StarFall Comics
A Division of Pullemouttayerhat Productions
A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of StarFall Innovations
Proudly Presents:
City Streets
#8: Of Fear and Changes...
cover: A standard 4-triangle cover split, with a cyan/green background. Top corner has the Logo. Left corner has Harnagorn and Danette, with Runt in the background. Right corner has Jack holding a phone. Bottom corner has Heather standing, arms crossed and head down, with Allan standing behind her, looking a bit perplexed.
It was nighttime in the South Bronx. That meant many things to many people. Some people were heading to bed, others sat awake, typing at their computers. Movie theatres were between movies, saying goodnight to the evening crowd, while waiting for the midnight crowd. To the gangs, it meant a time for protecting their "turf", or finding an easy mugging victim. But to the residents of one particular brownstone, nighttime meant something totally different.
"Are you sure you've found someone that fits the bill, Danette?" Harnagorn asked, sitting at her desk.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Who is this person?"
"I am."
"Now what's ol' Paleface up to?" Runt muttered, her ear up to the door of Harnagorn's office. "Uh-oh, better get lost. She's on her way out." Scrambling around the corner, she suddnely reversed direction and walked back around the corner, just as Danette was closing the door behind her.
"Hey, Dani!" she said cheerfully.
"Oh, hi Runt. How much did you hear this time?"
"Hear what?" she asked in her most innocent voice, which, had it not come from her, would be very convincing.
"Yeah, right." Danette shook her head. She knew Runt too well to be fooled by her "little miss innocent" act. "Just don't spread it around."
"Do I ever?" Runt replied, with a large grin. "Come on, Dani, they're gonna be playing Oliver Twist in the third floor TV room. Let's get get some good seats before they're taken." Dragging Danette by the arm, Runt raced for the stairs.
"Something wrong, Heather?"
Looking up from her chair, she noticed Allan standing in the doorway.
"Oh, nothing."
"You're worried, aren't you?" a touch of concern in his voice.
"No," she replied, a little too hastily.
"Come on, red, I know you better than that. Something's bugging you. You've been quiet for days now." She remained silent. "Does it have something to do with the other night?"
"No.... Yes, it does."
"Mind telling me?"
"I'm scared, Al."
There was an awkward pause as the words sunk in.
"I'm scared I might... do something. Something that would harm the group. I almost lost it the other night, started slipping back into the old Heather, the one that was loyal to her." The word "her" was spat out, as if Heather was trying to remove a bad taste from her mouth.
"Heather, you know what I can do. Do you want me to...?"
"NO!"
There was another brief pause, as Heather tried to regain her composure.
"I'm sorry, Al. Part of me wants you to make sure I'm alright. But is what you did to us, any different than what she did? How do I even know that you're really not on her side?"
"Heather, I.... If you want to leave us, you are free to do so. I'm not forcing you, or any of the others, to stay." He turned to leave.
"Wait!"
He hesitated, and started turning back to her.
"Yes?"
"It... It can wait," she muttered.
"Ah." Slowly, hesitantly, he left.
Jack walked along the bar of the Loose Goose, propping the stools up on the bar, when the phone rang.
"'Ello? Look, Mussmoth, I won't do it. And don't send yer thugs out here, either." Slamming the phone down on it's hook, he cursed.
"Worst mistake of my life was getting involved with him."
"Are you sure this'll work?" Pete asked, as Allan set a special contact lens inside the younger boy's eye.
"All you need to do is get into Hanagorn's office," Allan commented. Then get a good look at the Plan and get out. The contact I placed in your eye will do the rest."
"But why me?" Pete complained.
"Simple. You're the only one of us trained as a spy. And your small size helps you hide where the rest of us can't."
"Wonderful," Pete groaned.
"You do realize that you will be changed by this procedure, miss?"
Danette Simpson looked around at the lab where she'd spend the next few days, before turning to the technician. Harnagorn hovered in the background.
"Yes," she replied, a touch of fear in her voice. "But I want it to happen."
The senior technician led her over to a machine resembling a hospital's CAT scanner. "Let's get started, then."
What did you get yourself into, girl, Danette thought to herself, as she laid down on the table, and was slid into the machine.
It was dawn as Pete slid the manhole cover aside, poked his head out of the hole, and looked around. He recognized the area; he was in the alley across from the Orphanage.
How the hell am I gonna get in there without them seeing me? he thought to himself. "Wait a second...." He chuckled to himself as he slid the cover back into place.
"I remember reading something about a ventilation shaft nearby," he muttered as he crawled through the sewers. "If only I could.... Here it is." With a tug, the shaft grate dropped off, and Pete slid effortlessly into the shaft.
After several minutes of twisting through turns that would have made another lose his sense of direction, Pete gazed through a grate in the floor of the shaft. Below him, several men in white lab coats prepared some equipment he'd never seen before in his life. Strapped onto a bench in the middle of the room, was a redheaded girl in her mid-teens.
"Oh, man," Pete moaned. "What're they gonna do to Danette?"
Pete could only watch as Danette was placed inside one of the machines. He shuddered to think of what Harnagorn had planned for her.
"How long until the energization is complete?" one of the the lab tachs asked.
"Forty-eight hours," a second replied, adjusting a dial.
"Maintain a constant vigil," the senior tech ordered. "If anything unexpected happens, report it immediately.
Remembering his instructions, Pete tore himself away from the lab, climbing up the ventilation system and intot he shaft that ran through Harnagorn's office.
Harnagorn was talking on the phoen when Pete arrived. His blood boiled at what she'd done to him... to all of them. He wanted revenge.
This is a spy mission, he reminded himself. Don't try to take the old bag out now. Let her slip and tell me something first.
"Yes, Senator," she stated. "The Plan will be ready on schedule. Ahead of schedule, in fact. I already have my lab boys working on the perfect assassin. Can you see the President keeling over at the supper table due to a heart attack? Perfectly normal cause of death. A microwave weapon, of course. Ah, but you see, Senator, the assassin will not be carrying a weapon. She'll *be* the weapon. I thought you'd like that. After a month or two of training, she'll be ready for immediate action. Good day, Senator."
"Are you sure, Pete?" Lee asked a few hours later. All six were sitting around a table, which was covered with boxes from a nearby Chinese restaurant. Heather was particularly sullen this night.
"Danette Simpson's gonna beturned into some sort of weapon to kill the president?"
"That's what I heard," was Pete's reply. "That must be what those lab boys were doing to her in that lab I saw."
"Who was she on the phone with?" Josh asked.
"All she called him was 'Senator'," Pete replied. "She said that the Plan would be ready in a month."
"The camera contact lens we got from Jack confirms everything," Allan said, placing a small viewer on the table. "I think it's time to pay Harnagorn a little visit."
The others nodded their consent.