Manic Monday: (Dane Monday 1)

by Dennis Liggio

  "Whoa, slow down there!" said Dane. "You're one day back from... well, one day back. You can't judge an entire city in just a day! You need someone to take you around town, see the sights! Take in a show! Feed some pigeons in the park! Have some fine ethnic cuisine!"

  "I have already seen far too much," said Carmichael darkly. "New Avalon was already becoming a bloated tick upon the cesspool of American avarice before I left, much to my disappointment. Now? Now there is no help. The city is beyond saving. A city of trash populated by fetid rats."

  Dane stared at the old man. He didn't know much about Carmichael before he left, as the old man called it, but Dane grasped that magic or something had done something with him for nearly a century. Dane wondered if that had made him come back different, bitter, or even evil. Of course, there was also the possibility that Carmichael was unbalanced and full of hate even before he disappeared.

  Carmichael had been staring into space, his jaw locked, while Dane had considered his sanity. Abby had been too shocked by the force of Carmichael's words to say anything. She instead decided to stare at her lamb. In a few moments, Carmichael's face became calm again.

  "My apologies," said Carmichael. "Despite the nature of our relationship, you are still guests and a certain decorum must be kept. Are we not men?" He clapped his hands. "Tea!" Carmichael looked around for his waiters. Dane and Abby shared a quick look, both conveying that they judged the old man to be very dangerous.

  The tea came rapidly in three cups passed out to each of them, milk and sugar placed on the table. Carmichael put milk and sugar in his gingerly, with an almost delicate precision to his movements.

  "Please, I apologize for my outburst. We shall relax and talk," said the old man.

  "I'm not usually a tea person, but I could use the caffeine," said Dane, piling sugar into his cup.

  "I at least appreciate tea," said Abby, taking a sip of her own.

  "Now Mr. Monday," said Carmichael, "what is it that you do exactly?"

  "Oh, I investigate things," said Dane, taking a sip of tea, then putting it down to pile in more sugar.

  "Like what?" said Carmichael, flexing his fingers in front of him, almost like a stage magician.

  "Y'know, things," said Dane. "Bad things, weird things - y'know, you probably wouldn't really be interested! It's pretty boring stuff! In fact, we shouldn't be wasting your time!" said Dane, beginning to stand from the table.

  Dane expected Carmichael to make some move, to ask Dane to sit, or at least gesture to Kripp who was standing not far from the table. Instead, everyone in the room was very still. But that didn't explain why the whole room wobbled. Dane was suddenly dizzy, almost as if he had stood up too quickly.

  He looked down at Abby. Her head lolled back over the chair, her eyes closed, completely unconscious.

  "You drugged us," slurred Dane.

  "Of course," said Carmichael, gently patting his lips with his napkin. "We use methods of class and bearing. We are not animals."

  Frying Pan and Fire

  Abby awoke in darkness. She was laying prone, her body flat against the rattling floor. There was a loud but partially muffled engine noise. She vaguely understood that she was moving as her wits returned to her. She tried to raise her head and cried out when it hit something. She tried to rub her head, but she found her hands bound again. As her wits returned to her, she quickly realized she was in the trunk of a moving car.

  A flashlight clicked on. Dane was across from her in the large trunk. He held a tiny keychain flashlight in between his ziptied hands.

  "Oh, good, you're awake," he said. "I was getting a little lonely. I for one am glad that this car has a gigantic trunk. Must be a Cadillac or something."

  "Tell me this a dream," said Abby.

  "It's a dream," said Dane.

  "Really?"

  "No. But for a split second, didn't you feel better?" said Dane.

  "Cheering people up is not your strong point," she said, testing the range of motion with her tied hands. She could at least rub her face. "So you've been up longer, do you know how to get out of this trunk?"

  "Well, unfortunately, New Avalon has no laws for requiring a hostage victim trunk latch," he said. "There does seem to be a keyhole on this side. I could pick that with my Enochian Omnitool - which before you ask is just basically just an magic lockpicking and hotwiring device - "

  "That's great!" said Abby.

