"Love and Monsters Redux" - Part Two

Part Two

            Separated from Craig and Bryson, Kara and Mireya were placed in a bland interrogation room with four teal walls. They were seated at a detention bench and shackled to its handcuff bar. “Is any of this really necessary?” Kara grumbled.

            “Well, we did try to break out Hellboy,” Mireya noted.

            “Hellboy?” Kara ruminated on the name. “You mean that weird red demon fella? Is he the one who sent the distress signal?” Kara considered the notion, smirking as she did. “Guess that’d make him one of my companions…clearly one from my future.” She eyed Mireya dubiously. “How is it that you know him?”

            “Long story,” Mireya sighed. She was exhausted enough as it was.

            “It seems like we got the time,” Kara shrugged.

            “Let’s just say ‘spoilers’ for now and leave it at that,” Mireya insisted. “Besides, I’m far too concerned with Craig and his cousin to even think about Hellboy.”

            “You’re right,” Kara hissed. “I hate that they’ve kept us in separate rooms.”

            Mireya scoffed. “Welcome to segregation.”

            Kara hadn’t considered that possibility; the very idea made her sick to her stomach. “You really think that’s the reason?”

            Mireya responded with a knowing gaze.

            The door to the holding area suddenly opened. A square-jawed, steely-eyed man dressed in a black, immaculate suit and tie brisked right in. One of his hands was bandaged with traces of blood seeping through. Kara and Mireya were disturbed when they recognized his face. “General Zod?!” Their handcuffs rattled as they deflected from the man.

            He gazed on them quizzically. “Who the heck is General Zod? My name’s Colonel Richard Strickland, and you broads are gonna tell me why you were snooping around this facility, starting with who sent you.”

            Clearly not the man who they thought he was, Kara and Mireya cooperated with Strickland’s questioning. “No one sent us, Colonel,” Kara told him.

            “Oh, c’mon! Don’t feed me that!” Strickland thundered. His fury increased when he heard Mireya snickering. “Something I said that was so hilarious?!”

            “You think we’re communist spies – that’s what’s funny,” Mireya retorted.

            “Well? Aren’t ya?” Strickland pressed.

            Mireya rolled her eyes. “Would Russian spies bring along two African American children?”

            “I’ve seen worst acts committed by the likes of them,” Strickland balked.

            That comment drove Mireya over the edge. She jolted out of her seat and charged for Strickland, who staggered back, not prepared for the woman’s outburst. Mireya’s handcuff didn’t do much to hold her back; the detention bench buckled as the link between it and the cuff strained. The only real thing that restrained Mireya was Kara, who was just as offended by Strickland’s bigotry but managed to keep a leveled head.

            “He’s not worth it, Pop,” she whispered to her.

            Initially startled, a smug grin crept on the face of Strickland. “Touched a nerve, didn’t I?” He loosened his tie and reached into his left pocket, retrieving a plastic bag of green hard candy, popping one into his mouth. “You got fire for a commie, kid.”

            “We’re not spies!” Kara asserted.

            “Then why did you free that big red demon?!” Strickland questioned. “It took everything we had to lock it up!”

            “He’s a friend,” Kara said.

            “Ridiculous,” Strickland jeered. “That thing’s nobody’s friend any more than that other creature we got here.”

            Kara knew who and what he was referring to. “The Amphibian Man?”

            Her utterance of its nickname only intensified Strickland’s suspicions. “You’ve seen it?” His question was left unanswered as soon as an MP stormed in, interrupting the interrogation and infuriating Strickland. “I specifically gave orders for no one to come in here!”

            “Sorry, sir,” the MP said. “It’s just…We found something…”

            “SPIT IT OUT, MAN!” Strickland howled, his patience rapidly thinning.

            “We’ve discovered some type of monolith in one of the corridors. We’re not sure what it is, but Dr. Hoffstetler wanted it brought to his lab.”

            Kara and Mireya shot each other glimpses of profound concern.

            The discovered “monolith” was clearly the Type-Z TARDIS.

            Strickland groaned, a headache coming on. “One sideshow after another. Fine, let Hoffstetler know I’m coming to take a look at it. It’s possible this ‘monolith’ could be connected to our suspects here.” He nodded towards Kara and Mireya. “Detain them and their little comrades to a room big enough to hold all four of them. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, one way or another.”

