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                             TEAM CYNICAL
                       Episode 22: Kidnapping #2

                           by Bill Dickson


     "GODDESSSS!!!!!" croaked the scrawny man on the stage.  A bass guitar
and kettle drum played erratically beneath his wandering guitar.
     "This is terrible," Kim Stone commented.  "Why are we still here?"
     "Laundry's not dry," High Jinx said, taking a pull at his bottle of
Guinness.  "At least the sandwiches are good."
     Sit & Spin was a very Seattle establishment.  In other words, it
didn't suck, couldn't if it tried.  It was, in fact, an extremely clever
idea, and if the owners didn't make a fortune off the place, they were as
dumb as a post.
     The concept was simple:  the two top places to meet singles in urban
areas are laundromats and hip cafes.  Sit & Spin was a cafe with a couple
dozen laundry machines in an attached room.  For hipness, it had a pair of
old black and white televisions showing nothing in particular, every board
game you ever played as a kid piled on a table, funky local artwork on the
walls, and open duct systems and electrical work.
     Everybody young and single came.  Everybody sat by themselves looking
broody and unapproachable and reading books or writing poetry.  Everybody
went home alone.
     But at least they felt as though they had tried.
     "I find myself wondering again about Nora and Bill," Dog Thing
rumbled.  "I am concerned about both of their safety."
     "You and me both," High Jinx muttered.  He mussed Donny's hair.  The
child happily climbed his arm and stood on his shoulder to look around.
     "We should get to the Big Time as quickly as possible.  Todd will be
distressed should we fail to appear as we promised."
     They all looked up in surprise as the horrid music suddenly stopped in
the middle of what appeared to be a song.  The waitress was walking quickly
from behind the counter, shouting at somebody to turn the radio on.  A
palpable tension was already beginning to form in the atmosphere of the
cafe.
     "Come here, Donny," Kim whispered, collecting her son into her arms.
     The radio squelched to life with the sound of a staccato rattle and a
strange, constant roar.  "-he's opened fire again," came the familiar
voice, its tone tight but strangely exhilerated, not caring so much about
what it was reporting as the fact that it was the story of the decade.
"Magi are dropping like flies around him, and they just can't get a spell
through that armor of his.  Bulletproof is taking no prisoners.  For him,
it's payback time.  Holy crap, somebody just mowed down the Red Femur and
his men!  It looks like -- I can't really tell from here -- Christ, the
She-Devil just bit into Calypso Man..."
     High Jinx and Dynamite Vest Man looked at each other.
     "It has begun," rasped Dog Thing.



     The hum of the motors were soothing beneath Ramrod's feet as the
airship glided quietly over the South Dakota Badlands.  There was a storm
to the north, and the pilot had swung south to skirt its edges.  The view
was still spectacular, the lightning visible as it leapt from ground to sky
and lit up the late evening landscape.
     He had taken a small airliner, the only kind left in this age of
airships, to get from Seattle to Bob City.  But he wasn't in a hurry to
return, so he had saved a couple hundred dollars on the return ticket by
taking an airship back to Seattle.  Mr. Bad Example and Sister Death had
been turned over to the authorities and the Bob City Institute for the
Mentally Different ("Best Bedlam in Bob"), respectively, and the longer
trip would give him more time to do some much-needed thinking.
     The airship was a mid-sized Mroczka design, long curving organic lines
and exterior equipment giving it a look that was obviously influenced by
Giger while somehow looking attractive and relaxing rather than disturbing.
     Despite the skillfully designed interior and comfortable seats, Ramrod
persisted in feeling distrubed rather than relaxed.
     Many men would have been running the critical moment over and over in
their minds, wondering if they could have avoided killing the man in some
way, tackled him rather than drawing a gun and pulling the trigger.  Or
whether they could have escaped quietly, without maiming or killing three
carloads of men and wreaking havoc in a city full of uninvolved people.
     Ramrod wasn't even thinking about it.  It was over.  He had done what
his instincts had insisted, and once again he had made it out alive.
     But Dan.  And Nora.
     And Radian.
     She could have seared him right through from behind.  He hadn't had
the radiation shield on when he turned to run to the cab, and surely with
her talents she would have known that.  And yet she hadn't killed him.  And
he had known she wouldn't.
     He nodded to the steward, and accepted the small gin and tonic on his
tray.  He took a sip and turned back to the window.
     He should have stayed to help.



