Episode 33

Armageddon With A Side Of Fries - Part III

... from the Files of Hydrogen Guy

Previously: Oh, where to begin? Hydrogen Guy is back in Maple Ridge, because he thinks the Crustacean is dead. However, the Crustacean is not dead, but financially solvent, thanks to Hans-Raoul's crony Karten. Meanwhile, Hans-Raoul gave Jean-Marc Trudeau (who was dying) a spice from his home-reality called philosopher's wort (the spice, not his home-reality), which has an amazing regenerative effect on mortals. Back in the Hydrogen Cave, Doug issued a mysterious warning about "the Doom of Noffras". Meanwhile, Deuterium Boy's ex Desdemona was summoned to British Columbia by the CIA's Commander in Chief.

As Doug's warnings became ever more persistent, the League of Heroes held a special meeting. Paranoia ensued, and suspicion fell on Reaper, whom the Diatomic Duo agreed to keep an eye on until the whole thing blows over. Trudeau met with Griff Pedros Pedros Dumnoric and the Crustacean and proposed an alliance to destroy Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy. Dumnoric and the Crustacean signed on with a hey-nonny-nonny and a ha-cha-cha, and helped Battle Armour Bob bust out of UBC Asylum. Oh, and there was a bit with a pumpkin.

In retrospect, I think last episode's soap recap was less confusing.

The Black Rose pours a splash of brandy, and pauses for a moment to admire the way it reflects the light as he swirls the liquid around. Snifter in hand, he turns to the large circular door at the other end of the room.

A second later the door spins open like a camera shutter. Three men are standing on the elevator platform. One is plain and nondescript, dressed in a servant's uniform. Before him is a cart carrying an aquarium, and in the aquarium is a lobster. This is the Crustacean, Genius of Evil. Next to the servant is what appears to be a ten-foot robot, audibly bristling with weapons, sporting a natty red bow tie and an entirely human head, which is staring rapturously around the room. This is Battle Armour Bob, Vanguard of Carnage. And next to him, a figure which could even be described as shadowy in broad daylight, dressed in dark trench coat and hat, peering out disapprovingly from behind gogglish glasses. This Griff Pedros Pedros Dumnoric, the mysterious Shroud of Black Magicks.

Jean-Marc Trudeau grins broadly. He steps forward to meet them. His every movement is vigourous, his appearance is that of a man forty, forty-five years old, in the robust prime of life.

Trudeau
Gentlemen! Welcome - M. Ballistier, I am glad you could join us. Welcome to my secret subterranean lair. I call it "Abaddon".

Battle Armour Bob steps through the doorway - which is quite high enough for him to do so without ducking - and looks around the room appreciatively. The others step after him, and the door spins closed.

Battle Armour Bob
Hi Rosey - kiss kiss. Sweet Jesus on a bicycle, I LOVE your decor! Who DID this place?

He gestures expansively at the room. By the term "room", I actually mean "small for a concert hall". The room is shaped as a large nonagon, its sheer walls, a flat metallic grey, rising almost two stories up and curving into a dome. The room is filled with furniture and equipment - chairs, couches, a meeting table, a vast computer and telecommunications centre, several displays of weaponry. All are a dramatic combination of curves and angles, highlighted with unexpected splashes of colour.

Trudeau
It's a natural cavern, the renovation designed by the architectural firm responsible for the Tate Modern in London. The interior decor is mostly my own -it's a sensual vorticist style.

Battle Armour Bob
It's so absolutely everything - it's like Halston '77 with a splash of LeCorbusier! This is exactly the statement I'm trying to make with my spring line!

Dumnoric
It's degenerate.

Trudeau
Well, that's exactly the point, Mr. Dumnoric. Villainy is the new art.

Battle Armour Bob
Precisely! Rosey, this is exactly why when Bruno and the Bug here told me you wanted us to work together, I jumped at the chance. I've cleared my calendar, Rosey, let's create something dynamic here!

