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Proudly Presents:
City Streets
#7: Girls Night Out
cover: A woman on a metallic blue motorcycle leaping off a stage, with Lee, Robin, and Heather looking on in disbelief.
Lee, Robin, and Heather sat at a table in one of Queens' less-seedy nightclubs, not distastefully named the Encounter. The three made an unusual trio: blond Robin, redheaded Heather, and brunette Lee. Not surprisingly, Robin sat between the others.
"I'm surprised you asked me to come with you, Lee" Heather stated. "I know you don't trust me."
"That's exactly why I asked you to come with," Lee shot back. "So I can keep an eye on you."
"Cheerful thought."
Heather shifted uncomfortably as the music on the stage started. Then the roar of an engine grabbed her attention. She spun around in her seat, her hand going for her concealed pistol.
"It's okay, babe," Robin told her. "It's part of their act."
A sleek metallic blue motorcycle roared down the aisle next to her on one wheel. Then, as the girls were certain the rider would crash, the rider jumped the bike up onto the stage. The rider jumped off the cycle as it hung in mid-air.
"Relax, red," Robin whispered. "Watch the bike."
Indeed, the bike, after it's rider head jumped off, came to a stop and shut itself off next to the back wall.
"incredible," Heather and Lee muttered at the same time.
"For once, you two agree," Robin stated. "I think this is going to be one interesting night."
"I don't believe it," Allan complained, pulling a dead mouse out of the transmission. "Josh, you said you got this thing in the Village?"
"Yeah," Josh replied, cleaning the electric starter. "So?"
"Don't ever get anything there again."
It had been three weeks since their breakout, and the van was now in an abandoned repair garage in Queens, where the team had holed up for the time being. Repairs were not going as smoothly as anyone expected.
"I don't know if we'll ever be able to come together as a team," Josh mused. "Pete and the twins don't trust Heather, Lee's acting like a fifth wheel, Pete's temper is growing shorter every day, and everybody's complaining that we aren't doing enough to stop Harnagorn. Hell, we don't even know all the details about what it is we want to stop."
"I know," Allan replied, sitting on a stool to clean the mouse nest out of the transmission. "I think it's time we learned more."
Brooke de Vass strutted and swayed across the _Encounter_'s stage, belting out "Ballroom Blitz" to the packed house. This, she thought, is my element. The crowds, the pulsating music, the.... "What the hell?!"
Heads turned to the rear of the nightclub.
"Not this moron again," Booter groaned, looking up from his drums.
"Didn't we teach this slimeball the last time," Rick Zeto asked, dropping his guitar into it's stand, "that Urban Renewal doesn't like to be interrupted?"
Down in the audience, Heather had discretely drawn her pistol.
"Easy, red," Robin whispered. She slipped her sister a sly wink.
"Here's da game plan," the burly intruder stated, his voice booming in the now-silent nightclub. "You all hand me yer money an' jools, an' none o' yoos gets hoit. Y'know?"
"Check out that accent," Lee giggled.
"It's worse than Runt's!" Robin cackled loudly.
"Who 're yoos callin' a runt, missy?" the intruder asked, sauntering over to the girls' table. "Pihranna don' like ta be callt names."
"How about we call you fish food, Pihranna?" Brooke yelled into her microphone. Pihranna's head snapped to the stage.
"Oh shit."
"You said it!" Robin yelled, planting a powerful kick to the back of Pihranna's neck. He never flinched.
"I think we're in trouble," Lee muttered, backing away.
The roar of a motorcycle engine drowned out any comments from the crowd, as they took advantage of Pihranna's preoccupation to quickly flee the nightclub.
Brooke leapt the motorcycle off the stage, and roared towards Pihranna. For a second, it was a matter of will. Who would be the one to flinch first: Brooke, or Pihranna? Unstoppable force, or immoving object?
Force won, as Pihranna's eyes grew wide, and he side-stepped to avoid Brooke's collision run. Unfortunately for him, he side-stepped wight into Robin's path. Grabbing his arm, Robin used her martial arts training to toss him face first into a table. A blow to the temple knocked him out.
The wail of sirens outside indicated that the police were finally arriving.
"You gals are prety good," Brooke commented. "Thanks for the assist."
"Pretty gutsy move yourself," Robin replied.
"It was nothing. Urban Renewal, that's the band, has dealt with him before. He's a pushover."
"Look," Heather cut in, "we'd love to stay and chat, but we can't, you know? If any of those cops recognize us, we're dead meat."
"On the lam?" Brooke asked, laughing. "So're we. Come on. We know seven different back ways out of here. The owner only knows five."
All it took was a glance to the door, through which the red and blue flashing lights of a police car could be seen, and the girls bolted for the stage.
A knock on her office door grabbed Laura Harnagorn's attention.
"It's open, Danette."
A young girl, no more than sixteen, entered the office.
"You wanted to see me, Boss?" Danette asked, brushing a lock of red hiar away from her eyes.
"Yes." Harnagorn handed her a folder. "Are you aware of Dr. Joanna Zawodniak's work with the elusive Para-Gene?"
"Vaguely."
"Her experiments are detailed quite nicely in that folder," Harnagorn explained. "With the loss of my best agents, I need replacements, fast. The information in that folder tells us how to find a person who may have the Para-Gene."
"And once we find someone with this gene?" Danette asked.
"I will have the best kind of agent," Harnagorn smiled her unearthly smile. "A living weapon."
"You live in a subway station?" Heather asked. "Cool."
"It's better than up on the streets," Alison Bailey commented, carrying her keyboard over to a stand.
The subway station Brooke and Urban Renewal had led the girls to was expansive, stretching at least an eighth of a mile in length.
"Go ahead and find a place to sleep," Brooke offered. "Just stay away from the tracks. That third rail is still active."
"Thanks," Lee replied. "But we better return to the others. They'll be worried."
"There's more of you?" Alison asked.
"I think we've said enough," Heather grumbled.
"Don't let her get to you," Robin told the band. "She's just suffering from the blahs. She left part of her past behind when we ran away from the orphanage."
"That's enough!" Heather yelled, lunging at Robin. Robin expertly grabbed her and tossed her to the ground.
"I think we'd better be going," Lee told Brooke. "If you'd just show us a map...."
"That's it," Josh remarked as he closed the doghouse cover inside the van. "This piece of junk is finished."
"That's good to hear," a feminine voice called from the doorway. Allan and Josh turned thier heads in time to see the girls wander in, somewhat exhausted.
"How was your night?" Allan asked.
"Exciting," Lee replied. "We'll fill you in on the details later. G'nite."
"I think I'll turn in as well," Heather commented, turning to leave, her face expressionless.
"Al, Josh," Robin told them after Heather had left, "I think something's wrong with Heather. She almost attacked me earlier."
Robin then explained all that had happened. Allan and Josh glanced over at the door, then each other.
"Rob, there's something I need to tell you about Heather," Allan said. "It's the reason we asked Lee to take her with you, although we never told her that. I was, well.... I was unable to totally break the brainwashing. Only Josh and I knew it's not complete."
"Until now," Josh commented, "we thought what was left of the brainwashing would decay on it's own. Seems we'll have to keep a closer eye on her."
All three sets of eyes zeroed in on the door Heather had left through.
"I hope tonight was an isolated incident," Robin breathed.
"So do I," Allan agreed. "So do I."