  "...if I they hadn't taken my satchel."

  "Why would you even suggest that then?" she said in frustration.

  "Just letting you know that I had an idea. Unfortunately I have no ideas with resources that we actually have right now. I'm pretty sure we're stuck in here until they let us out."

  "Then what's the play, Dane?" she said. "Earlier, you said if we were blindfolded then they were not going to kill us. What is it when they stick us in a trunk?"

  "Being stuck in a trunk usually means they do intend to kill us," he said. "Not that I have a ton of experience, since I'm not dead and usually not stuck in regular cars. I'm more familiar with being stuck in a magical chariot or a hovercraft driven by a robot."

  "How is it I've never seen robot piloted hovercrafts in New Avalon?"

  "That one rode through the sewers," said Dane. "New Avalon's sewer system is freakishly large. Also full of monsters, if you ever wondered."

  "We're off topic... again," said Abby. "How are we going to not get killed by them when they open the trunk?"

  "Cleverness and initiative?" suggested Dane.

  "How specifically are we going to not killed by them when they open the trunk?"

  "Oh... I'm not sure yet." He paused. "Do you have any ideas yet?"

  "No..."

  The car slowed to a halt, trading smooth asphalt for a rougher ground that was either gravel or the shoulder of the road.

  "Too late! I think we're here," said Dane.

  The trunk was opened, light shining in as two men in suits looked in on them. Abby did her best to smile seductively, hoping maybe she could use her feminine wiles to influence the men, but her smile came out strained and awkward. As the men grabbed at them to pull them out, Dane tried to parlay.

  "Where's Mr. Douglas? I'd love to talk to him." As they ignored his statement, he continued. "Mr. Douglas? Awesome gentleman? Level headed and reasonable? Is he around?"

  "Mr. Douglas resigned his position earlier today," said one of the men. His voice was deep and raspy.

  "Oh," said Dane, remembering his conversation with Douglas on where his life was going. "Good for him, bad for us."

  As the men dropped Dane and Abby on the ground, Dane got a better look at the men. There were only two, but they might as well have been clones at a quick glance. They were neither Douglas or Kripp, but they were cast from the same mold. Tall, beefy, with earpieces that seemed practically fused to their cartilage. As the men opened up the backseat to grab something, Dane looked around. They were on a lonely stretch of road, dense trees on either side of it. It was nighttime and the moon was almost full. During the short time they sat on the ground, no cars passed by on the road.

  One of the men pulled a very large bag from the backseat which he slung over his shoulder before closing the doors. Then the other man gestured to Dane and Abby with his flashlight and gun. "Get up, it's time for a walk." It was the same raspy voice.

  "I believe that we are of the agreement that we are not in need of exercise," said Dane, looking at Abby, who nodded vigorously in agreement.

  "Up!" said Raspy in a louder and much more insistent tone that was punctuated by a shake of the gun.

  Reluctantly and awkwardly due to bound hands, Dane and Abby stood. Raspy then gestured toward the dark tree line. The moonlight provided generous light here on the road, but in contrast, the woods looked impenetrably dark. Neither Dane nor Abby wanted to walk into that darkness, but they were well-persuaded by the guns the men carried.

  The men followed behind them, shining their flashlight beams ahead of Dane and
Abby to guide them. With their hands ziptied, it was more difficult to walk through brush than usual, so Abby and Dane did their best not to stumble over branches while staying in the flashlight beams. That said, Dane still tripped over a log and went face first into the mud. Abby was sure that this was the start of Dane's cunning plan and tensed, waiting to follow his lead.

  "I need help!" shouted Dane.

  One of the burley guards carefully walked over to Dane while the other covered them with his gun. The guard used a single hand to grab Dane by the back of his jacket and pick him up. With that same massive arm, he put Dane back in a standing position. Then with a grunt, the man moved back to where his comrade stood.