Trudeau
M. Ballistier, your enthusiasm is inspiring. Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy will enjoy some very dynamic deaths, I know.

Crustacean
That is why I'm here, Trudeau. I demand that we get to the details.

Dumnoric
I have to agree. The sooner we can put this plan of yours into action the better. Your taste in decorating, while interesting, is irrelevant.

Battle Armour Bob
A beautiful space is never irrelevant.

Trudeau
Actually, gentlemen, Abaddon is a vital part of my campaign. Let's all have a seat at the conference table, shall we? Can I get anyone a drink? No? Mr. Crustacean, some brine shrimp, perhaps?

They settle around a trapezoidal table, made from a slab of black marble. Wigby assists the Crustacean out of his tank and onto the table-top, discreetly cleaning up puddle of water with a soft cloth which he produces from his pocket. As Trudeau talks he finishes his task and fades into the background.

Trudeau
Abaddon, as I was saying, is carved from a natural underground cavern - part of a network of caverns beneath Berg's Bluff just north of the city. Right now we are several hundred meters below the summit of the Bluff and the physical institute located there - and we are directly beneath the Hydrogen Cave.

Dumnoric
What?!

Battle Armour Bob
Oh my God...

Crustacean
How fiendish! They cannot detect us?

Trudeau
No, we're surrounded by a defensive shield which penetrates into the rock.

Dumnoric
How did you find it? The location of the Hydrogen Cave is always one of their most closely guarded secrets.

Trudeau
By chance, really. Some time ago I was trying to pick up HBO with the ICBC satellite, when I accidentally intercepted a transmission from the Hydrogen Crime Computer to the Hydrogen Spy Satellite. It was a simple enough matter to trace the transmission back to the Cave.

Dumnoric
But how did you construct all of this without their knowledge? Surely the seismic vibrations -

Trudeau
The construction was done with Tonarzi laser-bores and an inflatable infrastructure. It took less than twenty-four hours to turn the rough natural cave into the marvel you see here.

Crustacean
Tonarzi? Are they reliable?

Trudeau
They are the best, my dear Crustacean. An unscrupulous race more than willing to sell any alien technology to anyone, regardless of GC regulations. ICBC deals with them exclusively.

Battle Armour Bob
I use them for all my accessories - you know, the guns, the missiles, the sensors. They really are the best.

Crustacean
Their merchandise is more reliable than the ffinch-ffirnians?

Battle Armour Bob
Oh, sweetie, don't use them. They sell nothing but cheap crap - flashy but useless, like the galactic Sharper Image.

Crustacean
Curses!

Trudeau
But Tonarzi technology is costly. Later I'll show you Abaddon's power generator, a genuine Jelvan motive core. I literally had to give them the Moon - exclusive mining rights in perpetuity. Thank God we don't own it.

Battle Armour Bob
A Jelvan motive core?! Rosey, don't they use that to power star destroyers?

Trudeau
Yes. If the core were to overload, it would knock the planet out of orbit.

Dumnoric
That is extremely disturbing. But getting back to the plan...

Trudeau
Yes, thank you, Mr. Dumnoric. The plan, gentlemen, is that when the time comes we will drill upwards directly into the Hydrogen Cave, kill the swine and steal their own considerable cache of relics and technology.

Crustacean
You're glossing over the difficult part - killing them.

Trudeau
Ha ha - no, Mr. Crustacean, that will be very easy indeed. Because when the time, as I say, is right, they will have no superpowers.

Dumnoric
You can render them powerless?

Trudeau
Yes. You see, within ICBC I have a contact who is intimately familiar with the mechanics of the Diatomic Duo's powers. I do not know how he knows this, but he is quite trust-worthy. Hydrogen Guy, Deuterium Boy and Helium Girl are Elementals - their powers are familiar to modern chemical elements , or nuclear isotopes, in the case of Deuterium Boy. They produce a kind of elemental field, which extends some distance from their bodies like an aura, through which they can manipulate atoms on a small or large scale in apparent violation of many physical laws. The elemental fields themselves are produced by subcellular agents in their neural stem cells.