            On that, Kara and Mireya were unshackled from the bench and escorted out of the interrogation room. As they were, a bespectacled man with a mustache had walked in; his hair was gray, receding, and styled in a crew cut. He meticulously eyed Kara and Mireya as they passed, approaching Strickland, who never once took his eyes off them.

            “Tell me something, Fleming,” Strickland consulted with the man. “Why would two hot broads like those be paling around with a couple of colored boys in a top-secret government facility?”

            Fleming shrugged. “Maybe it’s part of some BBBS program?”

            “Take away a couple of those B’s and that’s exactly what it is,” Strickland mocked. “They called that demon thing a ‘friend’.” He noticed Fleming cringing at this information. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

            “Is it possible they are spies, sir?” Fleming asked.

            Strickland shook his head. “Not the kind I’m thinking. But I can’t ignore the weird connection between them, the demon, and that monolith Hoffstetler’s keeping in his lab. Speaking of which, I should head over there right now.”

            He was almost on his way before Fleming, remembering why he stopped by there in the first place, quickly asked him, “Sir, what’ll we tell General Hoyt about all of this?”

            Strickland fired a stare at Fleming so intense that it drained all the blood from the man’s face. “Not a thing. You understand? Not you or anyone else is gonna tell Hoyt about these commie girls and their little negroes, got it?! As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist to anyone outside the base!”

-----------------------------

            The room where Kara, Mireya, and the Williams cousins were holed together in had less-than-ideal conditions. Even though it was big enough to fit the four of them, just as Strickland ordered, it only came with two sleeping cots, a sink, and one exposed toilet that Craig had been eyeing for close to an hour.

            Kara watched him squirm and dance for that long. “Craig, honey, just use it.”

            “Yeah, cuz,” Bryson also consented. “We won’t look.”

            “Is it Number One or Number Two, baby?” Mireya offered her care.

            “NO!” Craig yelped. “It doesn’t matter! I just can’t go out in the open like that! I’ll just…hold it…for as long as I can!”

            Craig’s discomfort angered Mireya more than she had already been since Strickland’s interrogation. She marched to the door to their room – locked from the other side – and banged her fists against it. “Hey! You just can’t lock two grown women and two little boys together in a room with one open toilet! The least you can do is let us use a real private restroom!”

            “I’m under direct orders not to let any of you out,” the MP on guard addressed from the other side.

            “ARGH!” Mireya groaned, slamming her elbow against the door in frustration. “These people are unbelievable!”

            “I still don’t know what that one guy meant when he called me ‘colored boy’,” Bryson deliberated, profoundly baffled.

            It upset Kara to hear that passé label and how unfortunate Bryson was to be subjected to it, even if it was still fresh to the era. “Don’t pay it any mind, either of you,” she included Craig in her counseling. She then somberly added, “I never did.”

            “You?” Bryson grimaced. “Why would you ever be called that?”

            His question reminded Craig of the fact that his cousin never knew about one of Kara’s past incarnations. “You remember Thomas Curtsinger?” he asked Bryson.

            Bryson mused on the name. “Yeah. He used to hang out a lot at your house.”

            “Well, Kara was him,” Craig said.

            This startling revelation made Bryson gaze on Kara with renewed interest. She smiled and winked at him, verifying Craig’s story. “B-But…how is that even possible?!” he asked them. “Mr. Curtsinger looked just like us.” He gestured to himself and Craig. “Except he was bigger and cooler.”

            “Oh, stop,” Kara smirked. “You’re making me blush.”

            Bryson looked up and down at Kara, still processing this information. “So…you remember me kickin’ your butt at Power Punchers that one time we were hangin’ at Craig’s?”

            Kara chuckled. “Yes, unfortunately. And you can probably still kick my butt, as soon as we get back.” She playfully bumped her fist against his chest.

            It was still a lot for Bryson to process, and it didn’t seem he would have more time to, as soon as the door to their room creaked open. They heard the MP guard arguing with someone who was walking in. “I can’t let you keep doing this, Zelda!” he griped. “You’re gonna get me in trouble!”

            “I ain’t lettin’ these poor boys go without some food,” said the woman named Zelda. “You can’t interrogate anybody on an empty stomach.” A plump African American woman in her thirties, Zelda walked inside the room, carrying a tray of food (a pair of freshly made ham sandwiches with salty potato chips and cool glasses of milk). She was accompanied by her co-worker, Elisa, who carried another tray with the same items.

