TG War: Reunited

Squeeeeeek.  Squeeeeeek. The hamster wheel spins while turning the propeller up front. The red head looks down on her beloved pets, “Good job, guys. We’re almost there. A few more turns and you’ll be done.” She hops out of the front of the van and pushes the back passenger side causing it to make a wide right turn into their parking lot.

“Tracey,” calls the man in the driver’s seat, “we need to make a tighter turn.”

“Then get out here and push. It’s not like the steering wheel works.”

“Right.” He hops out and soon they are lined up facing a parking spot. “Who would have guessed it would take us this long to get back from the race,” he comments to no one in particular as they enter the spot under the street light.

“Well, I’m not surprised. Since we’ve been running on hamster power the entire time.” She switches off the drive shaft and they drift into the spot. She lifts the cage up, “Good job, Hamlet and Ophelia. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Doc and Tracey drag their bodies into the lab. Tracey carries the cage, and Doc holds the holo-orb from Ed. He takes one last look at their wheelless, brightly colored, VW Bus parked in a parking spot half a lot away under a light. They unload their packages and flop into chairs. “We’ll get the rest later,” she promises him.

The hamsters flop in the cage exhausted. Doc and Tracey find chairs and aren’t far behind. With his eyes closed, Doc mumbles, “It feels like we are forgetting something.”

---

Several hours later, Doc’s eyes fly open, “Uncle Ben!”

“Awww, why’d you have to bring him up,” she says through closed eyes, “I was having a good dream.”

“We have to save him. Remember?”

She sighs, “How could I forget? We head out to the car after handing out business cards to the Mad Atoms main base and then he sees something and goes all strange pulling out that weapon …”

“Pie Gun,” he corrects.

She continues as if he hadn’t interrupted, “… that had a large pie on the barrel of that pistol from the trunk. It was kinda like my Plunger Pursuer. By the way, where’d we get that?”

Doc looks a little sheepish, “I invented that before you came on. I thought I had gotten rid of them all.”

“Anyway, we realized he wasn’t coming back. And when we went searching for him, that gun was all we found. It was there lying on the ground in the base.”

“We should go save him. We said we would after the race.”

“Yeeahhh, I guess so. But it’s nice and quiet and sane without him. Where do we look?”

“I don’t know. We should have some way to track … I’ve got an idea!” Doc races around the store.

Tracey smiles as it’s business like usual, “I guess I’ll go get the mail then.” She gathers the mail from the mailbox.

A red envelope catches her eye. The return address is the “Catillion Base.” On the back is a hand scribbled note, “Urgent! Open immediately.” She opens it. “Pi, Having been unable to reach you by phone or mail, I wrote this letter to inform you that Uncle Ben is at our base. Please pick him up at your earliest convenience.” And it’s signed, “SSBGuy.”

Tracey steps back in the lab and calls to her partner, “Doc! I found him.”

He stops at his workstation arms full of parts, “Really?”

“Yeah. Red Team has him.”

“You think the attacked him?”

“More likely they saved him.” She steps into the lot and stops, “I’m not taking that again, until it’s got some sort of propulsion besides hamster power.”

“Then how …?” The black limousine pulls to a stop in front of them.

“How convenient,” Tracey remarks dryly.

They hop into the vehicle. “Driver, to the Red Base!”

Upon reaching their destination, they are greeted by shaking heads and “He left here on his own. He didn’t tell us where he was going.”

Back on the road, Tracey sighs, “How are we going to find him now?”

Doc has an idea, “Driver, do you know where Uncle Ben is?” In response the screen from before lowers. On the radar a dot flashes out of range. “Great. Let’s head there.” The dot finally starts heading for the center. They pass a woman in a business suit.

They reach the dot which is a house. They knock on the door. A woman answers, “May I help you?”

Doc answers, “We are Team Pi, and we are looking for Uncle Ben.”

The woman sticks out her hand, “Hi, I’m TG Hawk. He,” she giggles and then continues, “just left here a few minutes ago.”

Doc reaches to shake her hand, but Tracey stops him, “Doc, she’s got a Joy Buzzer.” He yanks his hand away just in time. “Thank you for your time and information, but we’ve got to get going. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, too,” the woman closes the door, and the pair returns to the limo. They have the driver start a spiraling pattern from the house.

Soon they come across the gray haired business woman who is still walking down the road. Tracey sticks her head out the window, “Ma’am? Have you seen a gray haired man in a business suit … who looks an awfully lot like you but male?”

The woman looks with her icy blue eyes at the red head, “Tracey! It’s about time you guys got here. My driver didn’t show up to take me home.”

She hops in the vehicle and whips out her cell phone, “Now for an important call.” She dials and starts talking, “Antonio? Yes, this is Uncle Ben. I need to get remeasured and my suits adjusted. Monday? I suppose that will do. But I’ll give you a bonus if you can do it sooner.” She turns to her two dumbfounded employees. “What?”

Tracey recovers first, “You are adjusting your clothes, but not your body? Why?”

“Everyone knows women have what it takes to clinch the deal,” she says hefting her new parts under the shirt.

Tracey shivers and looks to Doc who is still in shock. An awkward silence follows until Tracey breaks it with a question, “Sooooooo, how do you know TG Hawk?”

“That’s a funny story. See, before I got us into the War, I was on a shopping trip in Chad. My business contact there invited me over for dinner and I couldn’t refuse. He showed me around the house and I saw this lifelike sculpture of a woman and I just had to have it. He charged me an arm and a leg. Get it? An arm and a leg?”

Tracey shakes her head at the lame joke. Uncle Ben continues, “So I took her home. One day, I set down one of Doc’s devices that I must have left on, in her hand and suddenly she returned to her peach color and started moving. I thought she was a delightful moving sculpture until she introduced herself as TG Hawk.”

Having heard his name, Doc snaps out of it, “But that doesn’t explain why you are a woman now.”

“Oh that? That was a friendly joke between us. She had a TG Joy Buzzer that she got me with when we shook hands.”

Tracey and Doc exchange glances. “So what do we do now?”

“Simple! We pick up where we left off. We introduce ourselves.”