Screaming For Vengeance

Morgan was here and it all made sense for a brief moment. All the things he’s said about going to see *Karate Kid* on the Fourth of July and ending up in that Brad Kid’s body. Mrs Gordon’s Kid, the one that wasn’t always giving her stink eye. Brad Gordan the only person in town with an ego in the same league as Morgan himself. That was a strange coincidence. Now her mother was acting like nothing had happened. She’d lied, misrepresented what this event was to her Wife and Daughter. Created remedial works to the Bat Roost to keep Saffron away from her home, her sanctuary. There was something about the thick old stone walls of The Bat Roost, that could protect a person from this sonic warfare. Whatever it was.

“I’m old enough to know the fucking truth Mum, you enjoy the place on your own, Maman is with her critters so just hope you don’t wake up with Clyde the Aligator in bed next to you. You know he’s never like you. I can’t blame him.”

Saffron yelled behind her as she moved rapidly towards the *Purple Peril.* She noticed unfamiliar tire tracks by one of the slipways. Not the street legal drag tyres the Peril ran. 185 R14’s if Saffron was a judge laden too, most likely fitted to a VW Camper. Saffron knew that for a fact, she’d already pulled the surveillance footage from the security cameras and had the licence plate.

“Go and fuck yourself. Because I don’t want to hear it. Either I come back or I don’t, I’ve not decided if I’m driving straight to Grand-mères and I’ll send for my stuff, which you already have so conveniently boxed up. I never asked to be born a freak, by a weird science experiment, and I certainly don’t want to be used as a lab rat now. ”

Saffron didn’t let Harleen speak a word. It was her speciality to twist what you said and try to make you care, or take a moment to listen. Then she’d won. Weaselled her way back in with her platitudes and *I understand how you might feel that ways*.

The demure blond woman was left in a cloud of tire smoke on the driveway outside *The Bat Roost*. As her Daughter's, AMC Javelin screeched off along the driveway. There was no point in taking her keys away and telling her not to drive angry. Harleen was alone. She knew what would happen if she tried a knee jerk parenting move. The only question now was who was going to summon her Mother in law first to broker a familial peace. Maybe that’s what she should have done in the first place. Heard Profesor Piccolo's proposal, then immediately called a family meeting. That would have been the smart choice. Now her Daughter hated her, more than usual, and her wife was probably not going to be seen before dawn. It was going to be a lonely labor day weekend.

The Purple Peril howled along the roads of the Panther Swamp. With no destination in mind. Saffron bringing the RPM to the redline on the shifts. Screeching through curves drifting like they did in Japan. If some Highway Patrolman or Deputy Sheriff was out here. Well, it looks like it would be their lucky day and they could finally slap a reckless driving ticket on her otherwise spotless driving record.

Saffron broke her trance-like state. Looking at the OEM Dash clock. It was five o'clock. Past Saffron had made plans to go and watch *Brainstorm* on VHS and make fun of it, with Theo. People having their brains fucked with didn’t seem like fun anymore. Considering what had happened today.

Blitz had saved her. That was an odd thought to have. God, Morgan being cast as a hero. She needed her head examined and there was no way she could get that done at cost with her Mother being a dick head. Haleen Quinland Dupont what exactly had you gotten involved in? Your work in to teen subcultures was embarrassing enough. Why did you need to move into brainwashing as a lucrative sideline? Was her moral compass in the shop?

Saffron slowly rolled into a run down and dishevelled farmyard, chickens scratched about in the dust. Saffron tried to keep her car to the cracked tarmac pad of the yard. A blond woman with pink lowlights in her backcombed hair, Theodora Ward, who was about a year or so older than Saffron sat waiting on the step of a shiny two-story Spartan trailer. Nursing a chicken with all jet black feathers. The chicken was pretty well camouflaged against her customised leather jacket that was covered in studs and spikes and had a large Girlschool logo in gothic script across the shoulders.

“You’re late.”

Theo gave Saffron a serious look.

“My family are a mess Theo, I don’t know where to begin. I’ve just been driving around for hours trying to work out what’s going on.”

Theo smiled

“It’s not just because you live out in the swamp that you have no neighbours, your families' bilingual shouting matches are legendary.”