Dumnoric
Fascinating...

Trudeau
Here is what is truly fascinating... the genes to produce these subcellular agents are present in one out of every hundred thousand human beings on Earth. It is more common than some genetic diseases, and there are nearly 60,000 latent Elementals extant as we speak.

Crustacean
How can you possibly know this?

Trudeau
My contact... he claims to have first hand knowledge, and his veracity on other matters has been demonstrated to me.

Battle Armour Bob
So if what you're saying is true, why aren't we tripping over a Helium Girl every time we go to the grocery store?

Trudeau
Because, as I said, they are latent. In order to develop Elemental powers, the genes must be activated. This can only happen if the genes are activated by some external means - how, my contact confessed he didn't know - or if a child inherits an active gene from one or both parents.

Battle Armour Bob
So in other words, we'd better snuff them before they start breeding. Heh heh heh...

Crustacean
When you say that these genes can be made active externally, Trudeau, you are implying that they can also be deactivated.

Trudeau
Precisely, my dear Crustacean.

He reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and produces a bag of brownish-orange powder.

Trudeau
What I have hear is a truly extraordinary substance called philosopher's wort. If Our Heroes ingest a sufficient dose of this, not only will it destroy the subcellular agents I spoke of and deactivate the Elemental genes - but it will seek out and remove the genes from their genetic code all together.

Dumnoric reaches out to take the bag from Trudeau, but he holds it back.

Trudeau
I'm sorry, Mr. Dumnoric, but I cannot allow you to examine the spice. This bag is worth several thousand Jelvan motive cores from the Tonarzi.

Dumnoric glowers.

Dumnoric
Senator, I have studied magickal potions, elixirs and powders for thirty years. Never in that time I have I heard of "philosopher's wort". Where does it come from? What is its composition? By what principles does this miraculous transformation occur?

Trudeau
How? I don't know. What? I don't know that either. I sacrificed several milligrams to ICBC's laboratories, and no test they could run was able to tell them anything about it. No spectroscopy, no chemical tests, nothing worked. This powder doesn't even diffract X-rays, as absurd as that may seem. We spent thousands of dollars on tests and still all I know is that it comes from some kind of alien plant.

Crustacean
Tonarzi?

Trudeau
Far more alien than that.

Dumnoric
Science may be useless, but I have incantations that will reveal its nature. Or I could summon something that will identify it for me.

Trudeau
I have great respect for your necromantic skill, Mr. Dumnoric, but I doubt even that would work.

Battle Armour Bob
Rosey, if you know so damn little about this gunk, why should we believe you about what it does?

Crustacean
Ballistier, if there is even a small chance it does what he says it does, it is worth the risk. Hydrogen Guy and his cronies will be weaklings, available for filleting at our leisure.

Battle Armour Bob
I suppose...

Trudeau
Mr. Dumnoric, I realise that for men of our business it is nearly impossible to ask this of you, but you must trust me. Lay your curiosity aside for the greater evil.

Dumnoric
Very well.

Crustacean
So how do we deliver it to the fools' bloodstream?

Trudeau
That is where we must brainstorm.

Desdemona trudges her way through Vancouver International Airport, the fact that she has no idea where she is going barely registering in her mind. She'd been through YVR many times in the past, but for some reason the layout of the place was completely different every time, no matter how little time had elapsed between visits. She had long since decided that it was all part of the conspiracy by airport authorities world-wide to keep travelers cross and disoriented.

She gradually becomes aware that she is on an escalator, and that signs nearby promise to take her to her luggage. She would be rather surprised if her luggage was where the signs said it would be. She has spent almost two solid weeks traveling, first through the mountains of Tibet to Lhasa by donkey, truck, and foot; then from Lhasa to Hong Kong via Chongqing by train; then finally Hong Kong to Tokyo and Tokyo to Vancouver in a pair of flights that were more comfortable than the trains and donkeys but had worse in-flight entertainment. Her luggage had suffered two casualties already, and to find the rest intact after twenty-four hours of flying would shatter her belief in the malevolent goddess of travel.

