some surveillance photos. It's hard to tell what she's up to, but she seems to have henchmen." As he was speaking, Bernadette had opened the envelope and was flipping through the photos.
"Not exactly holiday shots," Jo remarked, looking over her shoulder. Then she looked again. "Hey, isn't that…?"
Bernadette nodded grimly. "The insane Kiwi geneticist, Dr Michael Acetal. Otherwise known as Sheep Boy after a laboratory accident left him with wool instead of hair and the inability to say anything other than 'Baa.' If he's involved, we're dealing with something pretty diabolic."
Jo looked glum. "Bugger."
"Any idea when these were taken?" Bernadette asked, flipping through the photos, trying to find something that caught her eye.
Dex nodded. "About two days ago."
Dex drank the last of his beer and gestured for Redhawk to refill. Bernadette looked up from the photos, brow furrowed in thought.
"Why would Sheep Boy be here? I thought he and Mel had a deal never to work in each other's territory?"
"Looks like they found something important enough to work together on."
Jo took a sip of her Moosehead and pulled up her own stool, taking the photos from Bernadette. She might not have the knack her partner had for working out new systems, but she was damn good at spotting motives. Her insight had saved them a dozen times in the past and Bernadette had often said it was this insight that had meant the difference between getting the bad guy and mucking around in the dark.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing out a rather strange looking device in one of the picture. Dex and Bernadette leant in on either side of her and examined the picture.
"Looks like some kind of launching device." Bernadette opinioned.
"I've had some of my sources searching the local black markets for unusual requests. There seems to have been some rather large quantities of mind control agents purchased in the last couple of weeks." Dex sipped his beer thoughtfully. "Any thoughts on what they're planning?"
Jo shrugged. "Some. Nothing I can put into words yet, but none of it's good. How about we go check out this warehouse, see if we can't get a better idea of what's happening in there?"
Bernadette immediately agreed, but Dex shook his head.
"As much as it pains me to forsake the company of two such beautiful and dangerous women, I have a prior engagement," he apologized, finishing the pint without apparent effort. Jo privately thought the rumours about Phil and Dex going to the same spy school weren't exaggerated - the two men had almost identical drinking styles. Phil had once said to her, in a pub of course, that you would only really get to know someone properly if you went to a pub and drank with them. Then again, Phil seemed to think everything should happen in a pub, including strategy meetings and religious services.
Her train of thought was interrupted by Dex tossing a few bills on the bar and buttoning up his coat. "Good luck with your mission, ladies. I hope to see you again, under less pressing circumstances." With an elaborate gesture, he took Bernadette's hand and kissed the back of it, settling for a mere handshake as Jo's glower warned him repeating the action with her would result in the loss of teeth, or possibly a law suit for sexual harassment.
As the door closed behind him, Bernadette turned to Jo. "We'll need to check into our hotel, get rid of these bags, before going out to the warehouse."
Jo, flipping through the photos again, nodded absently. "Hm-hm." Something seemed to catch her attention and she peered closely at the picture, almost rubbing her nose on it.
"What? Did you find something?"
"I'm not sure…" Jo trailed off and then shrugged. "Nothing. Seeing things. C'mon, let's get rid of this crap and do the spy thing."
Outside...
Bernadette looked up at the iron-grey sky overhead and shivered in the biting wind that had picked up while they were in the bar. 'A day not fit for man or beast', a voice whispered in her head. She smiled at the memory; she'd been in Toronto before, some years ago. That had been before she'd met Jo and become one half of a dynamic duo, so to speak. She chuckled inwardly as she imagined what the owner of that voice would have said to that. He'd been a friend of her father's, a spy not unlike Phil and it was he that had actually introduced her to Phil.
She'd always wondered what had happened to him but like many of his profession, he'd disappeared without a trace a few years before and her enquires as to his whereabouts had been met with a stony silence.
Jo nudged her partner and pointed toward the Taxi waiting for them, "Wool-gathering?"
Bernadette smiled. "Kinda, just old memories, mate. You know the kind."
Jo chucked her Backpack O' Doom into the trunk of the taxi and laughed. "Don't I ever. If this visit is anything like the last one, then we should expect a blizzard at about 2am tomorrow. Well, that and the martial arts fights I can never seem to escape from. What is it about knowing how to kick in a rather interesting fashion that always seems to attract people who want to kill you?"
"Could be your charm, mate." Bernadette grinned and quickly ducked into the taxi as Jo made a joking swipe at her head.
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Wheeee!
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