     "Yo, boss."
     "Status?" crackled the radio.
     "No sign yet.  They'll show up, though; they always do."
     "They'd better.  The client is getting very insistent."
     "Don't worry about it, boss, we'll- uh-oh."
     "What?  What uh-oh?"
     "Nothing.  Here they come.  Alan out."



     The Big Time was nearly full, but much quieter than Sit & Spin had
been.  Todd had scrounged a radio from the basement and loaned it to Dog
Thing, who was listening to it intently while High Jinx and Kim Stone
talked quietly in the corner of the booth.  The extraordinarily
unattractive superhero was able to give them complete privacy,
concentrating so hard to hear the Radio Free Hero broadcast over the
ambient sound of the bar that she was oblivious to his teammate's
conversation.
     "I don't know, Kim," High Jinx said quietly, holding her hand.  "It's
been really hard.  I mean, you know me.  Settling down, raising a
kid...that just won't come naturally to me."
     "Dominic, I'm only asking-"
     "Please, wait, let me finish."  He took a long swallow of Buster's
Brown Ale.  "Kim, the team...there's something wrong with it.  It's falling
apart.  Nora's pissed off and out on her own, Ramrod just disappears
without telling anybody, which is pretty damn thoughtless.  And this
business with you, pulling me away...it's almost like we don't belong
together.  If I believed in such things, I'd say the universe was trying to
separate us.
     "It's been so great, though.  Until a couple weeks ago, this was the
closest group I ever worked with.  I mean-"
     "Nora," said Dog Thing.
     "What.  What?"  High Jinx leaned forward, craning to hear the radio.
     "No...she is all right, I think."
     He listened for a few moments more, but couldn't hear.  "We were
tight," he continued.  "But now there's only half of us, and I don't know
if I can take this helpless feeling, not being there for them when they're
in trouble.  But they brought it on themselves, dammit."
     Kim squeezed his hand and poured herself more ale.
     "Have you decided, then?" she asked.  She raised her voice slightly to
be heard over a heated conversation at the bar.
     He paused.  "Yes," he said.  "Yes, I suppose I have."  He turned,
squeezing her hand again and looking into her eyes.  "Kim...I want-"
     There was a gunshot, and his head whipped around.  Dog Thing was
staring, slowly beginning to stand, taking a step toward the front room.
     "HIGH JINX!" came Todd's voice, pain evident in its tone.  "THEY'VE
GOT DONNY!"
     And then, with the speed of a thought, he was flowing out of the
booth, slithering up from the bench and leaping over the table without
touching a thing until he reached the floor.  The crowd clambered to get
out of his way as Dog Thing fell into place behind him, but they were too
slow, hindering his movements as he tried to get to the bar.  A
sandy-haired figure, near the door, clutching a small unconscious figure as
it pushed through the crowd with a smoking .45 in hand.  High Jinx leapt
for a table and sprang over a knot of shouting people, landing the bar.
     A large grey form, almost lupine but not quite, sprang from behind the
bar with a snarl, teeth snapping, blood dripping from a wound in its
shoulder.  The sandy-haired man turned and fired twice more, striking the
werewolf in the chest and knocking it whining to the floor.  The kidnapper
turned and disappeared through the door.
     High Jinx was halfway across the room now, leaping from a table to the
counter that lined the walkway between the front door and the bar.  He
sprang again, assembling his staff in mid-flight and rolling to his feet on
the sidewalk outside as the door slammed on a large black sedan.  He
shouted and lunged for the door handle, his fingers just brushing it as the
car squealed away, sideswiping Todd's Harley and knocking it to the
pavement.
     "SHIT!" he shouted, unable to think of anything else that might be
appropriate.  If Ramrod were here to shoot out the tires, or Nora were here
to pursue by air...
     "High Jinx!" came Dog Thing's disturbing rumble, and High Jinx turned,
his hand already lifting as he heard the jingle of keys.  The leather
keyring was soaked in fresh blood, leaving tiny droplets behind as it arced
through the air, but he didn't pause as he snatched it from the air and
turned to the Harley.
     Dog Thing was there in moments, reaching down with both hands and
lifting the entire motorcycle off the ground, setting it upright next to
his teammate.  High Jinx swung his leg over the bike, jamming the key into
the ignition and twisting it hard as he jumped on the starter.  The big hog
thundered to life and fishtailed wildly as it laid down a thick layer of
rubber and tore after the kidnappers' car.
     It was happening, he thought in the back of his mind, a cold knot of
fear settling into his stomach.  He couldn't believe it was happening.
     He flicked on the headlamp and leaned over almost to the ground to