Saffron shook her head

“Just me shouting this time. Maman took off to be with her strays rather than face her wife.”

Oh, this was serious Theo realised. Saffron wasn’t even admitting that Harleen was any of her business.

“You’d better come in then.”

Theo placed the chicken back on the ground.

“Have you had any luck working out the problems with that Scanning Electron Microscope we were putting together?”

Saffron asked

“Yeah, a little. Haven’t had much time to finish it though. You really want to help me with dull science and not watch a questionable sci-fi movie?”

They’d been building the microscope for a while so that Theo could finally take a good look at some moon rocks she’d sent away for years ago.

Saffron removed the necklace Blitz had taken off her and shards of crystal in an envelope from her pocket.

“Need you to take a look at these crystal shards, I got from some Mall pod people thing that was on at the retreat.”

Theo looked shocked

“What? None of that made any sense?“

Theo held up her hands

“I know. I’ll try and take it slow. Do you think we have any of that Black Absinth left over?”

Saffron was sometimes glad she had few friends. It made Cherise’s highly illegal black absinthe go further. Where better to stash it than with a reformed moonshiner's daughter?

“You look like you need it, come in and sit down. I’ll go dig it up.”

Theo wasn’t exaggerating as she went to fetch a shovel. Her family had stashes of corn whiskey throughout Humphries county, dating back generations. Leaving Saffron in her home come science lab on wheels.

A while later Theo walks back into her home kicking off her worn and dusty cowboy boots. Placed a bottle wrapped in brown paper on the Formica kitchen table. She found her NASA mug by the coffee machine and a surprisingly clean glass she’d gotten free when buying gas with an early 1900s car on it. She found sugar cubes and a sieve and poured a shot of the black liqueur into the cup over the sugar and then several into the glass.

“What’s going on at the Fruitcake factory then?”

Theo sat on the vinyl bench seat opposite her oldest friend. Leather on vinyl making a god awful squeaking.

“Wish I knew Theo, The Fucking Morgan Kid and Jimi and his idiot chums had to save the day. I was useless hypnotised by this thing”

Saffron indicated the envelope. Hazardous was written on the envelope in Saffron’s gothic hand. Theo immediately sprang up to find rubber gloves and tweezers in her lab equipment. Examining the shards of glass with a magnifying glass.

“This was able to control you?”

Theo looked perturbed. Whatever had controlled Saffron’s mind had to be mighty spicy. She’d heard Saffron’s middle school teacher call her the most disobedient willful girl they’d ever met.

“Yeah, I don't even know how the thing got on me. I can’t remember anything after getting kicked out of the Bat Roost.”

Saffron could wait no longer and took a belt of the Absinth

“So if you can examine this, and find some way of counteracting it. Jimi created some kind of resonance wave with the PA and a bass in the music room.”

Saffron took an old reel to reel tape in a case out of her bag

“I managed to record it onto this. I was going to spend the day in the music room before what happened.”

Theo eyed her friend

“Did you want Blitz to come and make sweet music with you? You can tell me.”

Theo winked conspiratorially

Why had she told Theo that she found the new British kid cute? There was just something about how he wasn’t afraid to wear make-up in the middle of Mississippi. That could turn a girl's head. Even more so if he weren't the vainest person in the tri-state area.

“Ohh fuck off Theo. Nothing happened. I wasn't in my right mind.”

Saffron narrowed her eyes

“Not in your right mind when Blitz is around, or when the crystals are in play?”

Theo chided. And poked the shard with the large tweezers with the curved tips.

“Could you please let Lil’ Maxie Heart down gently? I’d like him to take me to see *Rush* at *The Colosseum* in October, only he’s too busy thinking he has a shot with you.”

Theo was still focused on the shards of the former crystal

“I’m not saying start sticking your tongue down Blitz’s throat in front of him… but for the love of all that is holy Saffron. Let Blitz know you like him like that. Before some teeny-bopper, Duran Duran fans throws herself at him.”

Saffron shook her head. Love was a whole thing. There was so much that even Theo couldn’t know and it sucked.

“Get that Crystal on the microscope so I can hit you when we’re done”

Saffron joked.

