This chapter, being the Chapter that Would Not Die (I blame its number. Thirteen is the repeating number motif of my life), had to be split in two, because otherwise it would have been a single post of of more than 5k. That's sort of a lot. Think of it as twice the content!
Anyway. This one is safe, as far as I can tell. There's a cybergoth! My people! Not really, but I like the aesthetic.
They stayed in Chicago for the night, taking advantage of a chance to catch up on sleep and such, and left the next morning for Boston. This time, they took three cars, because it was silently but widely agreed that no one in their right minds was going on another road trip like the one of the previous day. Alice didn't object this time, because he was given a car to himself. It was a clunker, a lemon, a beater, so no one was overly worried about it. Alice told them he would not cause any property damage, either to himself or anything else, and so they left him to it. The agents claimed the Vannagon, because there were more of them. Stranger, not particularly wanting to ride with the four of them and hoping to prevent any more serious damage to George - whose nose was several interesting shades and swollen to a size that was causing George some worry - volunteered them to take a third car. The process of taking a road trip with George was rapidly becoming familiar to Stranger, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing. This time, they had to rent a car. The sight of George's matte-black credit card got them a Ferarri, true, but it just wasn't the same. Stranger wanted his Caddy back.
He mentioned this to George as they left the city limits. George looked at him and said, "You do know that Gary is on the way, right?"
"There's no way that Jack will have the Caddy," Stranger said, but his heart was tugging at him.
"You know you want to check," George said. "Who knows? Maybe they fixed it."
And so, six hours and a rest stop later, they were in Gary, Indiana, trying to figure out how to find a single man with a Model T and a broken Cadillac. George had the brilliant idea of checking the internet and seeing if the Cheese Festival had kept a record of the car show members - and amazingly, it had. George did some arcane Google magic, and they had Jack's address. It was the work of half an hour (it would have been ten minutes, if they hadn't gotten very lost) to find Jack's place. It was a little suburban ranch place, nicely kept up, with brick-work and a garden out front and a huge garage out back. Not what Stranger had expected, but fitting.
When Stranger went up and knocked on the door, an elf opened it. This ruined the nice suburban image. "Jack?" cried the elf. He seemed to be a second cousin to Legolas, complete with long flowing hair, a quarrel, and a bow slung over his back. "I think some guys are here to see you. They've a Ferrari."
"Coming!" came Jack's voice, from the depths of the house. Then, a bit quieter, "Hold on guys, the campaign won't self-destruct."
"Hi, I'm Paul," the elf said, holding out a hand. "And you two are?"
"Stranger and George," Stranger said, shaking it. "We were wondering if Jack knew what had happened to our car."
"Oh, that!" Paul said, grinning, as a huge barbarian came from around the corner. "Jack had it towed here, fixed it up a treat. It was just some jargon technicalities screws and a mumble stuff wrench."
"Yeah, some stuff grease and nonsense jargon gobbledygook fixed up just fine," Jack said, slinging an arm around Paul. "I told the managers of the fair about it, and gave them my contact info. I figured either someone would come and get it eventually, or I'd just gained myself a new Caddy. It's out back."
"Well, we're the retrieval team," George said. Stranger was already heading around back for his baby.
It was there, shining in the noon sun. Stranger walked up to it reverentially, patting it on the front fender. "Sorry," he told it. "You were better off finding someone who could fix you properly. I'd have just kicked you."
"Does it have a name?" Jack asked form behind him.
"Just the Caddy," Stranger said. He went around and got in the driver's seat, stroking the leather he never thought he'd feel again. He vaguely heard George make some monetary compensations for the parts and arrange to have the Ferrari picked up, but didn't really pay attention. He had the Caddy back.
George took the roof down and got in the passenger seat. Stranger beckoned Jack and Paul over. "As long as I have a roof over my head, you are welcome under it," he said. "Or even George's here. Come visit sometime." He looked around, grabbed a receipt sitting in the cup-holder and a pen, and wrote their addresses on it. "The next time you come to Boston, come here."
"Sounds good," Jack said, taking the receipt. "If you don't mind, I'm DMing a game in the house -"
"Oh, we've got to get back to Boston ourselves yet today," Stranger said. "We don't mind."
"Alright then," Jack said, grinning. "Happy trails."
Then Stranger started up the car and drove off into the noon-day smog of Gary.
-----
They got to Boston around seven, the sun still bright, hanging low in the summer sky. They made for George's penthouse, the place where they'd had the fewest issues so far, and where they'd agreed to meet beforehand. Stranger, though loathe to part with his baby, nevertheless went upstairs after George, if only because he felt he still had some dignity and didn't want to lose it over a car, even if that car was as magnificent as his.
Plus, though he refused to acknowledge it even to himself, he thought he stood a chance of getting rid of the fauxburns if the stylist was still here.
However, upon reaching the highest story, Stranger sensed something was amiss. "George? Why are there no other people here?"
"I don't know," George said, frowning. "There should be."
Getting out of the elevator, the pair of them suddenly wary, they went for the door leading into George's apartment. The door didn't look forced or anything, and the fingerprint reader still recognized George as Master of the House, which was a good sign. A very, very bad sign was the sheer emptiness on the other side of the door.
