> When I awoke, I was momentarily confused to hear the
> continuing sounds of a fight.
[MMK and GAVOK open fire on the screen with light guns.]
> A quick check of my own current state -
TBS: It's good to carry a map with you where ever you go.
> lying on my back on cool concrete, dizzy and in a great deal of pain -
ARL <Gryphon>: Huh. It must be Tuesday.
> led me to conclude it wasn't -me- who was still fighting. If not me,
> though, who was it?
S.D.: The Poison Pussies have arrived!
GAVOK <Michael J. Fox>: It was Death...
> Maybe I was just hallucinating. But no, as I
> tried to concentrate on it, I had to believe I was really hearing it.
GAVOK <singing>: I believe!
[GAVOK air-guitars.]
GAVOK <singing>: I believe!
> -Somebody- was doing some righteous ass-kicking.
RACE: ...and that somebody... was *Tak Sakaguchi*!
[ALL cheer.]
> Convinced I was hearing it, I felt no great impulse to
> investigate further. Instead, I decided it would be best if I stayed
> where I was, taking a small amount of comfort from the coolness of the
> concrete floor.
ARL: So apparently it's the end of the world as he knows it, but he feels fine.
> It was really quite comfortable there. Comfortable
> enough that I wandered back out of consciousness again.
> When I came to the second time, someone was shaking my
> shoulder and whispering. It took me several seconds to put together
> the basic fact that they were whispering to -me-, and a few more to
> get the language they were speaking sorted.
> "Can you stand?" the voice was saying, softly, in a tone and
> accent I found familiar. "We've got to get out of here."
> I pried an eye open, winced at the pain as the light outside
> invaded my skull, then tried, slightly successfully, to focus on the
> person speaking to me. I knew her, I was sure I knew her... a cute
> little blue-eyed blonde with a forelock and braid, British Isles
> accent,
MMK: Oh, it's King. Got it.
[Well, if anyone can think of a fighting-game woman with long blonde hair from Britain, have at it.]
> dressed in an Air Force uniform, yes? Air Force? Only woman
> I know in the Air Force is a brunette.
> You idiot, it's Cammy.
MMK: No, you just described King.
> Oh! So it is.
> "Hi," I said.
> "Hi," she replied.
> "Say," I declared, frowning suspiciously. "You're supposed to
> be in Scotland."
> "Little detour on my way home," she said,
S.D. <Cammy>: I *hate* flying Vanguard.
> then repeated her
> question: "Can you stand?"
TBS <Benimaru> and MMK <Rubber Soul>: Do you understand?
S.D. <Cammy>: Get out of here!
(TBS and MMK walk away with their heads down)
> "I dunno," I replied honestly. The punch-drunkness was
> fading, I was becoming aware that my body was not, in fact, one solid
> hurt, but rather a network of pain composed mainly of a badly bruised
> shoulder, a headache the size of Texas and a broken nose, with
> everything else registering a background-noise-level hum of aches and
> soreness.
ARL: He's been seriously beaten, and he *still* prevaricates at tiresome length.
RACE: Could even *death* stop this man's muddled verbiage?
> "I'll give it a shot."
> As I worked at remembering how to get all these aching parts
> to work together as a whole and shambled to my feet, I became aware of
> my surroundings in greater detail. Cammy -was- dressed in an Air Force
> uniform. The hangar was still right where I'd left it.
> The storm drain was open. The crumpled pile of USAF Air Police fatigues over by
> the big crate marked 'Hamdingers'
[ALL applaud mockingly.]
> was Guile. He looked like I felt.
GAVOK <Gryphon>: He looked like Van Dam, and I felt *damn* tired.
> Actually, he was still unconscious, so it's more accurate to say he
> looked like I would rather have felt.
> "Hey," I observed. "You beat up Guile."
> Cammy smiled a little as she briskly helped me on with my Air
> Force uniform jacket. "The job does have its fringe benefits from
> time to time."
> "That wasn't a nice thing to say," I chided her as she guided
> me toward the door. OK, so maybe the punch-drunkness wasn't fading
> all that fast.
> "I'll write him a letter of apology."
S.D. <Cammy>: "Dear Bitch, oh, I mean *Guile*--"
> "Well, that's OK, then."
> "Right, now just follow my lead and let me do the talking, and
> we'll get out of here. All right?"
> "Ten-four. You look great in uniform, y'know."
> "Thank you. Now hush."
> "Oki-doki."
> We'd limped, arms over shoulders, to the door by that time.
> Shooting back the bolt, she shoved the door open, and we went right
> out into the group of APs, who were still standing tensely around the
> doorway, wondering what to do. They'd set up a couple of bright
> floodlamps,
GAVOK <AP>: Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?!
> and I restrained an impulse to cringe and hiss,
> vampire-style.