She stumbles off the escalator and is swept along with the crowd of Asian businessmen and tourists towards the luggage carousel. She forces herself to regain a bit of alertness, as at this point she not only has to find what's left of her bags, but her CIA contact.

He is fairly easy to spot. Short, spiky brown hair, cheap-looking brown suit, and dark glasses. On his jacket is a badge saying "Embassy Staff", designed by the same minds that thought filling a chemical weapons plant with workers wearing coveralls that said "Baby Food" was clever subterfuge. Over all, he looks so much like an undercover CIA agent that no one would suspect he actually was one, because it's too obvious.

Desdemona
Mr. Brown?

Mr. Brown
Do you know if they validate parking here?

Desdemona
I really like your shoes.

Whoever was writing the signs and counter-signs these days needed to get out more.

Mr. Brown
Desdemona, welcome to Vancouver, Canada. How was your flight?

Desdemona
Tell the C-in-C that if James Belushi ever makes another "K-9" movie, he should be shot in the head. I had to watch that damned thing twice, once dubbed into Japanese. And just so you know, I actually hate your shoes. They look like you got them out of Bi-Way's remainder bin.

Mr. Brown
All righty then.

She turns to the carousel. She spots her luggage immediately - two battered suitcases and a duffel bag. The smaller of the two suitcases had somehow been impaled by a ski-pole. She smiles, the natural order of things intact, and hauls her bags off the carousel, narrowly missing bowling over a diminutive Japanese couple.

Mr. Brown
[pointing to the ski-pole] Do you ski?

Desdemona
I haven't in years. Since I'm going to be in BC a while, maybe I'll take it up again. You?

Mr. Brown
I'm from Texas. I hate snow. There's a car waiting outside.

Desdemona
Good place for it, it's too crowded in here. You have a remarkable capacity for small talk, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown
Do you want to stop for breakfast before we go to the house?

Desdemona
No, I had a brick of scrambled something or other on the plane. Let's just go, I'm ready to start debriefing.

Mr. Brown
Follow me.

Taking the larger, non-impaled suitcase, Mr. Brown leads her through the crowds to the airports lower level exit. Immediately outside the door, a limousine with tinted windows and diplomatic license plates waits in the taxi lane. The unseen driver stays in the car as Brown helps Desdemona load her luggage into the trunk. They climb into the back seat, and Brown taps on the glass partition separating the front and back seats. The motor starts and the car starts moving.

Desdemona
Is there anyone up there or is the car driving itself?

Mr. Brown
Haven't a clue. All I know is that it goes.

Desdemona
Beats the hell out of a riding in the back of a manure truck in China.

She slumps back in the seat and closes her eyes. The next couple of weeks will be busy, as she learns her new identity by heart and brings herself up to date on the convoluted and somewhat loony politics of the British Columbian government. Most of that time will be spent at the CIA house in Vancouver. Her thoughts wander to her second, unofficial mission, which she made up her mind to undertake while riding in the manure truck. The Agency would in no way approve, and if it blows up in her face, could conceivably reprimand her... but if it doesn't, it'll be worth it.

She shoves it in her mind's overhead compartment and turns to Brown.

Desdemona
So, you want to talk? What's the word out here these days?

Mr. Brown
You'll hear it soon enough.

Desdemona
Unofficially, I mean.

Mr. Brown
I don't do unofficial, ma'am.

Desdemona
Come on, just a hint. Prove to me that I haven't come umpteen thousand miles just to drink cappuccino in Victoria.

Brown is silent.

Desdemona
The C-in-C said something was happening.

Mr. Brown
Maybe, I don't know. Water cooler says ICBC's on the move. You know Hydrogen Guy's back in town.

Desdemona
I've been in Tibet for two years, I didn't know he'd left.

