False Messenger, Chapter Three

That did it. With the perfect grace and beauty of a frightened fawn, Mini-Flash Pseudangelos pranced for freedom from the group’s stupefied stare. Chocolate bunches and chocolate smell whipped away in an instant, while fitful skirt-pleats fleetingly fanned above an alternative pair of pretty cheeks. Joe, albeit in something of a daze, registered that that would be why the disguise worked on standard Mini-Flashes.

He and Splitsville sprang after her, but Mini-Flash Pseudangelos was Special Program alright. As fast as Juniper and as subtle as Flashshadow, she was gone by the time her pursuers rounded the corner.

No words were required. Joe needed answers, which Splitsville owned she wasn’t in any position to provide.

Fortunately, they had another Joe who knew what came next.

Such were the benefits of a divided self. Joe indeed had seldom multi-tasked so well, for no sooner were he and Mini-Flash Splitsville resolved on their course than a roar of engines right behind them heralded the arrival of the cavalry. He who was dressed for that part swept Splitsville into the passenger-seat of his antiquated rust-red space-racer, while Joe leapt to join Sonica as her gaudy pink speaker-stack on rockets rushed by. Ahead of the hurtling rods a panicked Mini-Flash Pseudangelos broke cover, her peachy nylon gleam and Bourneville tresses scaling for the deepening sky.

Joe’s other self changed gears, Sonica close behind as they began to climb. Their quarry however took fright, no doubt seeing the mistake she’d made, and in a bobtail dart shot her twin glimmer for the undergrowth. Joe was grim. Grown-ups might tell you the pet rabbit you were chasing round the garden was terrified, but you’d never know from its advantages in speed and manoeuvrability. Keep this up, and he and his hunting-party would have nothing to show but a stitch in their collective side and an untenanted hutch.

What sort of analogy was that, twenty million miles from Earth?

Wait.

They might be in with a chance after all.

Instructing his cowboy self and Mini-Flash Splitsville to hold the high ground and stay alert, our hero had Sonica spirit him in a sharp descent to the concrete warren of road-arches and railway service-ports below. Waning daylight, early streetlamps and busy skylanes were swiftly lost from view. Down here halogen-bulbs were rare, and the going tight. Joe moved one hand across and settled it on Sonica’s steering-wheel.

“Have faith,” he said to her, and closed his eyes.

The labyrinth continued to rumble by unseen as Joe waited. There was nothing yet. He still felt like himself, today, doing this. Nevertheless, Mini-Flash Pseudangelos was young and inexperienced, and at present frantic from fear. Joe’s masterclass had acquainted him with that particular species of Special Program neurosis. They weren’t all blessed with Flashshadow’s calm wisdom, or the coolness under pressure that had made Mini-Flash Splitsville a dragstrip star. Mini-Flash Juniper was without equal as long as she was in her comfort-zone, but take that away and she was wont to go to pieces much as Pseudangelos was doing now.

Stupid things anyway, rabbits.

And there was the spoor.

He’d never dream of chasing a cat. Rabbits however sort of asked for it.

Joe gripped the wheel and Sonica’s roadster lurched into an adjacent maintenance-shaft, as our hero chased his feeling in no sense other than the literal. Odds were Mini-Flash Pseudangelos didn’t even realise she was still applying her telepathy to him. More likely to be some sort of psychic self-preservation reflex.

As far as Joe was concerned, that was his minesweeper.

“Dive,” he commanded.

This new narrower pipe was pitchy black. Soft intermittent pings from a World War Two sonar failed to sound. In fact it wasn’t even close to silent, what with thunderous anti-grav tube-trains overhead and a nearby plasma-aquifer’s boom. Joe tried his best to screen out these external distractions and concentrate on what was within, though the passageway had begun to divide, and no trace of childhood clung to the lonely stretch of it he and Sonica traversed.

Had he taken a wrong turn? Had the trail gone cold?

No, something was here. Joe trusted in his Four Heroes powers. It was just that it wasn’t the rabbit anymore. The schoolyard came into this one, and a game like tag they used to play.

