by Linda Mooney
I don’t doubt it.
You know, you really should give her an interview.
Lorne chuckled as he hovered above the smoking ruins. And then what, Luke?
She’s very interested in you.
Tell me something I don’t know. She’s interested in The Defender, not Lorne Palmer.
But she loves you as Lorne.
Just like she loves you and Lee. We’re family.
I agree, but you’re not getting the vibes I’m getting. The Defender is pushing her buttons. You should have felt the spike I got when that little whatever-it-was went off.
Lorne knew he had a silly grin on his face at that moment, but he didn’t care.
Let’s leave Brenda out of this so I can concentrate on the factory. I’m not getting anything now.
Forget that little room. Go back to the main site of the original explosion.
Mentally nodding, Lorne eased back into the main area. The place smelled of scorched wood and metal. Taking a deeper breath, Lorne tried to decipher anything that seemed suspicious. What he hit upon was entirely new to him, and therefore possibly dangerous.
Luke?
Way ahead of you, bro. Let me check my records first to be sure.
To be sure? That was the first time Lorne had heard his brother comment about needing to do a bit of research.
What? The great Mr. Mental doesn’t know everything?
Screw you, Lorne. At least once I learn something, I don’t forget it. Give me some more feedback on that scent so I can be certain.
Closing his eyes, Lorne concentrated on the elusive, barely perceptible smell. It’s oily. Almost like something’s rotten or decomposing, but with a metallic whang.
Okay! Got it! You’re smelling unguindene.
The protective powers wrapping around him would keep out any dangerous microbes or organisms which could harm him, but the scents could still penetrate it. And this scent had “Warning!” written all over it. Requesting a definition of ‘unguindene’.
The byproduct of acetal-diphilate prorestilyme, bicamphorate sulfide, and biphuromethanene.
Easy for you to say. How about some one syllable words, bro?
You just found the smoking gun. Literally.
That’s it?
We need a sample to test and tag as evidence.
What am I looking for, then?
If you can smell it, then trace amounts are still present. Hold on. Let me check on something real quick.
He had reached the epicenter of the original blast. The heart of the factory.
Are the rumors true? Did they really use this place to research toxins for chemical warfare? His next thought was for Brenda’s welfare. He had never tested his abilities to any great extent, and he was pretty certain he could protect her from just about any chemical compound, manmade or natural. The trick would be to get to her in time before any of it reached her.
Not that I’m aware of. But Dobbling was instrumental in trying to come up with more methods of chemical combustion. My guess is, whoever set this thing up knew that, and planted just enough of a conducive element in the mixture to upset the balance. When you find a shiny, light blue residue, you’ve hit paydirt.
Lorne honed in on the scent, tracking it like a human bloodhound. Pushing aside burnt and demolished pieces of furniture and metal, he found a pile of ash and smoldering waste lying on the floor. Twisted bits of wire stuck out of the pile. He waved his hand over the ash, scattering it, and revealing more slivers of wire. Something made the wires shimmer, as if a light had passed over them.
Luke?
I’m here. That shimmer? It’s unguindene residue.
Paydirt?
Yeah. Be reeeal careful.
What’s it going to do? Blow up on me? He was joking…sort of. Just in case, though, he double-surrounded the pieces of wire in an extra-strong force field, and lifted it out of the pile of rubble. It looked like he was holding what used to be a mesh trash basket. But because the receptacle had been made of interwoven bits of metal instead of being solid, the explosion had not disintegrated it completely.
Uhh, it might. That stuff is more volatile than nitroglycerine.
Lorne blinked. Then what in the hell is it doing in this lab? It’s not produced here, is it?
One of the chemicals which form its base are produced here. But all three elements have to be combined in a specific order for it to go blooey. I’m going out on a limb here and saying that someone put some of one of those elements inside the trash can, then made sure the can was near a storage area containing the other two chemicals.
Then found a way to combine the three, to create the explosion.
And now, because the area is dotted with minute bits of unguindene, smaller blasts could pop off at any time. You’re standing in a potential minefield, Lorne.
Was that little volcano earlier brought on by some of that unexploded unguindene?
Chances are, yes. Something you might have pushed against, or moved, and it fell on a bit of the residue. Accidental contact. There’s no telling. A good sneeze could set it off.
Or a strong breeze. A rainstorm. Clumsy investigators. Lorne looked around. Then this whole area needs to be evacuated, and the entire place razed.
A chuckle vibrated inside his head. This looks like a job for The Defender!
Go suck an egg, Luke.
Very slowly, Lorne lifted out of the building with the coated bits of metal held in stasis within his power. The only safe place he could take it would be to the containment center where the bomb squad of the local police force was located. There he could place it in a bombproof locker, where the experts could study it in relative safety. It was a good forty-minute drive by car, but Lorne could get there in a fraction of the time.
As he rose higher in the sky, he glanced down to see the cameras still rolling. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t call out to Brenda to tell her where he was going, as the vibrations from his voice could set off another explosion. No, first things first. Duty above all.