TBS: Augh! Photons!
RACE: You shut your filthy mouth.
> "You lot, see to Captain Guile and start a search of the drain
> and transport tunnels!" Cammy barked in an impressive voice of
> command. "I'll get Captain Hudson to the infirmary."
> I considered protesting that my name isn't Hudson,
S.D. <Cammy>: Your name is whatever *I* say it is, beefstick!
MMK <Gryphon>: Aye lass. Then get me me sword before the sun comes up, will ya.
> then
> remembered that the tag on my uniform jacket said it was. Who am I to
> argue with the guys who make name tags for the Air Force?
> The APs didn't even think to argue. Soldiers are trained to
> obey authority.
ARL: Except Mellencamp. He likes to fight authority.
> Here was a woman in the uniform of a major in the
> United States Air Force, a full-access visitor's pass clipped to her
> lapel, confident, assured, supporting a badly battered fellow officer
> and speaking with a tone of complete authority. They did what
> soldiers do: they obeyed their orders. With much hustling and team
> spirit, they went to see to Guile and start that tunnel search.
> Cammy and I, meanwhile, set off in what I would assume was the
> direction of the infirmary. As soon as we were out of sight of the
> APs, she pushed me behind a dumpster - the same one, I realized, I'd
> begun my evening hiding behind. I hadn't noticed the black duffel bag
> lying on the ground next to it. Maybe it hadn't been there at the
> time.
> "Not much time," she observed. "We'll have to get you cleaned
> up a bit, you'll draw too much attention looking like this. Here, let
> me set your nose for you. We can't have it healing up all crooked,
> can we?" she added with a grin.
S.D. <Cammy>: Then you'd look like Owen Wilson.
> "No, I guess we can't," I replied,
ARL <Gryphon>: That'd be too much like tangible proof that I actually *failed* at something.
> sitting down with my back
> against the building wall. She knelt before me, pulling
> a first-aid kit from the duffel bag, and got out gauze and tape.
> "This will hurt a bit," she admitted, gingerly taking hold of
> my battered snout.
> I didn't really have anything to say to that, so I shrugged,
> and she straightened it. I think it actually hurt more being fixed
> than it had being broken; I let out a muted grunt as tears sprang to
> my eyes. Any trace of remaining daze vanished in the pain, which was
> actually good. I might be in pain, but at least now I was completely
> lucid.
> "Sorry," said Cammy apologetically as she packed my rebleeding
> nostrils with gauze and reinforced the bridge with tape. "There, that
> should do it," she said as she finished up. "You should see a proper
> doctor when you get home, but that will hold you for now."
> I blinked away the tears as the pain receded. "Tch," Cammy
> went on, shaking her head and getting out a large gauze pad. "You
> look a fright," she went on, wiping at the tear tracks and blood on my
> face. As she worked, she leaned closer, then closer still, and it
> didn't occur to me that she was going to kiss me until our lips
> actually met.
> Considerate of the fact that I couldn't breathe through my
> nose, she kissed me gently and undemandingly.
RACE: Suck all the air out of his lungs!
ARL: No time. Use Death Blossom!
> Confused by the turn of
> events, touched by her consideration, it took me a moment to respond,
> but I quickly abandoned whatever plans I might have had for the
> evening. Her arms found their way around me as mine encircled her.
> We'd kissed before, of course, but something about this moment - this
> incongruous tenderness in the United States' most secret of secret
> places - would be burned into my memory forever as one of the key
> moments in our early relationship.
[*Gag*!]
> It was a comfortable, unhurried sort of intimacy we felt.
ARL: So! You're using forged passes and fake identities to rummage around Area 51 without permission! What do you do?
[RACE hits a bell.]
ARL: Racewing!
RACE: Grab a quick grope behind a dumpster!
ARL: Apparently correct!
> There was no heavy breathing, no furtive fumbling with fasteners, no
> sense of urgency - just a warm feeling of contentment. As I had the
> first day I knew her, I felt a little drunk with her nearness.
> "Cammy?" I murmured when I got an opening.
> "Mm?" she replied.
> "What are -you- doing here?"
RACE <Cammy>: I just contracted herpes and I needed someone to give it to.
> She chuckled, breath warm against my lips. "I -was- here to
> steal an aeroplane, but your lot seems to have carried it off before
> I arrived." Standing, she helped me up. Now that I was starting to
> feel like I lived in my body again, it wasn't as hard to stand up as
> it had been last time.
> "Lose the shirt," said Cammy, her businesslike briskness
> returning. Obligingly, I removed my bloody dress shirt and tie and
> consigned them to the dumpster. "Put the jacket back on, for now,"
> she continued. "We're not out of here yet."
> Someone had considerately left a Humvee standing parked in
> front of Building 10, so we took it. We pulled up to the guard
> station where Zoner, Meg and I had entered the base about a year ago.
