The work area was just as she left it. Hesitantly, she moved into the area where she thought the cart was and slowly changed position from standing on the beam to hanging from it. Releasing her grip she lightly landed and smoothly sunk into a squatting position. The darkness was almost complete and she only found the cart by sensing something off to her right that was a shade darker than the space around it. She was taken by surprise to find it empty. The only things remaining were a few wood scraps from the splintered crate and a ring of Styrofoam packing peanuts on the ground around the cart.
“Where is everything?” She wondered to herself. “Eye Patch and his cronies must have come back and taken the rest of the explosives. Maybe they missed one.” She searched diligently but unsuccessfully. There was nothing there to take back to Mason and prove she was telling the truth. Quickly and quietly she found the spot where Jimmy and his partner had been murdered. There, too, nothing remained. Frustrated, Tressa got ready to climb up into the rafters and return empty-handed to her room.
At the very edge of her perception she sensed movement and ducked just as a huge fist passed over her head and hit the column she was going to ascend. Fast as lightning she sprinted around behind the pole, but instead of continuing to run away she wrapped her hand around the pole and used it to carry herself back the way she came. Using the pole to slingshot herself into her assailant she waited until the last moment and jumped up and drove both feet into the front of a XXXXL black cotton t-shirt.
“Ouch.” Said a voice from somewhere above the t-shirt. Then another mammoth fist sailed through the air. She just managed to avoid having it stop in her face. Frustrated, Tressa said, “Alright, let’s see if this slows you down a little,” she took two steps and slid along the ground between the giant’s legs. Flipping onto her back she shot first one foot then the other foot up into the unprotected undercarriage of the behemoth above her. This produced two results. First, the giant man dropped to his knees and second, he put his hands over his injured area. Tressa took this as a sign that she could continue. With his unprotected back now to her she picked a very special spot that Master Tanaka had shown her - just about where the neck meets the shoulder. Jumping up she drove down with her elbow and all the force she could muster deep into that spot. The nerve bundle reacted just as Master Tanaka had assured her and the entire right side of the giant went numb. In the dim light of the bare bulb above she could see him flop over from kneeling to lying on his side and a small cloud of dust blew out around him when he landed.
Tressa got up and was preparing to climb back into the rafters and escape when she heard a sniffling sound. Shocked, she strained to see better and found that the giant was quietly crying. Even stranger, she noticed, was the fact that he was dressed in what could only be described as some sort of a ninja outfit. “Seriously,” she whispered into the gloom. “Seriously, are you CRYING?”
The giant rolled into a tighter ball and said, “You hit me in the private area. And I can’t make my hand move.”
Tressa couldn’t believe what she was seeing but realized that the giant was not trying to draw her in to continue the fight. “Oh alright,” she exclaimed. “Let’s get you sitting up so you’re not breathing in all that dust.” She struggled and pushed and pulled and pushed a little more and then pulled again. The giant didn’t budge. “How about you sit yourself up then.”
Groaning, the giant slowly sat up and Tressa helped him lean against the support pole to catch his breath. She moved to stand behind him to massage the damaged nerve center and lessen the numbing. But when the giant saw her move, he flinched thinking she was going to do something else to him. “Relax, Tiny. I’m going to help you feel better.” Carefully, she slowly kneaded the muscles in his shoulder in a circular motion and after a few minutes she could feel the tension release. She knew the massaging was working when the giant said, “That feels better. I can move my hand a little now.”
“The feeling will come back in a bit. I just kind of turned your arm off for a while.” Tressa told him. “What’s your name, big man?”
“Clyde. Clyde Strumble. That’s C…L…Y…D…E. Then S…T…R…”
Tressa cut him off. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Well, most people I know mess it up. They call me Clod Stumble. But that’s not right. It’s Clyde Strumble. C…L…Y…”
“Again, I get it.”
