"The ‘G’ In Rampage"
10-28-00 to 11-8-01
by ‘G
L was running so fast, other Agents in the vicinity thought her hair must be on fire. She banged a shin on one of the desks in her mad dash but the Weapons R&D Division Head couldn’t stop.
K’s office lay ahead. L burst right in, nearly crashing into K’s desk before putting on the breaks, out of breath.
The GIB Boss just stared at her, trying to prepare for any explanation.
"K…" L paused to catch her breath. "We gotta biiiiig problem."
The black-skinned gargoyle tensed. "Our prisoners broke out while in transit?" If so, then llamas were now reeking havoc in GIB HQ!
"No. Worse. ‘G’s gone completely nuts!"
Deadpan stare. "What?"
"She’s in R and D, rippin’ the place apart!" L turned on her pads and skirted out all-speed.
"L!" K called, rushing to catch up. Matching pace with the other, she asked, "Wha’d you do to her this time?"
"Nothing! And she wasn’t supposed to touch the sticky crinoid. Just bring it in the box. At least that was only a problem for three hours. This…"
The two rounded the stairwell and jumped, gliding down, K glad once more that they’d been given room in the designs to tailor parts of the place for gargoyles.
"And I didn’t tell her to eat it." the other defended as they ran down the long hallway in the GIB’s extensive basement.
K sighed. "Eat what?"
"It was just sitting out and—"
"What was it??"
"A… a Plains nut." L cringed, expecting immediate recriminations. But the noise was very audible now. That, and the five R and D Agents jammed up against the doorway blocking the escape of the one gargoyle inside was quite a spectacle.
"Oh, boy…" K muttered, getting an idea of the situation before her.
Plains nut. Harmless name for a recent unknown pulled from the Archellian illegal trying to make a quick stop on good ol’ low-profile Earth last night. Lousy Archellians have been stingy with their technology ever since that bug almost made off with the Galaxy. The MIB-Archellian negotiations couldn’t be settle fast enough in her opinion. Right now, she had a more immediate, if related, problem.
"What’s in there?" K asked the R and D Head as they paused near the door.
"Um…" A loud crash of shattering glass and L held her tongue. ‘Not much left.’ probably wasn’t the best answer. "A few computers, desks, no weapons thank goodness. A whole mess of data we were collecting, a couple chairs, and all of the equipment and supplies we were using on the nut. Oh, and my tea."
A second series of crashes nixed that object from the recovery list as what was probably L’s entire desk slammed against the wall.
"Supplies? And which equipment?" K wanted to know if it was safe to just leave ‘G in there for the moment.
"A Bunsun flame, liquid nitrogen, mercury solid, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, acetic acid, a big tub, a small tub, one of those cuisinarts in storage, two gerbils, and she already got to the cottage cheese before I evacuated the room." L commented, ticking off each item on her talons.
K decided not to ask further. ‘G was most definitely not in the safest place to go berserk. "Then we gotta go in and restrain her until you can figure out how long she’ll be like this. We can’t wait till dawn on this one."
L blinked. "Uh, K? I should mention that the nut has heightened her strength as well as made her crazy. She literally threw me out of the room."
"Doesn’t matter."
A loud explosion inside precluded smoke flowing under the door. The internal air system would clear it in a sec but ‘G was around some pretty volatile stuff. They needed to fix that situation immediately.
K glanced at the R and D Agents. "You ready?"
They nodded, though clearly not prepared for what K had in mind as a worst case scenario. Eh. They’d done worse winging it before.
L nodded but her thoughts were quite clear. I’m in R and D to stay OUT of these situations! But she was as prepared otherwise, as much as she could be. The R and D Head pulled a small stun weapon from her inside pocket and held her breath.
K nodded to the waiting R and D Agents. They threw open the door and she rushed in. L and her fellow Agents followed. Someone closed the door and barred it.
Stepping around nasty chemicals leaving holes in the floor and picking her way through the clearing smoke, K squinted in the haze toward the source of noise. It ceased. Two pinpoints of light turned on her and grew larger as the crazed gargoyle came right for her. Ready for the attack, K used the other’s momentum in her own tumble to launch ‘G through the air with a strong kick, thinking a hard landing might knock her out. Might have, if ‘G had landed on her head. The dark green gargoyle corrected almost mid-air and landed on all fours before springing back onto K.
