Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 24!

 It's the middle of the week, and more than 2 months without an installment of Sidekick Carl, so I barely got one together. As usual, here's links for first, second and previous installments.

The facility looked like a truncated pyramid, 3 stories tall and 100 feet on a side. There was no sign to identify its purpose, only a 7-digit number and an emphatic sign that said: UN CAAPEP MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILITY TOP SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY. The car that approached paused briefly outside the cyclone fence. At the wave of a badge, the gate opened.

An armored figure advanced to meet the new arrival. Lauren Carter smiled from the driver’s seat. “Greetings, Agent Carter,” the guard said with a deep but neutral voice. “How may we assist you?”

“I’m here to see a person of interest being detained at this location,” she answered. “I will be evaluating the subject for transfer to an alternate facility.”

“Ms. Carter,” the guard replied, “your clearance gives access to the grounds. But surely you are aware, I cannot admit you. We certainly cannot confirm the details of who, if anyone, is here.”

Lauren continued to smile as she lifted the badge to reveal a card beneath it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We aren’t supposed to show these unless needed.”

“Of course,” the guard said. “That changes things. Of course, any change in arrangements would require further review. But we can admit you.”

Soon enough, Lauren approached a cell a number of stories under ground. It was lined with bullet-proof glass. Within was a woman whose dark hair had grown long enough for an attractive short-length cut. She wore yellow fatigues with some semblance of styling, which Lauren recognized as a uniform for aerospace technicians. “Dr. Hartnell,” she said succinctly. The other looked up with interest.

“Sidekick Carl just found the Toxo Warriors’ lab,” Lauren continued. “The one outside Audrey’s colony. My husband is on the way with a Tactical Team. But I don’t think they’re going to find anything. Are they?”

And the woman who had become a supervillain smiled…

* * *

 

Audrey’s mutant tackled Dana, or tried to, just as the explosion went off. His efforts were just enough to push her out of the way before the door she was about to kick down became a spray of splinters. The metal loading door, by comparison, rippled and bowed without giving way. The real question was whether the walls would hold, and if they did not, whether they would fall inward or outward. In fact, they did hold, mostly, well enough that Dana quickly flattened herself against it to avoid the rain of pieces of the roof. She shrieked when something that was clearly not debris came hurtling down, a smoking shape with limbs that seemed to flail in every direction except the way they were meant to move. The form hit hard enough to throw up a secondary cloud of dust on impact. The mutant held her in place when she tried to rush out. It took a little longer for the last of the roof to fall.

Dana finally reached her husband as Audrey came around the corner. The towering mutant accompanying her was beating out flames in its fur. Bare moments passed before Audrey was at her side. “Well, you’re looking worse than usual,” she said.

Carl looked like a rag doll, his limbs and joints turned in a dozen incompatible directions. His white suit was now black, either charred or covered in soot, dust and chemicals. For a moment, he was ominously still. Then his head raised and turned, facing almost directly backwards. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, you’re getting old.” One at a time, his limbs twisted back into their natural shape, until he was finally able to sit up.”

“Oh, Carl,” Dana said. She could not hide a shudder as his right leg rearranged itself. “Are you… still you?”

“You bet,” he said. He rose to his feet, wobbling like a scarecrow in a windstorm. “That’s not even the worst I’ve been through. Ah, not quite.”

“Sure,” Audrey said. “There was one time I dropped a freight elevator on him…” Dana covered her eyes and screeched.

As they spoke, four armored figures swooped overhead. A moment later, the leader circled back and touched down. The armor was not much bulkier than a knight’s mail, colored deep blue. The figure raised a visor, revealing the irritated face of Agent John Carter. “Dammit, Carl,” he said. “We both know you’d hold onto the best lead for yourself, bur you could at least try not to get the building blown down.”

“The place was already wired to blow,” Carl said. “One of your teams wouldn’t have found any more than I did, and they would have died for real. Oh, and one of the Toxo Warriors was still there. He got out through a trapdoor. It’s probably a tunnel to the mall. If you hurry, you might still catch him.”

John Carter spoke gruffly into his mouthpiece, “Have you found any human signatures, or any traces of a vehicle?”

“If someone made a getaway, we should have seen it,” came the reply. “The only operable vehicles we’ve found are a bike and an open-topped scooter, I’m guessing the ones Carl and his companions used to get here.”

Carl shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The man I met was one of the original Toxo Warriors. We talked, long enough; he knew things I knew that nobody else would. He pretty much admitted, he was the one who made their biggest mistakes. But he still had plans and backup plans. He wouldn’t have bolted without anywhere to go.” He turned to Carter and said, so curtly it could have been an order, “Get Dana back to her RV. Now.”

The agent paused, only a moment. “Lopez, I need you to transport the Nine-Foot Woman back to her primary transport,” he said. In bare moments, one of his subordinates came back, a woman. She literally picked up Dana, rising just a little more slowly than she might have unencumbered. Dana gave a cry that might have been a whoop as they departed.

“All right,” John Carter said. “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t know,” Carl said. “I just wanted Dana out of here. I didn’t like the idea of her RV just sitting there either. I suppose, maybe, we actually came out ahead. The Toxo Warrior needed a diversion that might take out at least one or a few of us. The bomb would have done that well enough, if you hadn’t come after.”

“But you said yourself, he would have a getaway vehicle waiting, somewhere,” Carter countered. “There has to be something we’re missing…” As he spoke, he looked over his shoulder at the lesser storage buildings.

 

And as he looked, the walls of the building fell outward as an enormous metal shape rose up, topped by glowing eyes and teeth at the end of a long neck. There was a sound that could only be laughter, as loud as thunder from the metal dragon's throat.