Duty above all. It had been his daddy’s credo, and Lorne was determined to make sure the Palmer legacy lived on.
Chapter 10
Event
“Another minor blast has ripped through the Dobbling Chemicals factory, mere days after an initial explosion literally shredded this building to pieces. The Defender was brought back in by the Fullerton Police Department, to help them investigate the cause of the intial blast.
“However, a few minutes ago, while our new superhero was inside the remains of the factory, another explosion occurred, forcing The Defender to erect what appeared to be a protective force field over the blast site.
“Once the blast was contained, he went back into the factory again. Unconfirmed reports suggest the cause of the first explosion, and this second one, may not have been accidental. As you can see behind me, the area is littered with debris, some of which is still smoking. Onlookers and news crews have been asked by the Fullerton Fire Department to remain behind the barrier tape for their own protection.
“It appears The Defender has emerged again from the factory, and he’s carrying what appears to be a container of sorts.
“Please stay tuned. We will report more on this as it develops. This is Brian Witherspoon, WNN, reporting from Fullerton.”
Brenda stood within earshot of the news crew as everyone stared up at The Defender flying away from the demolished factory. At this distance, she could see he was carrying something smallish in his hands, but she couldn’t quite make it out.
Where’s he going? “Is he holding something?”
“Yeah,” the reporter replied. “It looks like a container of sorts. It’s hard to tell. It looks like it’s wrapped in something.”
The cameraman zoomed in with the lens, but he was too slow. The Defender shot eastward. “Damn.”
Yeah. Damn. Brenda continued to feel like one of those bobble-head dolls. Her body remained in one place, but her brain still rattled around inside her skull from the unex
pected eruption that had sent them all running.
All but her. For some reason, she knew they weren’t in any danger. That, somehow, The Defender would protect them. After all, wasn’t that his purpose? To keep them out of danger? Still, instinct had told her to run for cover, and she’d sought out the nearest large thing she could hide behind—a tree.
She turned to see the news crew hurrying back to their van. She hustled to catch up. Her job now was to discover the cause of the blast, and who was behind it. Which was why she figured that tagging along with the news media might be her best bet to finding out anything. “Any idea where he’s going?” she managed to ask before they slammed the door in her face.
“Looks like he’s heading for the police station,” the reporter called out the passenger side window as the cameraman gunned the engine. The news van screeched its tires as it peeled out of the parking lot. Brenda turned and ran for her own car.
As intersections raced by her window, Brenda tried to get a grip on the feeling nibbling at her subconscious. There was a lot more going on at the factory than what she or the news media was being told. Of course, if this thing was a lot deeper than it looked, the authorities were going to keep as much of it under the blanket as they could, so as not to lose whatever punch they had when it came down to prosecuting someone.
She smiled. She was well aware of the tricks cops pulled to draw the news hounds off of the immediate trail. Yet, for some reason, she couldn’t get rid of the notion that The Defender was calling all the shots at this point in time.
The news crew careened into the police parking lot where two lone cruisers were parked, with Brenda right behind them. As the two men jumped out their van, and headed into the police station, she remained sitting behind the wheel.
Something was wrong. It felt all wrong. “This isn’t right. He can’t be here. Not here here.” But there was no denying the fact that she and the others had seen The Defender fly off in this direction with some evidence.
She chewed on her tongue for a few seconds as she continued to look around. The police station was smack in the middle of downtown, near the main square where many businesses were located. Across the street was City Hall, and the next block over was the city jail.
The Defender had just protected them from another, smaller, unexpected explosion, and soon after left with visible evidence. Would he take it straight to the police? Common sense told her yes.
It looks like it’s wrapped in something.
Brenda recalled watching The Defender hold his shielding powers over the blast that boiled over like a miniature volcano. From where she stood, the fumes and flames were silvery, like they had been sprayed with mercury. Or glitter. Very reflective and shiny.
It looks like it’s wrapped in something.
If the man had taken something that was potentially volatile, would he have taken it to the police station, where they would have simply marked and tagged it, and then shoved it into an evidence locker?
It looks like it’s wrapped in something.
A station door opened, and the cameraman came outside, strolling over to the van where he opened up the side door to get something. Brenda rolled down her driver’s side window and called out to him. “You said the object The Defender was carrying looked like it was wrapped in something. Did you mean, like he had possibly wrapped it in his powers to keep it from going off?”
The man gave a quick shrug of his shoulders. “I meant he had wrapped something around it. Maybe it was his powers. Or it could have been something else. What difference does it make?”
Without waiting for her answer, he grabbed a satchel and slung it over a shoulder, then slammed the van door shut and hurried back inside the station house.
Like he had wrapped something around it? It had to be his powers. “That means whatever he had could be potentially dangerous,” she observed to herself. If The Defender wrapped his powers around it, that could mean he believed it had the ability to explode, or something equally catastrophic. “He’s not here. He wouldn’t bring something that could go off and cause damage here to the police station, in the middle of town. If it went off, it would cause major havoc.”
