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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 1:27:11 GMT -5
"This oughta be good," Sid remarked, slinging the strap of a bag over his shoulder and picking up a plastic bin. Vance did likewise, and the three made their way up the walk to Caddy's front porch.
"You do the honors," Vance said to Daws, gesturing to the doorbell.
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 1:43:38 GMT -5
Daws leaned on the doorbell for a minute, then waited as a faint voice from within hollered "Alright, hold your horses! Jeeze."
After a few more moments, and some shuffling sounds on the other side, the door cracked open and Caddy poked his rumpled blond head out.
"Okay, so what's so . . . oh, heya Daws!" He brightened and swung the door open. "And Sid and Major Vance, too. Jeeze, it's like a party or somethin'."
Then he took in the sight of their collective burden, and frowned slightly. "Whoa. It's not gonna turn into a party where you're stashin' the bodies here, is it? 'Cause there's no way my homeowner's insurance is gonna cover that."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 1:47:52 GMT -5
"It just turned into your birthday, Doc," Vance replied, shouldering past Ollivard. He set the bag down on the sofa, then gestured to it magnanimously. "Why don't you open your presents."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 2:02:19 GMT -5
Caddy eyed the duffle bag with a mixture of curiousity and trepidation. "Daws? Should I maybe be the tiniest bit worried, here?"
Daws grinned broadly and added her duffle bag and bin to the pile. "Now really, Caddy -- would I bring anything untoward into your house?"
"What, y'mean besides shot-up softball players and crazy ex-mad-scientists and curry vindaloo? Besides those?" Caddy approached the nearest duffle bag and opened it as he continued speaking. "Or were you speaking in the totally . . . rhetorical . . . ." The flow of words trailed off as Caddy pulled open the nearest bin, then unzipped another duffle bag and pulled out a vial of chemicals, which he handled reverently -- and silently.
Daws grinned at Sid and Vance, mouthed toldja, and then cleared her throat. "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas, Caddy."
The blonde doctor nodded faintly, sifting through the duffle bag with a poleaxed expression. Finally, he glanced up at the trio of grinning resistance fighters.
"What . . . did you . . . do?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 2:10:58 GMT -5
"We went shopping," Sid replied with a grin. "What's it look like?"
Vance added, "Of course the shopkeepers we dealt with weren't all that friendly. We had to do some pretty intensive... haggling... to get a bargain like this."
Sid noticed the newspaper lying on the table, and picked it up, holding it out to Caddy. Its front page covered the news of the latest warehouse arson.
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 2:20:43 GMT -5
Sudden comprehension dawned. "Oohhhh." Caddy eyed the duffle bags with renewed wonder. "So, this is like stolen bad-guy stuff, isn't it?"
"Stolen is such a nasty word." Daws interjected. "I kinda prefer liberated."
"Ahuh." Caddy shook his head slowly. "You guys crashed a warehouse, 'liberated' all this stuff, and then torched the place. Explain to me again why you're not in prison yet?"
"My insane good luck." Daws grinned cheekily. "And we didn't liberate all this stuff -- we liberated this stuff, plus some other stuff."
"Huh?" Caddy raised both eyebrows, his expression verging on flabbergasted. "Y'mean there's more?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 2:23:26 GMT -5
"We've got a whole vanload out at the curb," Vance replied with a grin. "Come on and help us bring it in."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 2:38:15 GMT -5
Caddy positively gaped as he set aside the items he'd removed from the duffle bag and followed Daws and the others outside. He remained quiet as they opened the back door of the van and began taking hold of the bins and duffle bags within.
After a (for Caddy) impossibly long silence, Daws shoved a duffle bag into his hands. "C'mon, Cadeceus, say somethin'. You're starting to worry me."
"Um . . ." Caddy blinked in amazement, then floated a second duffle bag out of the van and turned for the house. "Thank you?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 16:18:04 GMT -5
Vance chuckled. "Just put all this creepy junk to a good use, Big Brain. We didn't liberate it for nothing. If there's anything in there that can help us do what we're doing, I want a piece of it." He smiled. "And by the way, there's still more to come, if we can salvage the computer guts we pulled."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 21:25:40 GMT -5
"No kidding? Jeeze." Caddy mentally pushed the door open and deposited his burden with the other bags and bins on the couch. "This is . . . this is . . ." He laughed. "This is like, the first time in ages I haven't had anythin' to say."
"Something has made my erstwhile housemate actually speechless?" An amazed voice broke in from the hall. "This I really must see."
Caddy brightened and looked up from his examination of a notebook. "Hubert, man, you gotta see this! C'mere!"
The lavender-skinned scientist poked his head around the corner, looking curious. "Oh, good evening Major -- Mister Rosenstein -- Miss Dawson." He raised a quizzical eyebrow at the pile of bags and bins. "What's all this?"
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 21:40:00 GMT -5
"Spoils of war, Hubert," Vance replied genially. "We just spent last night giving a headache to the guy who planned to kill you. Seems we picked up all this detritus along the way." He grinned. "I was all for chucking it in the river, but Miss Dawson figured you could build a treehouse out of it or something."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 21:53:58 GMT -5
Hubert rolled his eyes, trying and failing to suppress a smile. "Well, I see Major Vance's charming nature hasn't changed any." He moved to stand next to Caddy, craning his neck to read over the other man's shoulder. "Wait, is that . . ."