Mr. Brown
He took a sabbatical in Ottawa, the Canadian capitol.

Desdemona
I know what Ottawa is, thanks... So Ick-bic's moving against HG?

Mr. Brown
It might not be a coincidence.

Desdemona
So if it comes down to it, which side is the Agency on?

Mr. Brown
We'll sink that bridge when we come to it, ma'am.

They ride in silence for several minutes. Desdemona looks half-heartedly out the window, taking in the low slung tiers of houses in Vancouver's west end, backed by the snow-covered coastal mountains. Nothing, she thinks, compared to the Roof of the World, but probably fairly impressive to a flatlander like Brown.

Desdemona
Hey, do you mind if we stop for a minute? I need a caffeine fix.

Mr. Brown
Sure.

He relays the request through an intercom, receiving no reply. However, very shortly the car pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store. Desdemona jumps out of the car and runs towards it.

The door to the store flies open and a frantic young man with bright red hair runs out. He barrels directly into Desdemona.

Desdemona
Whoa! Hey --

Lonnie
Gah!

Suddenly, the front of the convenience store explodes! Desdemona flings herself and the man to the ground, shielding herself from flying shards of glass.

Desdemona
What--

Lonnie
Get out of here, it's after me!!

He scrambles to his feet and takes off at a run. Desdemona looks up to see a panda bear, none other than the nefarious Pu Wing Fu, step out of the demolished store. She is wielding a bazooka.

Pu Wing Fu
LONNIE!! Get back here! We're not done talking!

Desdemona takes Lonnie's hint and scrambles out of the way, just before Pu Wing Fu fires the bazooka. The bear had been aiming it directly at the limousine. The car explodes satisfactorily.

Pu Wing Fu
Oops!

Desdemona
SHIT! That was my ride! My luggage was in there!

Pu Wing Fu turns towards her with the bazooka, and she wisely decides not to press the issue. She turns and runs.

Leaping over a hedge and racing down the sidewalk, she spots the young man, Lonnie, attempting to hijack a Ford Escort at gun-point and doing a fairly bad job at it. She races towards him, wrenches the gun out of his hand, and points it at the driver.

Desdemona
OUT!

The driver flinches, then scrambles out of the car. Desdemona shoves Lonnie inside, climbs in the passenger seat, and commands him to drive. The tires squeal as the car takes off.

Lonnie
Who the hell are you?!

Desdemona
Your furry friend just blew up my ride and what was left of my luggage! What the hell is going on here?!

Lonnie
That damned bear is trying to kill me!

Desdemona
Keine sheiße, Sherlock. But when I find my plans for the day screwed up this badly, I like to know why.

Lonnie
It think it works for the Crustacean.

Desdemona
Who's the Crustacean?

Lonnie
I dunno, I never met him, I just worked for him. He's a supervillain, I think.

Desdemona
Hah. You work for supervillains, you get what you deserve. Where the hell are you going?

Lonnie
Anywhere. Far away from that damned bear and its bazooka.

Desdemona
So what'd you do to piss off the Crustacean?

Lonnie
My name's Lonnie, by the way. Lonnie Peel.

Desdemona
Good for you. What'd you do to piss off the Crustacean, Lonnie?

Lonnie
I think it was this job that I and some other guys did for him. The money was good, that's the only reason I took it! It turned out these other guys were ICBC agents or something, and instead of robbing the bank like the Crustacean wanted we hit this drug lab that was run by the Balabanian Circle mob. The ICBC guys plugged a couple of their people, too. Then I heard that the Balabanian Circle was after the Crustacean, and he skipped town.

Desdemona
So let me get this straight - you got caught up in some Ick-bic op to start a war between this Crustacean and the Balabanian Circle.

Lonnie
Yeah, I figured that out later.

Desdemona
That wasn't too smart, Lonnie.

Lonnie
I know. Dammit! I'm having an absolute crap day. I just flew back from San Francisco today, the flight was terrible, the airline somehow lost one of my ski poles --

Desdemona
[mutters] She's outdone herself this time...