She wasn’t ready this time and was slammed to the tile floor. And it was more of a frightening sight than she would have guessed. The Plains nut had turned ‘G into some enraged beast which continued to sink its talons into her skin.
It happened very fast to the unnerved R and D Agents, so their response time was not necessarily slow as they rushed to K’s aid. But their attempts to pull ‘G away only made her more mad. She connected with one not swift enough to evade her sharp talons and sent him reeling into a wall, blood trailing. A second pulled out her Neuralizer.
"No! Don’t do it!" K warned, still leaking blood all over the floor. They’d ALL be Neuralized and she didn’t trust anybody with that. "L. Use it; NOW!"
Able to get a clear shot, L leveled the stun on ‘G and fired. It shot a small dart under the dark green gargoyle’s skin and should have taken effect immediately but the enraged beast pushed off from K and went after L.
"Aaaahhh!!!!" L ran to put some distance between them and try for a second shot. Her Agents also grabbed onto ‘G to slow her down. L swung about and fired again. And again. ‘G finally slumped, then caved to the floor.
L crept over to the fallen ‘G, making sure the other was still breathing after all that went into her system.
K sat up slow, inspecting the worst wound. Her hand wouldn’t stop shaking. She sighed. Well, at least the sun was coming soon… Which reminded her. She pulled out her blood-smeared microcel and buzzed Field Ops control. "V? Find me HOSHI and LD."
The fallen R and D Agent wasn’t in as good a shape as K. L had the others rush him to medical before she turned to the GIB Head, worried. "K? You should go, too."
"There’s no time." the Boss answered, feeling the seconds closing in. A response was given on the microcel. "LD, yeah. I need you and HOSHI to put ‘G in a holding cell immediately. Don’t argue… I’ll tell you later…Basement, lab RD-6. An—"
The sun froze them in place.
LD growled to herself, waiting outside HOSHI’s door. "C’mon! K said immediately!" Giving another growly sigh, she pushed open the door and grabbed the human as she was pulling her pants on.
"Hey!"
"We don’t have all day!"
Dangling in her grasp, Agent HOSHI struggled to zip up her pants before someone sa
LD let her on her feet. The human was blushing. "I don’t know what you’re so concerned about. No one’s awake but you and me—"
Agent DV, rounding the corner with a huge basket of laundry, ran right into them. He hadn’t been going very fast but LD had. Their collision sent dirty guy clothes and GIB uniforms all over the hall.
LD’s previous growl was nothing compared to this. Even in a human form, she looked all gargoyle!
The young man jumped to a stand and immediately offered LD a hand up. "Sorry. I’m sorry." When LD declined the assistance, he started picking up the clothes.
"You got stuck with it again?" HOSHI asked him, plucking a smelly sock off of LD’s head.
"Yeah, but when you’re new…"
The white-haired human rolled her eyes. "I know. Don’t remind me!"
LD had already started stomping off down the hall. HOSHI, a glance back at DV, trailed quickly behind her.
"We gotta go! Emergency in the basement."
DV frowned. Again? I guess emergencies in the basement are sort of commonplace around here.
LD eased around the open lab door, caution immediately thrown up. The room was smoking. Smelled like chemical fire. The door looked like a rhino had fun with it. And inside the room… Damn… What the hell happened in here?! The place was totally trashed. Stone Agents stood about with very anxious expressions caught upon their faces. K was left holding her side. And the blood… A lot of it. She inhaled deeply. The blood of her comrades.
HOSHI peeked out under LD’s arm. "Oh my…."
LD slipped into the room, looking at each stone face, and noting the condition of the floor. HOSHI followed cautiously.
"Is that acid?" The human pointed to the holes in the floor, waving the smell away from her face.
"I think so." But where’s ‘G?
It wasn’t uncommon to have… accidents… in R and D, but this…
Something caught her eye, situated behind a toppled desk. A red-brown-haired tail tuft, attached to a black-tipped tail. It was ‘G, no doubt. "Found her!" LD started over but paused. What the--?… ‘G lay on the floor as flesh, not stone!
HOSHI wasn’t expecting this surprise either as she met up with LD. She turned to the taller Agent, but it was hard keeping the worry out of her voice. "What’s going on here?"