But if that was the case, then where… Another idea came to her. There was a bomb squad here in Fullerton. Six years ago, when she’d left for the big city, there hadn’t been, but times had changed. When she had been researching locations where the company could put a factory, and she had been fighting to get it built in her old hometown, one of the main requirements was that the town have a bomb squad and dispatch location. To her delight, she discovered that Fullerton had just acquired one. Since then, she’d been too busy to check out its location.
A police officer exited the building and was heading in her direction to get to his squad car. Brenda took the chance to ask him, “Where are the offices of the bomb squad located?”
The officer paused and pointed toward the east, in the direction The Defender had flown. “That way, past the city limits.”
“How do I get there?”
“Take Main Street until you hit the city limits. Take a right on Mill Road and follow it as far as it’ll take you,” the man directed her. “You’ll see a big concrete bunker in the distance. That’s it. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks!” She grinned, already backing up her little import in order to turn around.
The city limits for Fullerton was another fifteen minute stop-and-go ride, through another residential neighborhood, past strip malls, and through a half-dozen stop lights. Once she passed the city limits, it was another thirty-minute drive through the countryside, past open fields. The cop had been right. She quickly spotted the single-story concrete building in the distance as she turned off the main highway, onto a narrow paved road.
It looked like one of those bunkers she’d seen in spy movies. The kind that were rumored to go several stories underground. She was stopped by a guard at the only gate leading in and out. Although she provided her Dobbling Enterprises credentials, security refused to allow her entrance.
“Sorry, ma’am, but you don’t have clearance.”
“Where do I get clearance?” she asked amiably. It wouldn’t do to piss off a man holding a gun.
“You’d have to do that at the police station, ma’am.”
Brenda glanced skyward. “Did The Defender come here? Can you tell me that much?”
This time the young soldier looked honestly puzzled. “Who, ma’am?”
She waved it off. “Never mind. Thank you. I’ll go to the police station and see if I can’t get a pass or something. Thank you for your time.” In addition, she gave him a warm smile. He touched the brim of his cap, and she backed away from the gate to turn around and return to town.
She was less than a quarter of a mile down the road when she pulled onto a private road. From there she could see the bunker in the distance. If The Defender departed from there, flying in the same way she’d seen him do when he’d left the factory, spotting him would be a cinch.
Unless he flies so fast, no one can see him. Besides, you have no idea if he really went there.
Which was true. For all she knew, he could have stopped off somewhere else.
How long are you planning on sitting here, waiting for him, anyway?
Another excellent question. Brenda sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the headrest. The idea of sitting here for God knows how long while she waited to spot The Defender was fast becoming unappealing. Besides, what would she do then? Try to tail him? How sensible would that be when he was unhindered up there in the sky, and she had to keep an eye on traffic?
More than that, Brenda realized she just wasn’t up to it. It was too soon after the death of her father to think about the business, and she should have known better. It was the carrot named The Defender that had been dangled in front of her fact which had motivated her this time. Furthermore, she got the distinct impression the excitement, for the most part, was over. It was time to call it a da
y.
Reluctantly, she pulled back onto the farm-to-market road and headed for home.
Chapter 11
Responsibility
She wished she had been better prepared for the grilling. It was a good thing Wagner had emailed her a prepared statement to present to the media, and especially to the families of the victims of the explosion.
Facing the bank of microphones and, beyond them, the faces of the curious and the bereaved, Brenda took a deep breath before beginning.
“My name is Brenda McKay, and I’m the Acquisitions Director for Dobbling Enterprises. But first and foremost I am a born and bred Fullertonite. Many of you know me personally, and you knew my family.”
There were nods in the crowd. It was a busy time for the two mortuaries in town, as well as for the cemetery.
“When I got my current position at Dobbling, my first initiative was to see that Fullerton was given a fair chance at what this dynamic company had to offer. I knew from firsthand experience that Fullerton was in dire need of an economic boost, and I fought hard for Dobbling to build its next factory here. When I was given the green light, I truly felt as if I was finally able to pay back my hometown for all the wonderful opportunities it had given me when I was growing up. So you can understand my dread and sorrow at the accident which occurred last week.”
She barely glanced at the memo she already had memorized. The email was rather stiff and formal, but she felt that by reminding everyone that she had also been deeply affected by the blast because of personal and family ties to the community, the public would be less harsh on the company.
“To say that my heart goes out to those of you who lost a family member is an understatement. I knew most of them personally, and I knew all of them through some association or another.”
She found the Macasca family sitting in the sixth row to her left. Brenda nodded in their direction. “Nick, Abrita, I remember when John Jay and I graduated together. And I remember him wearing those ridiculous plaid golfing shorts underneath his graduation gown, which he made sure to show the crowd when he went up on stage to accept his diploma.”