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in here. I’m the night watchman and so I’m the only one who’s supposed to be in here. My boss says no one in their right mind would steal the garbage they sell out in the marketplace. So I patrol in here, too. Anyway, I’m the night watchman. I’m the only one allowed in here.”
Tressa took off Clyde’s ninja mask and wiped his nose with it. After he noisily blew his nose into it she gingerly handed it back to him by one corner. She then said, “Ok, night watchman. I was trying to find some other things that weren’t supposed to be in here, too. But I’ve got to ask, what’s with the get-up?”
“It’s my sneakin’ outfit. Nobody can see me when I’m sneaking around in it. I’m like the shadowy security ninja. I’ve got lots of other outfits I use when I’m on the job.”
Tressa helped Clyde to his feet (though he pulled her to the ground the first few times they tried to get him up). She was shocked to see that he stood well over seven feet tall and probably could’ve supported most of the ceiling by himself if he had to. As they wound their way through the discarded building materials and out toward the gate into the marketplace she muttered under her breath, “Your great, great, great somebody must’ve really done the gene thing on the cheap.”
Clyde just sniffled a little and bumped into the gate opening.
Chapter 13
After tossing and turning most of the night Tressa gave up trying to find a comfortable enough position to fall asleep. She got up and spent a few hours doing yoga exercises in her room and stretching. As early as she dared she knocked lightly on Fergus and Mason’s door and heard a sleepy groan and then a whisper, “What?”
She hissed, “Come out here. It’s important.”
As Mason opened the door and slipped into the hallway he rubbed his eyes and said, “It better be. Fergus bored me half to death until midnight then finished the job around 2AM.”
Tressa explained all that had happened the night before and just as she feared, Mason was hard to convince. “First you tell me this wild story and then promise to bring back proof from some midnight caper. Then you tell me the proof is missing AND the dead bodies are missing, but instead you found a friendly giant. Come on Tressa! Give it up. We’ve still got two more days before we go and I don’t want to play this game with you the whole time.”
“It did happen just like I said. And I can introduce you to Clyde, so I can prove that part’s real at least.”
Tressa waited impatiently while Mason went back inside and put on some clean clothes. She was envious that with just a toothbrush, some water on his hair and a quick combing, he looked like he could be ready to model something or anything.
She dragged him downstairs and out into the atrium. Letting go of him for a minute she looked around for someone who could tell her where Clyde might be. Turning back she found herself looking at Mason’s retreating form. She ran to catch up to him as he entered a line forming in front of a coffee shop. “I’ve gotta get something to eat before our BIG adventure. Want something?”
In spite of herself, Tressa was hungry and let him order her a doughnut and some juice. But she drew the line at sitting down and corrected their order as “To Go!” With their food in hand Mason struggled, balancing a box of doughnuts in one hand and trying to insert a straw into his drink with the other. Tressa finally came across a custodian who pointed to an unmarked door when he was asked where Clyde could be found.
The pair knocked on the door and entered when they heard someone holler, “Come in.” The door let them into a long narrow service corridor with unpainted walls and cleaning implements lined along
one side. Buckets and bottles of cleaners were stacked on some shelves and wet mops hung above a floor drain near the doorway. Down the hall they could see light spilling out of a doorway from a side room. “I’m in here if you’re looking for Clyde,” echoed out into the hallway.
Tressa and Mason went forward and entered a room that was surprisingly large for a janitorial storage area. Instead of more cleaning supplies, they were surprised to find it looked like the backstage dressing room of a major Festival play back in Top Peake. There were capes and jackets hung over hooks. Huge boots, sandals and all manner of footwear strewn about the floor and spilling from boxes piled haphazardly in the corner. Several clothing racks had shirts, blazers, sweaters, pullovers and robes on them and another set had all types of pants and leggings. Tressa even saw some fishing waders and a cowboy hat resting together in a chair. It looked like the entire stock from several “Really Big & Really Tall” stores had exploded in this one room.
