Deception: Alex's Past
part three
Both agents were dragged to the basement of the house and a moment later sat side by side bound hand and foot. Tasmin gave Allison a this-is-all-your-fault glare.
"Now, if you two lovely ladies care to explain what you are doing here?" Hannibal took a cigar from his inside pocket, bit of the end and put it in his mouth. The agents looked at each other. Tasmin's eyes shot fire, so Allison thought it best to keep her mouth shut. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
"They're Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Murdock said. "At least Allison is. She's got a badge and all." Murdock helped himself to the badge in Allison's pocket and gave it to Hannibal.
"Cute photo." Hannibal closed the leather folder and threw it on the work bench.
Allison tried to move away from Tasmin. She was sure at this moment her looks could kill.
"But what are you doing here?"
Still no reply from the agents. Murdock jumped in again. "They protect canon characters, that's the two of us, and Face and BA, isn't that right?" Allison nodded. "From Mary Sues, that's Alex."
"Alex is a what?"
"A Mary Sue. A character that messes with the lives of the canon characters. I'll show you." Murdock helped himself to another of Allison's pockets and took out the Character Analysis Device. He pointed it at himself.
"You told him how to use the CAD?" Tasmin rocked to the side and knocked herself hard into Allison's shoulder.
"You see: H.M. Murdock, male, canon, out of character 25.6 Hey, Allison, my character is improving."
Tasmin had rocked herself to the left again to inflict another shoulder blow on Allison, but stopped and returned to neutral position when she heard that. "Their characters are improving?" she asked Allison in a quiet voice.
"It seems so."
"Maybe the CAD is just broken."
Murdock pointed the CAD at Hannibal. He gave it a suspicious look. "John 'Hannibal' Smith, male, canon, out of character, 35.09"
"Very, very odd." Tasmin shook her head. "There's a Sue in the room and their characters are improving."
"You said yourself once that not every original character is a Mary Sue," Allison reminded her.
"Yeah, but you're not one of those. You are a Sue."
"What about you? You and that Deus ex Machina bag of yours?"
"Deus ex Machina bag?"
"Yeah, every time you go into the bag you pull out something useful."
"That's just smart packing. I prepare myself for a mission. I know what I will need on the way, and I take that with me."
"You're just the complete opposite of MacGyver, aren't you?"
"Hey, hey." Hannibal cut them off. "Now is either one of you going to explain to me what this is all about? What is a Mary Sue?"
Allison looked at Tasmin before she answered: "Like Murdock said, a Mary Sue, or a Sue for short, is a character that messes with the lives and personalities of canon characters."
"And you both are Sues?"
"No, we're Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We're here to protect you from Sues. Alex is a Sue."
"Alex a Sue? She's a little girl. She doesn't mess with my character."
"Oh yeah. So it's in your character to slap a ten-year-old boy in the face?" Tasmin asked defiantly.
"He had it coming," Hannibal replied. He gave Murdock an uncertain look. "Didn't he?" Murdock shrugged in reply.
"He had nothing coming," Tasmin yelled. "He's a ten-year-old boy. They sometimes hate their little sisters. Specially when those little sisters are Sues. And if you, all of you, had been a little more considerate, that boy would have been a lot better behaved, and you wouldn't have even felt the need to slap him."
"The Sue did that to you," Allison added. "She changes your personality and you don't even notice."
"Well, you'll be happy to know I have taken disciplinary measures against her for being insubordinate. That sounds like me, right?" Hannibal asked the agents. They tried to smile encouraging at him. It broke their hearts to see a canon character struggling to find his personality again. "I make her run the obstacle course a lot, and give her extra laps if she's slow. I do the same with the rest of the Team."
"The rest of the Team aren't six years old," Tasmin softly said.
"Yeah," Hannibal smirked. "Face would try to hitch a ride if I made him run an extra five miles. Alex just tries harder. Did you know that today she ran ten miles in a record five minutes?"
"What?" Allison exclaimed. "My car doesn't even run that fast."
"The fasted woman ran a mile in just under 4 minutes and 16 seconds," Tasmin cited. "That's the world record set in 1984. The fastest woman on ten miles would take more than 50 minutes."
"This is another example of Sueness."
Hannibal and Murdock both raised their eye-brows.
"How often have you thought about the Sue, Alex, no other little kid can do this?" Allison asked.
"All the time," Murdoc said, nodding his head for emphasis.
"She's a special kid," Hannibal added.
"She's special all right," Tasmin said sarcastically. "She has to be taken out of this story."
"And then what?" Hannibal asked.
"Then your lives will all turn back to normal and you won't remember a single thing about all this."
"Er, Murdock might remember a few things." Allison smiled awkwardly at Tasmin.
"What?" Tasmin turned her attention to her partner.
"He told me; he remembers things about the other Sues we've dealt with."