"Haven’t the slightest. K just said to get down here and put ‘G in a holding cel."
"SHE did this??" The white-haired Agent looked about the room, shocked.
"I guess so. She’s got blood on her hands. C’mon, we gotta lock her up." LD grabbed ‘G by the legs. HOSHI took hold under the arms and they hefted her off the ground.
"She’s… um.. She’s kinda… heavy." the human strained under the burden.
"Yeah… Must be all of the food!" Actually, LD was surprised. She knew how much the dark green gargoyle weighed, and it couldn’t feel like this much!
A leg twitched in her grasp. LD halted, jerking the front end led by HOSHI to an abrupt stop.
"HOSHI, you got any weapons?" LD never went unarmed with something, but—
‘G’s eyes flew open and she thrashed, breaking their grip. HOSHI was launched into LD. Growling with feral fervor, the animalistic ‘G bounded off on all fours, down the hall.
LD cursed. K’d tried to warn her… "HOSHI, do you have a weapon?"
She was staring after the retreating ‘G, still caught in LD’s arms. "I… No… I thought I wouldn’t need one…"
"Come on. We have to go after her." She pushed the human up and ran after the rampaging gargoyle.
HOSHI, stunned, followed numbly.
It was hard to miss which direction the ‘G-beast went. She left destruction wherever she tread. Broken water bottles, smashed-in walls, ripped-from-the-hinges doors. She was looked to be heading upstairs.
LD jogged faster, hearing a commotion ahead. Stealthing to the corner, LD drew her weapon. She leaped into the hall, aiming and ready.
DV’s arms went up over his head, a look of shock on his face. The laundry basket was on his head, and clothes were once again strung everywhere.
LD eased up some. Rising from her crouching stance, she walked past. "I guess she’s been through here."
HOSHI couldn’t believe they were tracking one of their own Agents. DV, in the hall, was just as shocked as she’d been. But she had to have a clear head, in order to help ‘G.
"We’ll get ‘G. You might wanna stay out of this one, DV." she told the crimson-haired young man.
He nodded, still stunned. "Okay…"
HOSHI nearly ran into a crouching LD, not paying attention to the increasing noise ahead. LD turned and glared at her. She mouthed a ‘Sorry!’ before leaning around the corner to see.
HOSHI gasped. "She’s wreckin’ the elevators!!"
LD swiveled on her heals and clamped a hand over the human’s mouth. "Shut up!" she hissed.
The ‘G-beast turned, spied their watch of her, and bolted to the staircase. LD gave chase but the enraged creature’s pounding fists jammed the stairway door into a solid and unmoving mass.
"What do we do now? We’re trapped down here…"
"Not quite." LD answered, pulling one of the buttons on her jacket. It left a long trail of very thin wire. From her hair, she pulled what looked like a bobby pin. It wasn’t. LD inserted the pin into the ‘button’ and tweaked it on.
"Stand back."
HOSHI did so but ducked for cover as soon as she saw LD pull the microbomb loose from her clothes and throw it. It contacted with the jammed stairway door and blew it to smithereens.
Coughing from the dust, the white-haired Agent rose. LD was already in the stairwell so she raced on.
But more material blocked their path. A lot.
"She’s been busy…" LD commented.
"You don’t have any more of those microbombs?"
She glanced at HOSHI. "Not ones that would keep the building intact."
"Oh…"
"I have another way…"
The human perked up. "The air vents?"
LD just grinned.
"LD, this is HOSHI. Any sign?" They’d split up in order to find ‘G faster.
LD’s voice came over across the microcel in HOSHI’s hand. "Not yet. She must have gone up a few more levels."
Closing the comm and replacing the handy gadget in her pocket, HOSHI continued her climb up the large shaft. Since she was smaller than LD, she’d taken the air vents. LD opted for scaling the elevator shaft, once she got it open.
‘G zoomed by suddenly, headed beyond HOSHI’s view from the vent grate just below her eye level.
"LD! LD! I’ve spotted her! I’m on the…uh.. the 4th floor!"
"On my way. And, HOSHI? Don’t go easy on her. She’s out of her mind."
"…I know."