Lonnie
-- almost get killed by an insane panda bear with anti-tank weaponry, and now my carjacked car's been carjacked by some nameless woman with my own gun.

Desdemona
Call me Desdemona. You'll get your gun back as soon as I get one of my own.

Lonnie
Well, it's yours now, so I guess you're in charge -- where too? Just as long as we avoid the bear.

Desdemona sits and thinks. Her first duty should be to contact the agency and let them know she was alive, and then wait for instructions. However, she seemed to have been presented with an opportunity - perhaps not the most ideal opportunity, but one can't be picky - to clear her personal agenda.

One of the first things she learned in Tibet was to live in the present.

Desdemona
You're in a spot, Lonnie. This Crustacean has apparently decided the world needs fewer Lonnie Peels, and if he's like the supervillains I've known, he'll keep at it.

Lonnie
Great. Music to my ears.

Desdemona
And you don't seem to be that bright of a crook.

Lonnie
[sighs] I know. This violence stuff isn't my game. I'm a graphic artist, really. When I was in college I did a little counterfeiting on the side, and one thing led to another... I swear, I'm giving it all up.

Desdemona
Not yet, you're not... as I was saying, you don't seem too bright and I doubt you can dodge the anti-tank missile with your name on it for long. So I'll make you a deal - I need a henchman for a little while, and in exchange I'll keep you alive.

Lonnie
What sort of henching did you have in mind?

Desdemona
Well, with you, nothing strenuous, obviously. I need a place to crash, while I make contact with some friends. I'll need to buy some clothes...

Lonnie
Wait, wait - you want me to buy you clothes? And let you live with me? I don't even know who you are!! You're just some random chick with a gun!

Desdemona
A tired, cranky random chick with a gun, who'll leave you to the panda if this deal of mine doesn't appeal to you.

Lonnie
Okay, okay - you can stay at my place for a couple nights, I guess. But I'm NOT taking you shopping!

Desdemona
We can settle that later. But the main thing I need from you is image.

Lonnie
Image?

Desdemona
Right. I've got some extracurricular business to take care of in Maple Ridge City. And I need a henchman to help me project an image of somebody who's not to be fucked with.

Lonnie
Uh.. okay. Heh, why, you meeting an ex-boyfriend or something?

Desdemona
Yeah, something like that. So do we have a deal?

Lonnie
You'll keep the Crustacean off my ass?

Desdemona
I'll see what I can do.

Lonnie
Okay... yeah, we have a deal. Guess I'm your henchman, Des. Okay, so where to?

Desdemona
You hungry?

Lonnie
You know, now that the abject terror is starting to wear off, yeah.

Desdemona
Good. First we ditch the car, leave a sincere note of apology to the poor schlep who owns it, and then go grab brunch.

Lonnie
Why stop there? I say we total this rustbucket, let the guy get a nice juicy insurance payout and buy something decent.

Desdemona
I like the way you think, Lonnie.

The Bombay Café - the latest addition to Maple Ridge's cosmopolitan buffet of trendy eateries. We join Hydrogen Guy, Deuterium Boy, Helium Girl, and their new charge Reaper enjoying a complementary Indian dinner.

Helium Girl
Ohmygod, this is, like so good. It just totally nice of Lola Lakefront-Property to send us those tickets for four complementary dinners. I always thought she was, like, a total bitch! I mean, who knew?

Hydrogen Guy
You do the Good Journalist a grave injustice, Helium Girl. Ms. Lakefront-Property has the personality that wins.

Helium Girl
Ooooh! Hydrogen Guy and Lola, sittin' in a tree...

Hydrogen Guy
I'll tolerate your girlish high spirits because I am well fed. How's the Singapore Curry noodles, DB?

Deuterium Boy
Most satisfactory. I'm sweating bullets.