"I don't know how that is possible. Any chance you're willing to believe they were just bad dreams?" Tasmin looked at Murdock.
Murdock shrugged slightly. "I just thought I was nuts."
"I have a plan," Hannibal said. The others all turned their eyes to him. "To get to Alex you need to get past Face and BA, and that won't be easy. You will need our help, and I've got a plan."
"Hmm. Could we skip that plan and move straight on to your back-up plan?" Tasmin asked.
"What?"
"Your first plans have a tendency to back fire. It's your follow-up plans that work. So let's just skip straight to that plan," Tasmin explained herself.
"They do know us very well," Murdock said. "She's right, Colonel, your first plans are always ..." Hannibal gave him a look. Murdock might have been crazy and somewhat out of character, he still knew when to stop talking.
"Do you have any plans?" Hannibal tried to ask sweetly. He pointed his cigar at Tasmin.
"You could start by untying us, and I'd like my Colt back."
"I don't think the latter is a very good idea. You seem a bit of a hot head. But we can do the former. Murdock."
Murdock untied the ropes that bound the two agents. Allison quickly got up and went over the other side of the basement, as far from Tasmin as possible. Tasmin remained seated on the ground rubbing her wrists.
"Okay, now tell me about this plan."
-oOo-
"What's that noise?" BA asked. He got up and walked over to the window.
"BA." Face put down his magazine. "You are getting paranoid."
"No, I'm not. That's ma van."
BA rushed out of the room, out of the house and into the drive way, where he caught up with his van. It was half way down the drive with the engine running. BA yanked the door open and found Hannibal behind the wheel.
"What are you doing with ma van?"
"I wanted to go for a little drive. I guess I should have asked." Hannibal moved into the passenger seat.
"Yeah, you should." BA climbed into the van.
"Now!" Hannibal clasped handcuffs on BA's right wrist and the steering wheel. At the same time Tasmin did the same for BA's left wrist.
"What is this?" BA yanked on the cuffs.
"I'm sorry, BA, but it's for your own safety." Hannibal took the keys from the ignition and put them on the passenger seat as he got out of the van.
Tasmin walked around the van and joined up with Hannibal. "You don't think he will break out of those handcuffs? It is BA."
"Not unless he damages the van. He won't do that." Hannibal put his hand on Tasmin's shoulder. "Let's go in and see how Murdock and Allison have coped with Face.
-oOo-
As soon as BA had rushed out of the house Murdock walked into the living room holding a piece of rope.
"Faceman, could you help me out here?"
"What is it, Murdock?" Face put down his magazine again.
"I wanted to practice tying knots."
"Was that what you were doing out on the lawn? I thought you were playing with Billy."
"Uh, yes. But Billy just didn't want to sit still. So could you ...?" Murdock put forward his hands wrists pushed together.
"All right," Face said with a sigh. "But not too tight. I have my circulation to think of."
He put out his hands and let Murdock tie them together. Then Murdock swung the rope around Face's feet and within seconds Face was tied up the way the two protectors had been only fifteen minutes earlier.
"Well, your knots look very good to me, Murdock. You can untie me now."
"Better not, Faceman. You're not quite yourself today."
"What are you talking about? Untie me, Murdock. Untie me now." Face tried to get on his feet and hop over to Murdock.
Allison walked into the room with a role of duct tape and gave it to Murdock. Murdock tore off a strip and stuck it over Face's mouth.
"Colonel is gonna have a word with you once this whole thing is over," Murdock said. Face glared at him. "I can't believe you just fell for that."
"I guess he's a real blond after all." Murdock gave Allison a questioning look. She shrugged. "People say it to me all the time."
"I'll go get Alex." Murdock left the room.
Hannibal and Tasmin came in. Tasmin was carrying her duffel bag in one hand and her Colt in the other. Hannibal stood in front of Face and tsked.
"Face, Face, Face. You let the enemy overpower you this easily. You know what this means?"
Face moaned and groaned.
"Exactly, the obstacle course. You're my first customer tomorrow morning."
Face seemed to groan an 'Aaw man'.
"You should have been more careful."
Face groaned again and shook his head.
"What did he say this time?" Hannibal looked at Tasmin.
"I think he asked if you could at least take the tape off his mouth."
"Interesting proposition. Do you think we should have put some tape over BA's mouth?"
"Would you have wanted to put some tape over BA's mouth?"
"Me? I have to live with the guy. And I like to keep on doing that. Living that is."
Murdock came back into the room carrying the Sue in his arms.
"Daddy, why is Face tied up? Who are these people?"
"They just want to talk to you."
"We're agents Allison and Tasmin of Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Allison introduced them. "And we're here to charge you."
"Charge me?" The Sue clutched on to Murdock. "Daddy, are they going to hurt me?"
"Shoo, shoo, just be a good little girl," Murdock shooed.
Allison retrieved her notepad from her pocket and flipped through it for the right pages. "Alex ... do you even have a last name?"