HOSHI undid the grating as quietly as possible. After seeing ‘G’s face… It creeped her out. What could have happened to make ‘G go insane? She couldn’t even guess, but hoped there was a fast way to get her back to normal!
The human GIB Agent slipped to the floor of the 4th floor hall. Before parting, LD had given her one of the smaller weapons she carried, as the R and D containment and lab sections, and the weapons vault, locked down tighter than Fort Knox at sunrise. No one to watch it, but no one to get in or out, either. She drew the gifted Gariza 890 Freezer and flicked on a range. Close contact….
‘G was in her sights but must have caught wind of her because she bolted. Dammit! LD gave chase, but rounding yet another hallway, the rogue Agent seemed to have vanished…
HOSHI, running from the opposite end of the hall, pointed further down. "She’s going too fast!"
LD hauled after the woman, determined to stop this once and for all. And they were actually gaining on ‘G! But they weren’t the only ones in this hall. 4th floor started the Agent’s quarters… A stone gargoyle stood in the hall, having not made it to her room before the day caught her. The ‘G beast grinned evilly and grabbed the stone gargoyle.
"’G! No! Please, don’t do it!" HOSHI begged, her weapon trained.
But the stone body was thrown, and ‘G moved on. The human watched the scene as if in slow motion. The stone Agent was hurtling toward them. LD pushed her out of the way and switched forms to catch the statue. Then she was thrown to the ground by the impact.
"LD? Are you okay?" She stepped forward to help the stone person off her.
"Go… Go after her!" LD commanded, getting her breath back.
HOSHI took off, certain of two things. That wasn’t ‘G. It couldn’t be! There was no way she’d believe that. And the second thing? Whatever it was, it had to be stopped.
It moved so fast… HOSHI caught sight of it one moment but when she tried tracking it with her weapon, it zipped away again. LD still hadn’t caught up—
A pounding, like fists on a door, and then the door breaking… Up ahead! When HOSHI saw it was the door to personal quarters, she knew she had to get there in time. She had to!
A blast from a second Gariza 890 Freezer and a loud crackling thud broke that fervent thought. Oh, no… Afraid to look inside, HOSHI glanced at the approaching LD, who entered the room. Oh, she couldn’t stand it! The human looked in, and saw the stone form of Agent X knocked slightly to the side and leaned against the wall precariously. On the carpeted floor were the frozen and shattered pieces of ‘G.
"LD…." How… How could this be??
"It doesn’t do that. I didn’t do that!" LD admonished, shocked. Garizas don’t freeze that bad! How could she shatter on carpet?? She crouched by the remains, for once, not sure what to do.
It was hard explaining everything to X, but then to have K call them in… LD had to commend HOSHI. She didn’t break down; not even in front of the boss. And K… She just stood there, like it was nothing! They’d just lost an Agent! LD’s anger flared. She was just about to tell her off, boss or no, when K fingered the comm switch.
"L? Please say you have something."
"Oh yes! Quite a bit! The Plains nut that ‘G ate? It housed a small creature that took on the shape of its host. You can tell LD that it had a sort of self-destruct mechanism that reacted in a very interesting way to the Gariza blast."
LD blinked. "A symbiot?"
K nodded. "We suspected it immediately when we heard ‘G hadn’t gone into stone sleep."
"So they rushed the remains out so fast to be examined." LD had wondered why R and D had been in such a rush.
"K?" HOSHI spoke up. "What about ‘G?"
Over the comm, L answered. "Weeellll.. That’s the tricky part. She’s been in the symbiot all this time, and we just now found her. She was inside the Plains nut, still inside her.. I mean it’s.. stomach."
"Then she’s okay?" The human was ecstatic, grinning in huge relief.
"Um… Sort of. We can’t get her out of it…"
HOSHI didn’t wait to hear more. She raced right down to R and D, in the lab where L usually worked. The bunned weapons garg was there, with her usual crew of scientist Agents, examining a small round ball of clear brownish color. And inside it, they could clearly see a tiny ‘G.
"It’s made of yet another unknown material, completely different from the original form of the nut itself." L said over her relief at seeing an alive and sane, if small, ‘G. "We’ve tried everything known to scratch, dent, or melt it that wouldn’t obliterate the thing. It won’t budge!"
"Have you tried food?"