The only free space at the center of the room was occupied by an empty vendor’s showcase about 10 feet long with a shallow glass top for displaying jewelry. The bottom portion was a solid white stand designed to hold the jewelry high enough for customers to see it without having to bend over too far.
Tressa looked around for Clyde as Mason held up a Roman Centurion’s breastplate that was the size of a small mattress. “Clyde?” she called out. “Where are you?”
Suddenly, a small panel slid back near the bottom of the jewelry case and a long, hairy arm shot out and wrapped its hand around Mason’s ankle. Caught by surprise Mason slammed the breastplate down onto the wrist of the meaty arm that was holding him in place. The hand let go and withdrew and they heard a muffled voice yelp, “Oww!”
Tressa got down on her hands and knees and started exploring the base of the showcase. She found another sliding panel and opened it. Inside she could see Clyde’s sweaty, smiling face. “Tressa! Check out my new surveillance post. I can set this up in the marketplace and catch thieves and pickpockets!”
“Ummm, what happens if they just run away?”
“Then I’ll just slip out like this...” Clyde proceeded to wiggle and squirm backwards out of the jewelry case one inch at a time. He could barely fit out the access door he had made in the end of it and once his wide shoulders got lodged in the opening he eventually laid still and breathing heavily gave up. After a moment to catch his breath he grunted and while still trapped in the case rolled onto his knees then wavered a bit and finally stood up slamming the top of the case into the square ceiling tiles and shorting out a light bulb. Standing, he was now wearing the jewelry case and looking at her through the panel where his arm had been.
“It’s got a few kinks to work out but I’m really on to something. It’s like urban camouflage. Remember, you’ll never know for sure where I am.”
“I know that if you were trying to chase me with that thing I’d be home having dinner by now.”
Clyde finally noticed Mason and swung around in the jewelry case knocking out some more ceiling tiles and causing dust and insulation to fall on top of all of them. Coughing he stuck out his hand and said through the opening, “Hi. I’m Clyde Strumble. That’s C…L…Y…” Tressa cut him off by slapping the side of the jewelry case and saying, “Clyde this is my friend Mason. Mason, this is the intellectual giant Clyde.”
After an awkward handshake where Clyde couldn’t quite see where Mason put out his hand, Tressa and Mason worked together and finally managed to extricate Clyde from his showcase prison. Spying the box of doughnuts Clyde picked them up and looked forlornly at Mason. Mason looked worried about his breakfast but after his recent lecture on manners he reluctantly said, “Help yourself.”
As Clyde worked his way through one row of doughnuts in the box Tressa explained that Mason didn’t believe her about what happened in the marketplace. Clyde said, “Well, I didn’t see any dead bodies or explosives either, but if Tressa says they were there they must have been there.” Mason looked at Tressa and raised an eyebrow, but she just shrugged. “Clyde,” she said, “I need your help in finding out where the men took everything.”
Taking another doughnut out of the box he flattened it between his hands. Sticking it between two others he made himself a doughnut sandwich that was gone in two bites. “How could the dead men take anything?” he asked.
“Not the dead men, the men that killed the dead men.”
“Oh, that makes a lot more sense. I was curious how dead men could take anything. Now, live men could probably take a lot of stuff. That’s why you need a night watchman.” Clyde scratched his head in a way that both Tressa and Mason instinctively knew he did a lot. Then he said, “What did the live men look like?”
“Three men. All in uniform. Two big goons and a leader. The leader had an eye patch.”
“Which eye?” Clyde asked finishing the doughnuts and wiping his hands on his shirt.
“How many people do you see with an eye patch?” Tressa replied and wondered if she may have made a mistake asking Clyde for help.
“Well, none yesterday.” Then Clyde brightened and said, “But today there was the guy loading stuff into Elevator number 8.”
“Number 8! We’ve got to get to Elevator 8 before he leaves and gets away.” Tressa was pulling, pushing, and shoving Mason and Clyde toward the door.
