Of Traps and Lace, Chapter Five

It was as if 4-H-N had even managed to hush the commentator. To a swirl of the orchestral score she watched the hot pink slowly drain from Petunia’s complexion, leaving her cheeks white and her glossy lips trembling.

“Another lie,” that one whispered at last. “Just another beastly horrid Neetkins lie, this time from a known delinquent Mini-Flash! You’re all as bad as each other. Nothing but a collection of troublemakers who I wish would pack up and get out of my galaxy, and…and…that goes double for the only one who claims she’s on Joe’s side!”

“Don’t say that about Neetra!” gasped 4-H-N. “Or any of my family!”

“I’ve heard Earthlings say this sort of problem always starts with a mother who’s no better than she ought to be,” Petunia pronounced. “I don’t know what that means, but whoever said it must have been talking about yours!”

That tore it. To the crashing strains of a crescendo 4-H-N and Petunia closed. One clawing hand delved deep where were underskirts and strove to wrest them high, while any spare shoulder or elbow or knee fended off fitful retaliations. 4-H-N’s tightly-clenched free fist however did not plunge into this ugly tussle, but restlessly circled the sidelines as might an assassin biding the opportunity to strike. Grimly locked inside its clasp was something small and hard and cold.

From the prophesied planet where all is to begin came this force for good.

She’d asked for it. She’d refused to learn her lesson any easier way.

“Stop that!” piped Petunia. “What do you think you’re doing?”

A family, confronting together what we know tomorrow must bring.

The time was right. With her thumb 4-H-N popped the cork of the ink-bottle.

Standing by the Alliance. Dedicated to peace-keeping action throughout our quadrant.

The flooding glow from the screen melted to universal red, and bathed in this electronic twilight 4-H-N brought the lip of her vial dashing down. Frantic Petunia flailed her forearm in a final foray.

To our officially-approved Four Heroes representatives, vigilance is always the watch –

Then there was a fizzling splutter, and silence.

Micro-Mallet captured what Petunia and 4-H-N were too near to see. The latter knew the film though, and apprehended at once what had happened. A vast smiling group-pose of she herself and many of the individuals so recently discussed, Dylan and 4-H-N’s mother and their loved ones, frozen forever in still-frame on the flickering broken screen-wall. Superimposed upon the proud figures was the huge Four Heroes insignia which had bestowed on the final seconds of the battle its crimson colouration.

And across it, sprawling all over Dylan’s interpretation of the cause, was every last drop from 4-H-N’s ink-bottle splashed in a black spray-pattern blot.

This, with its foreground detail of figures and ledge, was denouement to Micro-Mallet’s movie. His damaged fuel-tank had dripped dry, and he plummeted taking the camera with him. 4-H-N barely heard the distant clatter as her best friend bit the dust. Though Petunia looked horrified to have been a party to vandalism, it was considerably worse for her. The pretty face which had thrown the narrator into rhapsodies was at that moment ashen.

Next breath all was beige, as the flying Mini-Flashes with many a flurry and flutter alighted. The duo who’d run Plunder Dacks to ground were bearing him hostage between them, reunited with his rubber pants. To 4-H-N indeed it looked like the cast of her whole sorry production had assembled for the climax, until she noticed they were missing one. Mini-Flash Meteor was not among them. And Mini-Flash Bobbypins’s smile was already telling the weary 4-H-N why.

“Our verdict was unanimous,” Bobbypins beamed. “Such an accomplished recovery. Then for Mini-Flash Meteor to stoop so low as to hit you from behind…!”

4-H-N stared at her. “I hit her from behind,” she corrected.

This time Mini-Flash Bobbypins looked baffled.

“Yes,” said she. “And you did it first.”

It should have occurred to 4-H-N how much that would matter to girls like these. She saw they were waiting patiently for their new leader to issue her inaugural command.

“Let them both go,” 4-H-N said quietly.

The Mini-Flashes by Dacks each gave him a shove. He scarcely needed telling twice, and in a twinkling was tugging at Petunia’s hand. They hurried to the fire-escape and were gone.

4-H-N, all but oblivious to the eyes on her, turned to the stygian slick. It was hissing slightly from the heat of the screen behind. She placed her palm on it and it was sticky to the touch, drying fast to an everlasting smear. Still enough moisture remained for her hand to come away black, but the parent stain was already beyond any power that might crack or chip it clean.

She led the Mini-Flash girl-gang now.

But where would she lead them?

Underneath a lamp-post, huddled in Micro-Mallet’s non-functional husk, the camera lay dying. It could hear approaching footsteps. Then a pair of hands lifted it out of its hollow.

Mini-Flash Meteor smiled in the streetlight.

Squirming weakly the camera struggled to free itself from her grasp, remembering the face of she who’d hurt it before. Meteor found the hole in its hide and dug both sets of digits in, then ruthlessly pulled to widen the wound until the writhing camera’s skin was split from lens-end to rump and might be shucked off like that of a rabbit. Tossing this fleshy sac to the gutter Mini-Flash Meteor took the remaining ball of bare circuitry over to her car, pinced and plucked at its memory-leads, and then hooking these up to her dashboard computer downloaded everything the camera saw seconds before it expired.

The jumble of innards went the same way as the pelt. Meteor brushed off her hands as a small tele-monitor next to her steering-wheel swam into focus.

There was the camera’s last clear shot. The director-starlet standing before the Alliance-endorsed Four Heroes insignia she had defaced. It was a modest premiere for 4-H-N’s film, but reactions from its audience of one were positive. Indeed, to judge by Mini-Flash Meteor’s expression, the phrase “viewing pleasure” hardly began to cover it.

“Congratulations all round, my little fluffy gantrative,” that one sang softly. “And with this footage I’ll soon have the galaxy hating you as much as I do.”

END OF CHAPTER FIVE