L blinked. "No but… Oh, I see!" She grinned behind her thick glasses, eyes twinkling. "Good idea!"
At the comm, she called up the kitchen and asked them to bring down any of ‘G’s favorite dishes. The dessert called Sextuple Chocolate Demise Cheesecake was selected and rushed down. Setting it before the trapped ‘G, she pounded her little fists on the cage, visibly crying because she hadn’t eaten in a day! They couldn’t hear her but it probably wasn’t pretty language, no doubt cursing them for torturing her further. It got to the point where the food drive pushed her over the edge. Repeatedly, her fist slammed against the containing sphere with determined accuracy. A sharp crack, like that plexiglas beginning to crack under the extreme pressure of oceanic depths, split the room’s silence. L backed off. HOSHI followed suit, right before ‘G’s bleeding fist broke out, normal-sized, and the sphere expanded and folded away, like a weird blob of disintegrating jello.
Off balance and atop the table, ‘G fell face-first—into the dessert! Her face didn’t come back out as she attempted to engulf the thing all at once.
"Uh… ‘G? We need to run some tests…"
The dark green gargoyle ignored L, and anyone else, completely. The R and D head threw up her hands and sighed. "Well, we’ll just have to wait."
HOSHI, glad to see the normal ‘G back, turned to L. "Why did it get big all of a sudden? I thought it shrunk her."
"No. Just put her in a space flux. Sort of how the Archellian Galaxy could be so huge, and yet so small. Fantastic flux theories there. I wish we could have gotten ahold of it before…"
HOSHI sighed, ignoring L’s rambles. It went way beyond her head. She started out, happy with the fact that ‘G was back to normal, and whole!
The human saw LD in her gargoyle form propped up against the doorway to the lab. Usually pretty closed, HOSHI was surprised to see her with a little smirk. Probably just as relieved as she that she hadn’t killed ‘G by accident.
The human yawned and headed up to her quarters, amazed at how quickly the elevators had been fixed. The stairs… Well, LD had to at least try and blow them open!
K stepped out of the elevator as HOSHI got in. The GIB Boss went to the R and D lab and watched ‘G licking herself clean while the other Agents—half from R and D and the other half from medical—examined her. When they got the answers to questions she’d no doubt find in her box later this evening, she approached ‘G.
The dark green Agent’s head fell upon seeing K. She was gonna get a talking-to…
"’G, you risked a lot of lives unnecessarily yesterday and today."
She nodded, knowing the truth of it.
"It’s all because of your inability to control your love of food."
"I know, Boss. I’m sorry." ‘G spoke up. "But I really can’t help it! I…" She sighed. "I didn’t used to be this way." Her eyes met K’s.
The GIB Head knew what ‘G meant. That this food lust had never been anything in the dimension she’d come from. "That isn’t much of an excuse." K crossed her arms.
"I know, K…" She hung her head once more.
She hated yelling at her but… "Cripes, ‘G, it wasn’t even food!"
"But it did smell like it! It must’ve been a trap, K!" she defended.
"And you fell right into it. You almost got KB killed, and X!"
"Yer right…I know it’s a weakness but it usually doesn’t affect others. What do you want me to do?"
"We start some intensive training, but you have to tell me what it is they used where you come from to instill such strong obedience on you."
"Um.. That won’t work here."
"Why not?"
"They… they killed you if you disobeyed."
"Oh. Well, of course we can’t do that! But there must be something dearer to you than food we can use."
"More food?" ‘G suggested, trying to be helpful.
"We may have to resort to psychological conditioning…"
Fear crept into ‘G’s eyes. "No, K. Please. I never had to go through that in my own dimension. And I’ve managed to get into the GIB and serve as best as I could, without a single Neuralizer pointed at me, or any conditioning. I’ll do better. I swear!"
K was surprised by ‘G’s adamant pleas, but she may have just found that needed threat. "We won’t have to if you can learn to control yourself more around food, but I’ll be needing to see some results. Just remember to tell yourself, there’s plenty of food here. You don’t need to eat it all at once."
"Yeah. Right, Boss. I’ll do that." And ‘G did appear to be pressing it on her bothered brain as she was allowed to exit.
Would she really succeed? K had no idea. She could only hope. For ‘G’s sake.
END