Reaper
[inscrutable silence]

Hydrogen Guy
I highly approve the chef's liberal use of turmeric. The tandoori chicken is divine, and that's not an adjective I apply lightly.

Deuterium Boy
It's funny, though HG...

Hydrogen Guy
That Lola would send us these tickets while she was on assignment in Calgary? It is, a bit. But hey, when the food's this good, who's complaining?

Helium Girl
Okay, like, that's it. I'm stuffed. I'm, like, completely gonna balloon up if I eat anymore.

Deuterium Boy
Come on, there's one more nan left. I'll split it with you.

Helium Girl
Pshaw! I'll arm-wrestle you for it, nosh boy.

Hydrogen Guy
How about you, Reaper? How was your Vegetables a la Kali?

Reaper
[inscrutable silence]

Deuterium Boy
He's been like that all night. Come on, Reaper! It's a free dinner! Enjoy yourself!

Hydrogen Guy
I think our Minion of Death needs one of those Kahlúa hot chocolates I saw on the dessert menu. That'll loosen him up. What do you say, DB? We can ask if they have any genuine Indus heavy water.

The head waiter approaches.

Waiter
And how was your meal? I see that you have all cleaned your plates.

Hydrogen Guy
Exquisite. We can't thank you enough.

Waiter
No no, we thank you, Hydrogen Guy. It is always good for celebrities of your stature to be seen dining with us. And perhaps you'll convince Ms. Lakefront-Property to write us a review, yes?

Deuterium Boy
Oh ho, all becomes clear!

Waiter
Please forgive us our nefarious motives, oh Heroic Avatars.

Hydrogen Guy
Not at all, not a tall! We'll be sure Lola passes our raves on to the Gazette's readership.

Waiter
Now, of course the bill is taken care of - but allow me to present you with these.

Helium Girl
Oooh, fortune cookies!

Deuterium Boy
Not an Indian tradition, surely?

Waiter
They are for the whimsy. Now, you would like some drinks? Three hot chocolates and a tea? Very good, coming right up.

The waiter bows and takes his leave. He weaves his way through the busy dining room, pausing to relay the drink orders to a passing waitress, and then pushes through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

The kitchen, of course, is loosely orchestrated chaos. The waiter steps aside to let another server pass, and his features shimmer like a mirage viewed on a staticky television. His face pulls itself and he is revealed to be Griff Pedros Pedros Dumnoric.

Dumnoric threads his way through the kitchen and steps up behind one of the chefs, who is wearing a tall poofy hat. The chef turns around - it is Jean-Marc Trudeau, sporting a fake handlebar moustache.

Trudeau
So?

Dumnoric
Their complements to the chef.

Trudeau
They ate it all?

Dumnoric
Every bite. I think the special seasoning was a hit.

Trudeau grins. He pats a small pouch hanging at his side.

Trudeau
Ha! Excellent! Now, back to work, Griff - don't you know you have orders waiting?

Back in the dining room...

Helium Girl
I've never had Indian fortune cookies before.

Deuterium Boy
They probably taste like poppadoms.

Hydrogen Guy
All I know is, if my fortune says "Beware the Doom of Noffras", I'll scream.

He cracks open his fortune cookie and removes the slip of paper. He stares at it in puzzlement.

Helium Girl
Mine says - "Girl Power is totally over. Time to Spice up your life." Like, whatever.

Deuterium Boy
"He who controls the Spice controls the Universe." Must be a Dune fan.

Reaper holds out his paper. It reads,

Deuterium Boy
How delightfully morbid. What about yours, HG?

Hydrogen Guy
It says - "Good-bye, Hydrogen Guy."

Another Ominous Warning! Our heroes - Hydrogen Guy, Deuterium Boy, even the fair Helium Girl - poisoned by the deadly philosopher's wort? And what sinister plan does Desdemona have in store for Deuterium Boy? An already congealed plot thickens further in Part IV of...

Armageddon With A Side Of Fries!
Same Hydrogen Time - Same Hydrogen Web Site!