follow the car around the turn onto forty-fifth street.  They were heading
for I-5, he realized, southbound.  No, northbound, they turned sharply and
cut off a van and barely made the Metro entrance ramp.  He slid over two
lanes and hit the crosswalk ramp, riding several feet over the concrete
before jumping the curb onto the ramp and turning north.
     The car swerved left, cutting across traffic to the inside lane.  High
Jinx twisted the accelerator and the hog leapt to 85, pulling within six
carlengths before the passenger side window opened and bullets began
kicking up sparks in the road around him.  One shot riccocheted noisily off
the bike, burying itself in the side of a minibus.  High Jinx ducked his
head and swerved left, putting himself directly behind the sedan.
     Most of the Seattle drivers, being an extraordinarily polite bunch,
were moving politely to the right to let the running firefight pass,
although several of them clucked disapprovingly at the number of running
firefights that were going on in the Seattle area lately.  The driver of a
Z-28 with California plates shook his fist in frustration, searching the
glove compartment in vain for his handgun, which he had left in the LA
apartment.
     The kidnappers' car swerved right this time, cutting across the path
of an eighteen wheeler.  As the big truck's horn wailed in protest, High
Jinx changed lanes behind it, then jigged left as a hail of bullets rattled
against the back of the trailer.  Mac-10, he noted subconsciously, popular
with youth gangs in Tacoma.  He couched his staff under his arm and swerved
right, his hand flicking a knife forward into the violent wind as he
emerged from behind the truck.  He thought he heard a cry of pain as the
blade entered the gunman's forearm, but the gun didn't fall.  He swore,
shifting his grip on the staff and firing the grapple dart.
     He redoubled his oaths as he swerved hard to the left again to avoid
the dart and cable as they bounced off the sedan's trunk and nearly
skewered his face.  At that range, it should have punched through the thin
metal; the car had to be armored.  He flicked the end of the staff out
behind him and twisted a ring set into the awesomeantium; the cable
retracted with a hiss, reloading the grapple dart.  Through the back
window, he caught a glimpse of the man he had wounded cinching a scrap of
cloth around his wound, pulling it tight with his teeth.
     Another knife; he banked into the right lane, then left to chase the
sedan as it cut in front of a Metro bus, and flicked the knife into the
right front tire.  It stuck for a moment, then was shaken loose.  Solid
rubber.  He slid the hog left and then accelerated, bringing himself right
up behind the sedan.  He aimed the staff directly at the back windshield
and fired.
     The dart punched through the glass, just barely, and snagged against
the inside as its tines snapped out to take hold.  The car swerved to the
right; he played out some cable and leaned the bike over to match the
maneuver.  The car's horn was blaring; glancing up, he saw a
tractor-trailer rapidly moving into the left lane, leaving a one lane
corridor between it and the cars on the right.  The sedan accelerated
toward the gap.
     They wouldn't be able to swerve for a few moments.  High Jinx gunned
the motor and drew in some cable, bringing himself up behind the sedan.  He
balanced the bike and jumped to crouch on the seat, preparing to leap to
the trunk of the car.
     The window was suddenly blown out from the inside by a burst from the
Mac-10, sending the grapple dart flying uselessly from its hold.  As High
Jinx began to drop back to the bike, a shot grazed his shoulder and then
another blew out his front tire.  The bike reacted violently, heaving him
into the air and sliding out from underneath him.
     He put out his arms and felt most of the skin get torn off his palms
as he took the impact with his hands to protect his helmetless head,
falling into a roll.  He glanced off the tire of a small car to his right
and felt a sharp pain in his upper arm; hairline fracture, he mused,
nothing more, hurts like Hell(tm).  Cars were swerving away from him now as
he rolled to a halt and landed, crouching and panting, in the center lane
facing the disappearing sedan.
     A horn sounded behind him and the tractor-trailer that had been shot
up less than a minute before bore down on him.  He prepared to dive to the
road, let the truck pass over him, but the driver yanked the wheel hard to
the right to miss him by a whisker.  With the sound of protesting metal, it
ran over Todd's Harley, crushing it to uselessness.
     He had lost.  He had lost his son.
     "NO!" he shouted after the tail lights of the sedan.  He could hear
the distant sounds of emergency sirens approaching from the south.  He
pounded a fist against the pavement.  "GODDAMMIT, NO!"
     The lights dropped behind a small rise in the road, and the car was gone.