Alex looked uncertain at Murdock. "It's Murdock."
"I very much doubt that," Allison replied. "Doesn't matter. We charge you with being a Mary Sue. We charge you with messing with the characters and personalities of Hannibal, BA, Face, Murdock and one bounty hunter named Royco, to the point that out of characterness caused smoke coming out of their ears. We charge you with turning all four Team members into child abusers. We charge you with having Sue super powers, those being: kicking the crap out of your brother at four, picking locks at three, flying a helicopter at six, not falling of a saddleless horse when it rears up, being a dead straight shot with a 9 mm, and a whole bunch of other things that are just going to give me a sore throat if I list them all."
"You lie!" the Sue screamed and tried to struggle out of Murdock's grip. "You lie and I'm gonna knock your head off."
Hannibal took the role of duct tape off the sofa and taped a strip over it over the Sue's mouth. "I've just about heard enough of you, young lady. Now, you listen to this nice agent."
"Further, we charge you with redoing the episodes Bounty and One More Time to give yourself a part, but in the mean time stealing Amy's part. And creating plot holes. Seriously." Allison put her pad down and looked at the Sue. "You steal a story and you put plot holes in it. You must be the worst plagiarist ever." Allison looked over the charge sheet again. "We charge you with messing up the chronological order of things. You had the Team working for Stockwell and being chased by both Decker and Lynch. Let's see, what else." Allison consulted her pad. "Bad spelling, bad grammar, couple of mini-deckers, Trent's taking care of them in case you all are wondering where he is. Bad description of pretty much everything except your own clothing. Green and purple mist. Did I miss anything, Tasmin?"
"If you're done charging already, I'm sure you have."
"Well, I could be specific about how she made each of the Team out of character, but I don't want to be here all day. What else is there? Oh, yeah, I charge you with putting Tasmin's nickers in a twist. She almost shot BA because of you." Allison put her notepad away. "You have been charged. Any last words?"
The Sue wriggled and mumbled.
"Huh, very insightful."
"What are you gonna do with her now?" Murdock asked.
"We, er, we are going to take her out of this fic. Tasmin?"
"Uh, yeah." Tasmin looked down at her gun. Usually now was the time she put a nice big hole in a Sue. With the Team standing around that was not really an option. Particularly now that they all seemed to be in character again. "I don't have time for this." With the back of the Colt she hit the Sue in the head.
The Sue went limp in Murdock's arms and he transferred her to Tasmin's arms.
"Allison, grab my bag and open up a portal."
"Right." Allison grabbed Tasmin's bag and took the remote activator from it. She opened up a portal.
"Aren't you gonna say good bye?" Murdock asked.
Allison looked up at him. "Sure. Good bye."
"How about a good bye hug?"
Allison glanced over at Tasmin who stood impatiently by the portal. "I guess I can give you a hug." Allison gave Murdock a hug.
"How about a good bye kiss." Murdock pointed at his right cheek.
"Okay."
Allison got on her toes and pursed her lips. Murdock quickly turned his head. Allison kissed him on the lips.
"Allison!"
Allison slowly ended the kiss. She felt her head getting warm. "I have to go," she muttered.
Murdock grinned. "Bye Allison." He waved her good bye as she picked up the duffel bag and followed Tasmin through the portal.
-oOo-
"Now that was just horrible from the get go," Tasmin said as soon as the portal had closed behind them. "And what am I going to do with this one. I can't throw her in the incinerator yet because she's not really dead."
"Even though the incinerator would kill her?"
"Yeah, the stoker got nightmares from Sues' death screams. Since then we have to make sure that what ever we throw in is well and truly dead. But I can't shoot her here, there'll be a mess."
"Oh, please." Allison stepped forward, took a firm grip on the Sue's head and yanked it to the left. The Sue's neck snapped as if it were a twig. "There."
"Right." Tasmin dropped the lifeless Sue on the ground like a sack of coal. She stepped over her. "Now about you."
"What about me?"
"You were a total Sue."
"I wasn't. Canons started behaving better once I was around."
Tasmin narrowed her eyes. "And you kissed Murdock."
"He tricked me."
"Doesn't matter. Give me your badge." Tasmin held out her hand.
Allison scowled. She took her badge from her pocket and slapped it in Tasmin's hand. Tasmin took a look at the picture on her ID-card.
"This really is a cute photo."
Allison rolled her eyes.
"Doesn't matter though. Go and report yourself to Upstairs for conduct unbecoming a PPC-agent." Tasmin pointed toward the door.
Allison glared at her.
"Look, loads of PPC agents are in love with canons in their fandoms, but most know to keep their distance. You went too far. You got too close to Murdock.
"I'm not in love with Murdock."
"You are too. You told him all about PPC and you kissed him. Go report to Upstairs."
"Whatever." Allison turned around and stomped out of the office.