> "Sorry, Major White," said the guard as Cammy presented her
> ID. "We're under lock-down. There's been a major security problem -
> someone's stolen one of the experimental aircraft.."
> "Don't I know it," said Cammy severely. "We're going to have
> another if you don't let me pass, soldier. Captain Hudson here is the
> only person on this base who knows the codes for that aircraft's
> weapons security system, and if I don't get him to Cheyenne within the
> evening, we're going to lose whatever chance we may have of getting it
> back."
> The guard wavered. "I haven't been informed of - "
> "Of course you haven't," said Cammy impatiently. "This is a
> national security matter, Airman.
MMK <Airman>: But Dr. Wily said nothing of this!
> That aircraft is equipped with
> thermonuclear weapons, and if I don't get Captain Hudson to Cheyenne
> in time to change those codes, whoever stole it might just decide to
> use them. They could be over Chicago in two hours, Washington in
> three. Do you want millions of deaths on your conscience?"
S.D. <Airman>: Yes! I like that sort of thing, *ma'am*!
ARL <Cammy>: Shit!
MMK <Gryphon>: Didn't see *that* one coming.
> "No, ma'am!" said the airman, saluting. "You may pass!"
> "Thank you, Airman," said Cammy, and as the gate went up, she
> returned his salute, then floored the accelerator.
GAVOK: Cammy White pops the clutch and tells Area 51 to *eat her dust*!
> I'm sure we made a
> merry sight, bouncing away up that narrow desert road that leads to
> one of the loneliest places on Earth.
ARL: An Emo Phillips film festival?
> It wasn't until two hours later, as we were pulling into Las
> Vegas in a BWM sedan and street clothes (the Humvee abandoned by
> the side of the road an hour or more behind us), that I felt I could
> finally get away with relaxing, letting out a deep breath, and saying,
> "I can't believe that worked." As Cammy looked over,
> grinning, I added, "Of course, now the Air Force thinks Zoner intends
> to nuke a major city,
GAVOK: Right now, Zoner's probably trying to light a bomber joint with a plasma cannon.
> but we didn't get shot, so I'm willing to call
> it a moral victory."
> "Doesn't matter much," said Cammy. "Even if they go on full
> alert, they'll never be able to touch Sky Dancer. What do you and
> Zoner want with it, anyway?"
TBS <Gryphon>: eBAY.
> I told her.
> "That's wild," said Cammy. "Say - how soon is he expecting
> you back?"
> "Well, he has to fly back out sometime tomorrow to pick up the
> Prince, which is at the airport in Needles...
GAVOK: We'd like to thank you for flying Sweet Tooth Air. Our plane will be crashing in two minutes into Phoenix. The time is 5:56pm.
> we weren't really
> expecting me to get left behind, so we don't have a contingency plan."
> "Well, look, why not let him head home on his own? I've got
> to go do a little business in San Francisco tomorrow and then I'm at
> liberty for a week. I -was- planning to head to Worcester and look
> you up, but since you're here anyway, well... " She smiled. "Ever
> been to San Francisco?"
> "Can't say as I have." Is she inviting me to spend a week
> with her in San Francisco? Just the two of us?
ARL <Gryphon>: Guile must've gotten in a couple of good head shots.
> "Well, then, let's make a week of it," she said. "Just the
> two of us, and San Francisco."
> I guess she is. Unfortunately...
> "I'd love to, but I can't. I have to get back as soon as I
> can."
> "What for?"
> "Well, uh... I have a houseguest."
S.D. <Gryphon>: Without me, who *knows* what wacky misadventures she'll get into?!
> By the time I finished that explanation, I was feeling
> distinctly fuzzy around the edges; the length and excitement of the
> day were taking their toll.
> "What are you going to do?" Cammy wondered, her face
> thoughtful as she turned the Beemer onto the garish expanse of the
> Strip. "She can't stay with you forever."
> "No... I suppose not. Although... "
> "What?"
> I started to reply, but it turned into a yawn. "Sorry," I
> said. "Long day... "
> "No worry," said Cammy. "Pick out a place to stay - we've no
> shortage of choices."
> "How about that new place I read about a while back, the one
> that's shaped like a pyramid... "
ARL <Chosen One>: That's French!
RACE <Betty>: Stinky pits and all, baby!
> "The Luxor?" Cammy grinned. "I thought that might appeal to
> you. The Luxor it is!"
>
> It is my distinct pleasure to inform you that, even if you
> have been soundly and professionally beaten up, the beds at the Luxor
> are of a high standard of comfort. I was asleep within minutes.
S.D. <Gryphon>: Then I woke up, and my body had locked into its current position.
> Respectfully submitted,
> --G.
>
> END BATTLE 04