“Science takes time, Saffron. The microscope needs time for the computer to spin up.”

Saffron took another drink and stood to her full six-foot-something with hair height.

“I’ll see what I can do”

Saffron headed further down the trailer to a huge old fashioned looking computer unit on the wall that looked like most of the parts came from the 1950s all bakelite knobs and dials, pressed steel plates thirty-year-old components or newer ones salvaged from other computers that clearly were not designed to be compatible. Saffron laid a hand on the machine and it seemed to respond to her touch. She and Theo had pulled the computer out of an old Airport control tower over near Carthage. Managed to winch it onto the bed of Theo’s 47 Hudson Truck, with the aid of Saffron’s Magnatrine emitters, and get it back here. Getting it into the trailer had proven more complicated. Though some of the welds on the aluminium had needed redoing anyway.

Saffron heard Theo over towards the terminal and keyboard angled towards the microscope propper. Theo logged in playing the crystal sample carefully onto a fresh sterile slide.

“Not much I can tell you about it”

Saffron raised an eyebrow. First time for everything.

Theo pointed to the monitor, a repaired and repurposed small black and white TV with several colour filters over it,

“It’s not perfect as a natural crystal, not like the ones your Mum has. It’s been grown probably in a Lab, almost certainly a DARPA one here in town.”

Theo threw up her hands. She didn’t like not having all the answers.

“Fuuuck”

Saffron exhaled deeply. Deeper than you might think someone who wears a corset all the time would be able to.

“I don't know what we’re going to do.”

Theo continued

“No one can know you have this thing. Or they’re going to come for you like they did Doctor Oak”

Saffron paced a bit.

“We need to replicate that frequency from this tape”

Saffron began hooking the tape up to the reel to reel on the computer mainframe

“Pin down anyone who’s hypnotised and put a walkman on them?”

Theo asked

“Yes. If I have to. The boys from Kylie’s band can help. They seem immune.”

Saffron thought to herself I’m a fucking Dupont I should be immune too.

“You think you can make peace with the Gordan girl long enough?”

Theo enquired

“She’s always staring daggers at you when you’re at work.”

Saffron made a face that read to Theo as *Do I Look like I give a single solitary fuck?*

“ Pretty sure her Mum has been turned to evil too, we’ll have to work out a non-aggression pact.”

Saffron placed a hand over her heart solemnly.

“I’ll get the T-shirts and membership cards on order *My Mum was brainwashed to do evil and all I got was this lousy T-shirt*. Sounds good, yeah?”

Theo chuckled

“If Harls isn’t in the driver's seat, maybe you could be less pissed with her?”

Theo suggested. Harleen and Saffron cared for each other. They just never made anything easy for themselves

“It’s easy for you. You’re Mum works away with the *Forestry Department* all the time. I have to live with mine.”

Saffron fired back

“Cherise is never here. Mamman has her causes and her critters, and the new retreat.”

She paused for breath

“Then you’ll be going away next year.”

Saffron looked crestfallen

“Well, there is someone else that takes an interest in you that you could open up to.”

Theo winked conspiratorially

“Oh, Theo please…”

Saffon sat back on the vinyl bench

“I just want you to be happy. Is that a crime?”

The poured more black absinth

“I want my best friend to be happy and loved. Send for the DA I’m ready to sign the confession”

Theo cried dramatically.

Saffron could do nothing but laugh. Theo could read her like a book. For about the second time today, she started to feel better about her lot in life.

Meanwhile as dusk fell over the Panther swamps just outside Wilton, A curvy sleek black car approached from the south. On plates that read *Bayou State Lousiana*. There was a certain static electricity in the air. A feeling that the situation was about to change. A billboard read *Ricksynery proudly presents Wilton’s Mega Mall coming Summer 1985*. The Billboard shook violently. As if taken out by a sudden localised earthquake. One that would confound the *US Geological Survey*. Then all of a sudden it was absorbed as if reclaimed by mother earth herself. As the swampy ground beneath it shook and absorbed the billboard, now the ground by the interstate looked as if nothing had ever been there. Just a grass verge. The car progressed quickly as if the driver hadn’t noticed anything curious or untoward.