... continued their attack on the ill fated B17. The crew of the B17 began abandoning ship, their parachutes filling the sky with white circles of safety.
Precious had begun counting the people in the crowd. Most of them screaming, all of them running for cover.
But, wait !! There was one guy who stood there motionless. Precious couldn't understand why anybody would do such a thing in the middle of an earthquake, and with an out of control B17 bomber headed right for them.
Muffy saw him, too, and at first thought he was in shock from all the trauma. Then, she recognized him as that motorcycle cop she kept running into in various places.
No, he wasn't in shock. It looked like he was thinking about something. Thinking real hard.
The veins on his neck and forehead bulged until it seemed they would burst. Muffy feared he would have a stroke and die, but then decided that since they were all going to die because of the B17 crashing into them that it didn't really make any difference how they went.
Then, miraculously, the ground stopped shaking and rolling as the earthquake's effects subsided. The B17 leveled out in flight, just above the 49 story Black Corporation building ("No!", shouted Precious. "52 stories!"). The B17 continued on a level flight until it reached the city limits, where it finally crashed nose first into the city refuse center.
The motorcycle cop relaxed, his veins returning to normal size. He grinned slightly, then he and his blood brothers from the motorcycle gang strode silently out of the building. Nobody noticed that the sun's location was too far westward for this time of the day.
"Whoa ...", said Muffy. "And I thought Bugs Pond was a hero!"
Bugs hadn't seen any of what occurred with the motorcycle cop turned hero. He was too busy finding a safe shelter for all those panic stricken people.
Rear Admiral slowly climbed to his feet. He put a protective arm around Precious, and guided her towards the information booth at Black Corporation.
It was unmanned, of course, because everybody had fled for cover. Precious spied the informational bulletin board behind the counter, and started counting the number of names she saw there.
"Black Corporation, established 2000", she read from the bulletin board. "John Doe #23, CEO. John Doe #17, Public Information Officer", she read aloud as she counted. There were many more John Doe's listed. "How strange", thought Precious. "Their board meetings must be awfully confusing. Who responds when somebody asks 'John' a question?".
Rear Admiral, his neck wound almost healed, walked around behind the information booth and examined the area. Beneath the counter, he found ... |