Then don’t make it too obvious. If you’re not careful she’ll figure out you’re after her. Worse still, the other boys will think you’re only doing it because she’s not got any knickers on.

Focus. Focus. Don’t let the skeins become tangled.

Remember what’s now, and what was then.

That wasn’t so easy though when you were riding round with a girl in her little pink car. How was he ever going to live that down? It’d be all over school on Monday.

Where amid all this did Mini-Flash Pseudangelos hide?

Just imagine what his friends would say. Sitting in a tree. Walking hand-in-hand. Next he’d be going round her house to play with her rabbit. Or inviting her to –

Joe threw the roadster in a screaming powerdrive straight at the intersection where he was asking Sonica to come to his birthday party.

What gave it away was the smell of chocolate cake.

“Now!” he cried.

Noise broke upon the subterranea and with it came dusky light, as augmented subwoofers threw cement and steel out upon the city in chunks. Mini-Flash Pseudangelos, though her glossy lips gaped, recovered fast and kicked flat-soled school shoes at Sonica’s headlamps in a double-quivering scramble for sky. She sped through the opening only to go bunches-first into another, that of a waiting ethereal portal from which she fetched up face-to-fender once again. Before her was the cowboy in his rustbucket rod, Mini-Flash Splitsville riding shotgun, while Sonica and Joe had already exited the crumbling underworld and were closing in behind.

“Pseudangelos, kid, turn off the juice!” Splitsville implored. “We’re not trying to lay some heavy scene on you!”

The fugitive’s gaze flitted from one escape-route to the other. Both were blocked.

“Only thing is, you’ve been making with the psionics Daddy-O-wise and we’re not hip as to the big why!”

From directly alongside issued a gasp. Mini-Flash Pseudangelos, rigid and at bay, was mustering her fiercest blush yet.

“Stop!” cried the cowboy, already beginning to ghost in and out of Mini-Flash Splitsville’s perception. “You don’t understand! My telepathic essence isn’t stable…!”

Joe saw, and felt. About the patch of firmament for which he was bound swelled phantasms and apparitions wholly unrelated to the cosy skylines of home. These shapes Joe wouldn’t have wanted to look at any longer than he had to. For all that Sonica was making a shift, she wasn’t going to arrive in time.

Our hero clapped his hand on top of her windshield and vaulted from footwell to hood, his boots clumping on Sonica’s pink finish. Making this his springboard Joe was away.

“That’s fine,” muttered Sonica, “I mean crush the poor thing to a cube if you like, we’ve known each other all of an hour now.”

Flame-bolts preceded Joe through the ether and strafed Mini-Flash Pseudangelos, that the stench of singed stockings choked her more appetizing exudations. Our hero sailed a last leg untainted by nightmare to alight on the opposing reddish-brown prow, his subconscious no longer working overtime but slumped exhausted at the steering-wheel.

Mini-Flash Pseudangelos fell, as lightly as an autumn leaf. This girl, who had rummaged unbidden where Joe least wished, whose raw psychic puissance was a match for two of him and whose capacity for deploying it without detection put her on a par with Draxu, might have been a picture of delicate helplessness to pain the unwary observer’s heart. As though the slowly impending pavement were silken bedding she touched palms and face to it and there lay at rest, skirt-pleats settling over her sheer secrets like the petals of a sleepy flower.

A Mini-Flash assistant with beige ribbons in her curls came in to bring Neetra her morning cup of tea.

“Thanks, Presh,” said Neetra. The girl smiled back and exited, as the telephone began to ring.

Neetra answered it.

“Wodding!” she beamed. “Been so looking forward to hearing from you! Now, don’t keep me in suspense. Is this…?”

It was.

After Neetra had thanked Wodding for letting her know, she set the receiver down in a hush.

The press-release they’d been waiting for had appeared in that morning’s edition of the toy-retailers’ trade-paper.

4-H-N’s Secret was officially launched.

NEXT: 'THE SPECIAL WALLPAPER'