Inside the vehicle were no knobs or even a steering wheel. The dashboard was an array of flat, seamless touchscreens of colored light. These dimmed as the hum of the electric motor, decades ahead of its time, faded to silence.
Rory Smash looked over at the alert black cat on the passenger seat beside him.
“This is the place,” he said. “I remember. Neighborhood hasn’t changed much. Do you think your master is home? He never returned my call. Let’s see if he’s in, Dr. Sax.”
Smash and his feline companion egressed from the vehicle, crossed the cobblestone side street, and entered an alley between the warehouse and a neighboring building. In the evening sunlight, the way was shadowy, almost dark; the eyes of both man and cat had to adjust to see the short wooden steps and platform leading to a side door.
Smash slide a leather glove into his trench coat, pulled a set of keys from a pocket.
“What lovely antiques,” he said, selecting the proper one and sliding it sensually into the door lock.
The turning deadbolt echoed inside the metal door.
Inside, Smash searched for a light switch. Gloved fingers found an old pair of press buttons on metal box. A fluorescent light flicked on overhead. In the vast warehouse space were aisles of tall, industrial-strength metal shelving, rows and rows of it; stacked from floor to ceiling with wooden crates and cardboard cartons covered in dust and cobwebs, as far as the eye could see—which wasn’t far in the gloom.
“Doesn’t look like a soul’s set foot in the place since the old team broke up,” remarked Smash. “What was it called again? Gang Fighter? Gang Busters?”
He looked down at the cat, who scurried off into the gloom ahead of Smash down an aisle.
“Crime Busters, that was it.” Smash checked the device on his wrist. “That had to be nearly a decade ago, in this temporality.”
He looked ahead of him, down the aisle, saw two green eyes turn back and gaze at him.
“Lead on, good Doctor,” he said to the cat. “You know this labyrinth better than I.”
Rory Smash and the cat wound through the warehouse almost from one corner of the floor to another, diagonally. The pair came to a door of what appeared to be the storage company’s business offices. Dirty windows on the door and adjacent walls concealed the space within with drawn venetian blinds. An old time clock and rack of cards hung on the wall next to the door.
Smash took a card at random, slid it under the clock, and punched it. It stamped the date.
“July 17, 1985. Still works.”
He placed the card back in its slot on the metal rack.
Sorting through the keys again, he found one for the office door. Entering, he turned on the light. Desks, chairs, filing cabinets, all gunmetal grey, with paperwork still spread out.
“Nothing’s been touched in here since the fifties,” said Smash.
He peered into a small side bathroom for the employees, an adjacent general manager’s office.
“Same thing. The team must have kept these up for appearances.”
A water cooler burbled. Smash took a conical paper cup, drew a drink of water.
“Fresh,” he said, after taking a sip. “Somebody’s dropping by and tending to the place, at least.
Smash closed all the inner doors, turned off the lights, and exited the office, the cat darting around his feet. As he locked the outer door, he watched the cat disappear around the wall and heard it ascend lightly up wooden stairs.
Smash followed the cat up the steps to a platform built over the offices. There were more shelves and more crates and cartoons, mostly office supplies and large, sealed bottles of water for the office cooler.
At the end of the platform was another metal door in a bare cinderblock wall that looked as though it led to an adjacent building. The cat scurried ahead to the door, sat and stared at it patiently as Smash paced patiently behind.
“Ah, the inner lair,” said Smash. “It’s all coming back to me. The Crime Busters liked their secret headquarters.”
Keys opened up this door; the stench of something approaching death hit Smash’s nostril.
“Ganymede,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and placing it over his mouth and nostrils. “Something in here has died.”
He reached around for a light switch, but could not locate one. High above, a single dirty window shone in the gloom.
“Highwater Parrish, the old church.”
Smash stepped into the gloom; rows of pews became barely visible as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The sounds of rats scurried into the corners.
“Been several decades since anyone’s prayed to God in this place, Dr. Sax,” Smash said to the cat.
“Who …?”
The sound that echoed in the darkness came from no clear direction; it might have been the choir loft above; it might have been nothing but wind through the organ pipes.
As his eyes adjusted, Rory Smash could almost discern muted colors through dirty stained glass, almost black with soot, but intact.
“Walter? Is that you?” he called out, removing the handkerchief from his mouth only long enough to talk. “It’s me, Rory. I used that device … a telephone … I phoned you, I mean to say …”
A groan echoed in the old sanctuary. It could have been the raspy, throaty death-rattle of a corpse; Rory Smash, a man not unacquainted with death, involuntarily shuddered.
“Walt, can I get you anything?”
“Did anyone follow you?” came a hoarse whisper in the darkness.
Smash pictured the voice coming from a desiccated vampire in a coffin, or a rotting corpse in a pine box.
“No,” replied Smash, trying mightily not to vomit from the putrid smell. “It’s just me and Dr. Sax.”
Smash looked at the cat, who was seated on a pew, staring intently up at the choir loft. Smash thought to himself, “Walt must be must be in a pretty bad shape—not even she dares to go up there to approach him.”
Smash removed the handkerchief again, called out, “Somebody was tailing me, briefly. It might have been Donna. But I shook her.”
“Good,” came the reply. “I don’t want anyone … especially Donna … to see me … like this ….”
Smash thought of the last time he’d seen Walter Samms, bandaged from head to foot, the way the Phantom Jungle Girl would have known him. How could the Meddler look any worse now?
“Walt, is there anything I can do for you? Anyone I can reach out to? Allan? Gene?”
“There is no need, Rory. Michele is aware … there is a timetable for these things …”
“Michele,” Smash said to himself. “The Egyptian. Oh, for Ganymede’s sake.”
“I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong time to return to the twentieth century,” said the voice of Walter Samms. “I’m afraid I’m not in any condition to assist you. Perhaps Donna or Michele … they are active … with a new team. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
Smash at Dr. Sax, a helpless look in her green eyes.
“Please don’t tell Donna you spoke with me. She assumes I’m dead. It is not yet time … to reveal myself again. Go now, and leave me in peace.”
“And have a nice stay in the twentieth century,” said Smash as he opened the door of the Ferrari to let Dr. Sax slink in. “Christ, what a crypt. Here I come asking the Meddler for help, and he’s not even … alive, if he ever was.”
He waved a gloved hand over the dashboard; the electric motor hummed to life. The vehicle pulled out into the street, merged seamlessly into late rush-hour traffic.
“Here, I gave the Phantom Jungle Girl the slip, while maybe she’s the only person in this primitive time who can help me lose those scientists. Some crummy job I took on, huh?”
The Ferrari turned up Woodward Avenue, toward the University-Cultural Center.
“Any idea where I can find Donna Blank? Or should I just wait until she finds me, since I’ve evidently attracted her interest?”
Dr. Sax only stared back.
“Anywhere I can drop you? I don’t have any cat food for you at home.”
The cat looked up the avenue.
“Okay, just let me know. I bet you have any number of homes-away-from homes, with nice college girls who take care of you. Don’t you?”
Next: Screen Door
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Archival Images:
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| The Meddler, from Megaton Man #0 [Bizarre Heroes #17] (Fiasco Comics Inc., June 1996). |
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| The Phantom Jungle Girl on Green Dolphin Street from Bizarre Heroes #2 (Fiasco Comics Inc., July 1994). |
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