  Dane was covered in mud, his face half covered by the stuff. He opened his mouth and spit out more mud, then spent another moment smacking his lips trying to get the taste out of his mouth. As they started moving again, prompted by the guards, Abby whispered, "I thought that was going to be your cunning escape plan."

  "No, I just tripped," said Dane. "And the mud around here tastes terrible! I don't recommend eating it."

  "Uh, thanks for the heads up," said Abby.

  They walked only a short while longer before they reached a clearing.

  "This looks good," said Raspy. "Stop."

  The other guard walked over to them and dropped his half unzipped bag. It hit the floor with a clang, revealing its contents: shovels.

  "Time for you two to dig," said this guard.

  Abby had followed Dane's lead, but an hour into the backbreaking work of digging their own graves, she still hadn't seen him make any movement other than digging. She expected that at some point he would make some reckless play at escape using some quirky fact he knew about villainous henchmen or some gadget he had stashed away. But so far he just seemed to be digging. Abby knew that she had enough fight in her that she wasn't going to just die. They wanted her digging her own grave so they could shoot her in the head and push her into it. She'd seen it on television dozens of times. She wasn't going to go out like that. If she was dead either way, why make it easy for them? She should go out with a fight. She tightened her grip on the shovel, waiting for the opportunity to swing it at one of the men.

  "Not yet," whispered Dane.

  Abby made an exasperated face but nodded slightly, going back to just digging. If Dane had a plan, then that was better than blindly lashing out.

  Dane didn't have a plan yet. He was actually a little disgusted with himself that he didn't have a plan. He always had some reckless idea of some random happenstance to help. But so far there was no plan nor fortuitous coincidence. For all his adventures, this was a rather boring and flat way to go out. Even Honnenheim's robot warehouse was better than this.

  He hadn't stopped Abby because he had a plan. Dane had seen the guard notice when Abby tensed up and grabbed her shovel tighter. If she had tried to swing at the closer guard, the other would have shot her immediately. There might be a time and place for reckless rebellion, but that wasn't it.

  The two guards were bored. As body guards, they had beaten people up, but only one of them (Raspy) had ever killed a man before, and that was when someone tried to attack the man they were body guarding. They had never murdered someone before. It was exciting in a taboo way, due to their lack of morals. What they didn't account for was that waiting for graves to be dug was really boring. They had to keep the guns on the couple to make sure they didn't run or talk back, but other than that, it was just watching two people dig. And since it was dim and muddy, even the pretty girl was unattractive when you gave her a shovel and made her carve out her own resting place.

  "It's kind of creepy here," said one.

  "Shh, Frank," said Raspy. "Not in front of the cargo."

  "I don't think they're going to care if we're creeped out," said Frank. "If the gun's still on them, nervous just means we might fire even easier. You hear that?" He said louder for Dane and Abby's benefit.

  "Yes, we do," said Dane and Abby, nearly in unison.

  "See?" said Frank. "But honestly, it is creepy. I mean, I haven't heard anything in a while. No sounds of like nature or something. It's dead quiet."

  "That's funny. Dead quiet," said Raspy.

  "I'm being serious. Something ain't right around here."

  "Yeah, it's us with our guns and them digging the graves. Stop letting your mind run and focus on the job. There's nothing to worry about except these two and getting back to town."

  Frank frowned, but then nodded, letting the issue drop.

  Which of course was a shame, because Frank was right. There was something to worry about. There was something else in the woods.

  Two somethings.

  The lurkers in the woods took in the scene in front of them. The signal indicated the primary target was in proximity. The secondary target was identified, but the primary had not been confirmed. The build of one of the people was similar, but facial recognition was failing. A closer look would be needed. Two others were present, but as long as they did not interrupt, they could be safely ignored. They stayed still, relaying their orders. Then there was confirmation of action. A signal rushed between the two units. Their optics lit up.

  "Holy crap, what's that?" said Frank.

  "Huh?" said Raspy, spinning around.