George stared for a moment at the sparklingly clean, completely empty room. "Where's all my stuff?" he asked.
Stranger, in shock himself - never had George's living area been so tidy - shrugged. "Not here?"
"My stuff is all gone!" George said. "There's nothing here!"
"Brilliant observation, Sherlock," Havisham said, coming in from the dining room. "We were looking into the matter ourselves just now. There was a note in your bedroom." He handed it over to him.
George read it aloud. "Georgie-porgie, I know you have the specific thing I'm looking for, and I know you ruined me. I still have some resources though, hard cash that you can't get to, and so I'm not gone yet. Just tell me where the plans are, and all is good. You might even get all your stuff back, if you hurry before I've sold it off. Sir Richard."
"It's his handwriting," Havisham said. "We know that. Presumably your stuff is stored with him somewhere."
"That absolute fucking bastard," George said. Stranger could see the depths of the man's depravity sinking into George's sometimes thick skull. George thought that money was a game to be played. Messing with his possessions was an absolute foul. "He took my stuff!"
"You're a broken record," Stranger told him.
"He thinks you have the plans," Havisham said. "Is that true?"
"I have a dragon that rattles," George said. He'd gone from angry to a bit dazed. "But that's just a thing, that's not something to get worked up about."
"It's the only thing from the collection that was missing," Havisham said. "A pink crystal dragon bong?"
George nodded.
"From what we can tell, for a while that was Percy's favorite possession," Havisham said. "You might want to recall it from whatever place you've sent it."
"Not a chance in hell," George said. It had finally, completely hit him, Stranger could tell. "When I'm through with him, there isn't going to be enough of him left to sue. There isn't going to be a him, period."
"Your enthusiasm is appreciated," Jean called out from the next room. "Please, enlighten us on how you're going to do that."
"He's broke," George said, stomping into the next room. "Pawning off my stuff, probably to keep guards working for him. He's in that compound in the Hotel, the one we tried to get at. He's not going to move from there, not unless he has to. He's basically me if I were evil, as far as I can tell, and that means that we're going to need to hit him at the source, and hard. Right, Jean?"
Jean nodded. "If his planner is any good, they've dug in, though."
"And prepared for an attack like the last one we mounted, full-on frontal," George said. "This is where we play Bond to his Mr. Big. We're going to have to be sneaky spy types." He glared around the table. "Can you handle that?"
The agents bristled, but before something awful happened, George continued, "I know you can, and you know you can. He doesn't think so though, because of the previous several less-than-stellar situations. He may not even know we're back, if his network is deteriorating due to the fatal disease known as 'lack of money.' So if we're subtle, and don't go for Machiavellian plots, we should be good."
"My plots aren't Machievellian," Stranger said. "Don't demean the master."
"That's why I said 'go for' instead of 'use'. You aren't very good at them," George said.
"So what will we do?" Caroline asked him. Stranger wasn't sure whether he sensed sarcasm in her tone or not.
"Considering he seems to have read the Evil Overlord list and is doing the opposite of all of it, we simply have to take advantage of that," George said, an evil grin coming across his face. "How many people here have seen Mission: Impossible?"
-------
The plan was set. It was to occur at two AM, because that was after the pay had cut off, so presumably no reinforcements would be coming in, and the guards who were there wouldn't be paying a lot of attention. This gave Stranger some free time, and he ended up wandering away while the group was still arguing about something that was registering on his radar as 'convincing spy gibberish' and was being tucked away by his writer-brain and ignored by the rest of it. His role, so far as he'd found out, was to creep along with them silently, and distract Sir Dick at a crucial moment, in a way that preferably did not prove fatal and likely would involve the fauxburns - which were still attached to his face. He wasn't sure how, but he was getting very itchy at this point.
He wasn't entirely sure whence he was wandering, though, until he started walking down familiar streets. Then he realized that he was, like a homing pigeon, returning to the place he was most comfortable. Malcolm's was there, not thirty feet away, looking closed and dreary, filled with the stuff of renovation. He wandered up to it anyway, in hopes that he might at least see something familiar.
When he got within ten feet of the door, however, Malcolm came out front, and said, "Look, Strange, I know this is a difficult concept for you, but this place is closed. Not open for business. There is no alcohol here that your liver can process."
"I wasn't actually coming for a drink," Stranger told him. "In fact, I was coming to say hello."
"And you've also spent the last week in the company of super-spies, and you've a new Cadillac too," Malcolm said, sarcastically.
Stranger was a bit off-put at this. After a pause that felt way too long to him, he laughed awkwardly and said, "That's ridiculous."
"Exactly," Malcolm said. "No beer here."
"You're being awfully secretive about the bar," Stranger tried.
"No, I don't want random people coming in while it's being renovated and screwing with the finish."
"Look, I really did come to say hello. Do you want to come grab a drink with me?" Stranger asked.
Malcolm looked at him suspiciously. "Do you even know of any other bars?"
"No, but I'm sure I could find one," Stranger said.
"I'll go," Malcolm said, "But only if I can choose the place. I don't want to go drinking at the first tacky place that serves alcohol."
"Sounds good to me," Stranger said.
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