            Mireya was touched by their kindness. “Aww! You girls are sweet.”

            Hungry as he was, Craig could only squirm even more from the sight of the sandwich and milk offered to him. “What’s wrong, honey?” Zelda asked. “You must be starvin’.”

            “It’s not that,” Craig stressed. “I just…really have to use the bathroom.”

            Zelda glanced at the exposed toilet in the room. Shaking her head in disgust, she uttered, “Pitiful.” She then reassured Craig, “I’ll make sure you go to a more private toilet, baby.”

            Immensely grateful, Craig smiled. “Thank you.”

            Zelda suddenly noticed Elisa signing to her something that Zelda herself clearly didn’t like. “Really? You wanna ask them that now?!”

            “What’s she asking?” Bryson queried, taking the first bite of his sandwich.

            “She wants to know if the monolith they discovered is ours,” Kara translated.

            Zelda regarded her with fascination. “You read sign language?”

            “It’s a little more than that,” Kara shrugged. “To answer her question though, that monolith does belong to us. It’s our ship.”

            Zelda snorted. “Your ship? As in ‘UFO’?”

            “As in ‘TARDIS’,” Mireya elaborated.

            Zelda continued giggling, again shaking her head. “As if it wasn’t enough that Strickland got everybody believing all of you to be some Russian spies, you got poor Elisa believing you’re from outer space.”

            “Not exactly ‘outer space’,” Kara said. “More like from another dimension.”

            “Honey, after seeing the monsters they’re keeping in this place, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if you were from The Twilight Zone,” Zelda said, teetering between disbelief and acceptance, mostly to humor herself at the women’s expense. It wasn’t until she noticed Elisa signing again that her demeanor shifted, fright replacing pleasure. “You want to do what?!”

            “I can’t agree to that! It’s too risky!” Kara rebuffed without any sort of context. She kept her voice down, so as not to attract the attention of the guard outside.

            “What?” Craig struggled to keep up. “What does she want to do?”

            “Break out the Amphibian Man with our help and my TARDIS,” Kara interpreted.

            “Elisa, have you lost your mind?!” Zelda bellowed, also keeping a hushed voice. “What you’re asking to do is break the law. And for what? That thing?!” Her reference to the Amphibian Man in that manner greatly infuriated Elisa, who signed a profanity-laced retort that Kara couldn’t exactly translate to Craig and Bryson.

            Mireya, finishing up her sandwich, stood with Elisa. “I think it’s a fantastic idea,” she supported. “With so many of us working together, we have a better chance at freeing Hellboy, too.”

            This debate was left unresolved just as soon as the MP guard stepped in and reminded Zelda and Elisa that their minutes were up. Both cleaning ladies left in a huff, taking the half-consumed food trays with them. Unfortunately, in their hasty exit, Zelda completely forgot to uphold her promise to Craig in taking him to a private bathroom.

            It wouldn’t be until later that night, when everyone was asleep, Craig finally decided to use the room’s toilet. He didn’t specify to Mireya if it was either Number One or Two, but it was the former for certain. With all eyes closed and not on him, he dropped trousers and took position in front of the commode.

            He didn’t get so much as a squirt out before the door flew open again.

            He pulled his pants back up and rigidly turned towards the open door. Zelda had returned with a reluctant face. Her spontaneous entrance awoke Kara, Mireya, and Bryson.

            “Zelda?” Kara groggily said. “What’s going on?”

            “I must be out of my mind, too,” Zelda muttered, gesturing for the prisoners to follow her. “C’mon. Elisa’s waiting for us with the fish-man and that other creature.”

            Craig zipped and buttoned his pants while everyone’s focus was on Zelda.

            As they followed her out of the room, they discovered the MP guard sitting by the doorway, fast asleep. Kara figured the young soldier was terrible at his job before she noticed the half-eaten sandwich that was dropped to the floor beside him. There was a white powdery substance between the slices of ham. Kara guessed it to be crushed sleeping tablets and nothing lethal, considering Zelda wasn’t exactly the murderous type.

            Regrouping with Elisa, they saw her standing between two large laundry carts – one carrying Hellboy, the other carrying the Amphibian Man.

            “Subtle,” Kara approved. “Now we just need to get to the—”

            “What are all of you doing?!”

            They were startled to hear a man’s voice directly address them, turning to find Dr. Bob Hoffstetler – the base’s chief scientist – blocking their only path.