  "Red eyes! There are red eyes in the trees!"

  "Are you kidding me -"

  Branches broke loudly as something leapt out of the bushes. It landed with a thump in front of Dane, causing him to lose footing. He tumbled into the grave he was digging, face first into the mud.

  Abby almost fell into her own grave with her step backward. In front of her was a giant beast. Like a giant panther, it was covered with mud and branches from walking through the trees. The mouth was open, showing rows of teeth.

  But there was something off about it. Even beyond her fear, Abby saw that the creature looked too boxy, its teeth strangely shaped, the way its feet sank so deeply into the mud showing it weighed too much. When one of the guards swung their flashlight directly at it, she saw the light glint off the teeth and the creature's ear. It was made of metal!

  "Robots!" said Abby in surprise.

  "Robots, what the hell?" said Frank, looking at the creature with panic. "We didn't know anything about robots!"

  Dane pulled himself up out of the muddy grave, unknowingly putting his muddy face right in front of the creature's open jaw. He struggled to get his eyes open with the mud caked all over his face.

  Within the creature's brain, Dane's muddy faced was scanned for recognition. Internal software attempted to match his face with known images of Dane's face.

  However, the mud caked on Dane's face was thick and it changed the contours of his visage. It also changed the outright color of his face. The software was not designed to compensate for thick layers of mud. Instead it came up with a negative result.

  "Not a match," said the robot cat's voice flat voice.

  But even in the robot voices, there was vanity. Dane knew that voice. Though the voices were produced by software, the underlying voice they were based off of was Honnenheim's. His arrogance or lack of social skills had him use his voice as a basis for all his robots. They all talked in a robotic version of his voice. So Dane knew in an instant that this was one of Honnenheim's robots. And that was making a bad situation even worse.

  The robot had turned away from Dane, its feline head panning back and forth to search for another Dane-like target.

  Both guards saw that this strange creature had leapt out of the woods, scared the crap out of them, and now seemed to be sizing up their hostages. While the thought crossed both guards' minds that they could let the beast could just eat their captives, they had been looking forward to the murder part and needed to be able to confirm the deaths of Dane and Abby. If the creature dragged off their victims, they couldn't get a confirmed kill. So they took issue with the beast.

  "Get out of here you damn cat!" shouted Raspy. He fired his gun in the general direction
of the robot. The cat's head whipped around to look at that guard. He realized his mistake when those red eyes stared right at him. But now he felt he was definitely in danger, so he needed to defend himself. He fired at the big cat. Two bullets bounced off its head. This is when Raspy realized something was wrong and turned to run.

  It was too late.

  The robot cat leapt on him, bringing him to the ground. It let out a computerized roar. Frank began firing at it, either panicking or uncaring that his comrade was pinned by the beast and in the line of fire. He got off three ineffective shots before the trees behind him parted and a second robotic cat descended on him.

  Abby had frozen, having no weapon besides the shovel and shocked by the sheer madness of this situation. Dane had kept his head. He leaned down to scoop up a flashlight dropped by one of the guards then he grabbed Abby's arm. He started running, dragging her with him.

  The beam was the only way they could see the ground, and as they ran it bounced up and down, making it very hard to see. Dane fell over that same log again, quickly picking himself up and rubbing mud off his face. Adrenaline surged through their veins because they knew the robotic cats had shown up for them. They made it to the road in record time, their lungs threatening to explode. The car was still unlocked. Dane rooted around in the backseat for his satchel.

  "Is there something in there to stop the panthers?" said Abby.

  "Panthers? I really see them more like tigers!" said Dane from the backseat.

  "This is not the time for that!" she said.

  "The good news is that my satchel is here," said Dane. "But I'm not sure if anything in it is going to help us. So I guess you should start up the car and get going."

  Abby slid into the driver's seat. "I figured you'd want to drive this thing. Some Dane Monday special driving secrets or something." She looked around the driver's seat but didn't find a key. "Crap, the keys are still with the two guys!"