WHO HAS KIDNAPPED DONNY STONE?

CAN HIGH JINX RESCUE HIM?

CAN TEAM CYNICAL RESCUE HIM?

WILL RAINY DAY WOMAN SURVIVE THE REVOLUTION?

WILL TODD THE LIBERTARIAN WEREWOLF BARTENDER SURVIVE THREE GUNSHOT WOUNDS?

WILL TEAM CYNICAL SURVIVE ITS SEPARATION?

You'll have to wait for the answers, because Team Cynical is going on a
long-overdue hiatus for the remaining summer months!  Watch this space for
their return on September First, only on....SUPERGUY!!!!


Meanwhile, watch for these summer specials, coming to a computer screen
near you:


PIRATE FERRY SPOKANE, EPISODE 2

     The Awesome Force is in town for a nice relaxing weekend with
ex-members Ramrod and High Jinx, and the rest of Team Cynical.  But there's
also a courier passing through with a Precious Bauble to be delivered to a
kingdom in the East Indies, and Captain Henry Spit and his crew of
bloodthirsty buccaneers have some other ideas about how relaxing the
weekend will be...


BUCK GORDON, SPACE HERO

     Dynamite Vest Man and Rainy Day Women are hijacked by retired Space
Hero Buck Gordon to help stop the evil emperor of Planet Bingo from
destroying the Earth.  But when Buck is injured en route by a
malfunctioning Enematronic, can our unattractive hero and damp heroine save
the day?


GUS, EPISODE 2

     Gus and his fellow hyper-enlightened transcendental entities
contemplate numerous questions of cosmic scope, none of which are vaguely
comprehensible to mere humans.


STAY TUNED TO....SUPERGUY!!!!!!!


===========================================================================
| "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a         |
|  vacation, I needed a home in the country.  What I had was a coat, a    |
|  hat, and a gun.  I put them on and went out of the room."              |
|                                                       -Raymond Chandler |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| William R. Dickson, M00se Illuminatus...................wrd@beer.wa.com |
| Co-Author, Internet Explorer Kit for Macintosh..........iek@tidbits.com |
| Author, "Team Cynical," Superguy Digest......listserv@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu |
===========================================================================