"Definitely a Braun sequence, yep." Caddy grinned and handed the notebook to Hubert, plunging his hand into the duffle bag again. "And there's enough chemicals and notes and what-all-have-ya in here for six or seven years of work, easy -- and I mean in this one bag here, too. This's better'n any Christmas I ever . . ." he stopped and examined the small vial of clear fluid he'd withdrawn from the duffle bag. "Holy cow."
"What?" Hubert took the vial from Caddy and peered at the small paper label affixed to the side -- and then blanched and handed it back quickly. "Excuse me a moment -- I left the teapot on the stove." The small man stood briskly and left the room.
Caddy glanced hesitantly up at Daws and the others. "He's been . . . havin' some residual effects from the changeover. Nightmares, mostly." The blond man swallowed convulsively and held up the vial. "Um . . . according to the label, anway, this's the same stuff that . . . y'know."
Daws nodded. "Our contact said they were working on refining the process for making that stuff -- guess it makes sense that they'd have some of it lying around."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 22:03:00 GMT -5
"Well, I guess you got what you wanted after all." Vance raised an eyebrow at Ollivard. "Don't waste that stuff. This city could probably live a whole year on the money that vial is worth."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 22:11:52 GMT -5
Caddy swallowed and nodded. "Gotcha. Right. Waste not, want not." Then he broke into a brilliant grin. "But man, it's gonna be so cool runnin' MacTaggert sequences with this stuff. I mean, we're talkin' maybe a whole new insight into rogue G-spindles, and don't even get me started on . . ."
"On stuff nobody without a PhD is gonna understand." Daws interjected, laughing. "You're gonna have to leave the shop talk for Hubert, Caddy."
"And believe me, he will." Hubert -- having apparently pulled himself together -- re-entered the living room with a faint smile. "We'll have our hands full with all of this for quite some time, believe me -- and Caddy will no doubt see fit to continue a running commentary for all of it."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 22:24:52 GMT -5
"Then I'll be counting on you to translate for us," Vance replied. "Do whatever you like with all this hocus-pocus for the benefit of mankind--but like I told Ollivard, I want to know if any of it would be useful in our fight."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 22:37:26 GMT -5
"Understood, Major." Hubert nodded.
"Right, right -- we're the laboratory wing of the New York Amalgamated Resistance Movement, Resister's Local 219 and all of that. Got it." Caddy had finally gotten over his (relative) speechlessness, and was now rifling through notebooks and vials with the exact air of a nine-year-old opening Christmas presents. "Now meanwhile, Hubert, lookit this!"
He waved a notebook vaguely at the other scientist, then floated it through the air without looking up. "Lookit the delicacy of those genome sequences -- man, whoever did that knew their stuff -- and then check out page four and tell me you can't wait to try that with some estradiol and some X-positive blood samples."
The excitement seemed to be catching: Hubert set aside his cup of tea, pulled the notebook from the air and flipped through it, raising both eyebrows as he took a seat next to Caddy. "Brilliant. Of course, one would almost be better off using androstenedione, don't you think?"
"Oh, hey, yeah!" Caddy perked up, drifted a pen from a table near the door, and scribbled something in the margin of the notebook in Hubert's hands. " 'Cause then you've got a sample that's gonna be a lot more indicative of the general trends, instead of . . ."
"And with that," Daws remarked with a dry smirk, "The rest of the world might's well have ceased to exist, so far as these two goofs are concerned."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 22:47:24 GMT -5
"I think that's our cue to make our exit," Vance replied. "We can get back to these two in a few days, when they're ready to talk English about what they've found."
He paused. "What about those computer hard drives? I'm given to understand you know a pretty good hacker. Or I can have it handled, if you want."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 22:57:09 GMT -5
"Oh, I'll send 'em to Jai -- he loves a challenge." Daws grinned. "Always complaining that all I ever give him is simple stuff, like breakin' into police records. He'll get a kick out of some partially-scrambled scientific mumbo-jumbo."
She raised her voice slightly. "Well, I guess we'll be going then . . ."
Caddy looked up from his string of technobabble and then leapt to his feet. "Sorry, sorry, my fault, bein' rude, I know. Sorry." He shook Daws' hand vigorously. "Completely and totally naming my first child after you, hope you know that. Which is gonna be awkward if it's a boy. But we'll manage."
He pumped Major Vance's hand in turn. "Really, really amazingly grateful for this. You're the best Santa Claus in the business, believe me. Thanks."
Then Caddy turned to Sid, favoring him with an equally exuberant handshake. "Thanks, I know I keep sayin' it, but thanks. And remember, you or Tara need anythin', you just call me up. This is definitely a lifetime's supply of free consultations, right here."
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Post by Jordanna on Aug 10, 2006 23:15:39 GMT -5
"Uh, thanks." Sid wrested his hand from Ollivard's grip, and hurriedly retreated after Daws and the Major.
As they made their way down the front walk, Vance grinned and shook his head. "That's definitely the first time I've ever been compared to Saint Nick."
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Post by skybright on Aug 10, 2006 23:19:47 GMT -5
Daws laughed. "I think there's a significant part of Caddy's personality that never made it past the fifth grade." She grinned. "I just hope the two of them can do some useful stuff with all that flotsam and jetsam -- redeem it from its wicked former life, so to speak."
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