All three of them started running down the service corridor and out into the atrium. They dodged around families with vacation brochures and ran past attendants pushing piled cases and cardboard boxes on trolleys toward various Space Elevators. They raced past Elevator 1 and turned the corner to start up the other bank of Elevators. In the distance they could see where the flashing yellow lights above Elevator 8 were warning people it was about to leave. With a final burst of speed they broke out of the crowd and slid to a stop in front of Number 8 just as the doors finished closing.
“We missed him.” Tressa complained.
“I think we actually got pretty lucky.” Mason said trying to catch his breath. “What if we had gotten here in time? Were you going to try and wrestle him to the ground? Fight his goons? If they really killed two people why would they worry about us?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have just let him go. I could’ve called the police.”
Mason sarcastically said, “Right. Two kids and a monster stop an Elevator and accuse some guy in a uniform of killing not one, but two people. Oh, AND he is transporting bombs for unknown purposes. That’s gonna go over real well.” He paused then added, “If you want to do anything I think you should talk to Fergus.”
“Fergus somehow knows these guys. I don’t have a good feeling about telling him what we saw.”
“You mean what you saw. Or thought you saw.”
Mason walked on ahead of Tressa and Clyde. As they started to wander back toward the lobby and consider what to do next Clyde looked around, leaned over toward Tressa and whispered. “Where’s the monster?”
Back at their planning table behind the pole in the café Tressa hatched out a plan. “Here’s what we’ll do. Clyde will use his employee connections to find out when Elevator 8 is going again and get us tickets on it. You and I will convince Fergus to change our plans and the three of us will go on #8. Once we’re there we can figure out who Eye Patch really is and find something that we can turn over to the authorities to stop him.”
“That’s if Clyde can do those things. And if Fergus will change our plans. And if you can even find Eye Patch somewhere in a city full of people. And if you can find something incriminating on him that the police can follow up. That’s a heck of a lot of “and’s” and ‘if’s’”.
Undaunted Tressa asked Clyde if he would help them with the ticketing difficulties. “I never seem to have trouble getting a few days off. I’ll come with you if you want.” Not sure if she could move forward without his help Tressa reluctantly agreed to let him come if there was room. She then sent Clyde off to try and get the plan going. She noticed one mother who snatched her child out of
his path and eyed him fearfully as he walked past knocking over a trash can and a potted fern.
After spending her own money buying Mason a loaded hot dog and triple cone she got him to agree to work on Fergus with her. When they went to the hotel room he was gone but left a note telling them he had a few “official” errands to run and some other little items to buy. He would be back for dinner so they could all eat together.
Tressa met Clyde back in his “office.” “How did we do?” she asked.
“You three are all set on #8 tomorrow morning. It jumps from here to Nome, Alaska. I’m still working on getting myself on there. All the passenger spots are now taken.” He replied.
Tressa groaned, “Ugh! I was supposed to see beautiful white sand beaches and blue lagoons and now I’m going to Alaska? Why can’t I just let this go?” Even as she asked herself the questions she knew she couldn’t let such a serious danger go without trying to help whoever was being targeted by Eye Patch and his crew. She pursed her lips and thought out loud, “How can I convince Fergus to change our plans and go on Number 8? How can I find something in Nome that would be interesting enough to make him want to change the route?”
“He may not want to go to Nome, but what if he really didn’t want to go to the Eastern Islands?” Clyde wondered.
Tressa put her palm to her forehead shook her head. Blowing out a long breath she responded, “I’m almost sorry to ask… but what exactly do you mean, Clyde?”
“If he changed his mind about going to the Eastern Islands himself it might be easier to get him to go where you want him to.”
Tressa’s brain exploded with a sudden new thought. “Clyde, you’re a genius!” Catching herself she tried again. “Clyde, you’re pretty smart.” That still didn’t seem to fit the situation so she went with, “Clyde, you’re okay.” Both of them seemed happy enough with that. Tressa explained what she wanted Clyde to do and then she went to find Mason and prepare for dinner.
Perpetual Power Page 8