Zookeeper's Lounge

XPLO was the Lounges original debuting Fanfiction by it's author J-Mand.. This story has twisting plots, drama, action, and adventure.. Definately worth the Read.. I will try to copy it over the best I can so have a look-see and enjoy XPLO

I’m going to write a story, folks. It will be about a team of agents working for the organization X.P.L.O. that travel into space. The nice thing is that all characters are based on people from this forum. Note that I in most cases only use your nicknames and not your whole characters, so there’s no need to feel offended or unsatisfied about your part, it’s just all meant sympathetically so all of you can enter into the feelings of certain characters. My goal will be to write one chapter every two days. Feel free to post suggestions about new appearances of forum members or how the story should continue.

Chapter 1: Office 1027
Jay put on his coat, opened the door and stepped into the late night. It was two o’clock AM, and freezing. Jay shivered; he should have put on another shirt. But the message was to hurry up, so Jay didn’t turn back.
Makad Minus never wasted any time giving details, she gave him the message to go to office 1027 and to hurry up. Urgent. Jay’s chief was a nice person, but she could be as cold as a rock.
As Jay crossed the street, he watched the sky. It was clear, with the stars and a full moon shining bright. Jay taught of someone of which he knew would be out tonight, and hoped not to encounter. Things were bad enough.
Jay turned left into a dark back-alley. This was no place Jay would go unless he really had to, but he had no choice. Against the wall was a rusty garbage container, which looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been emptied for years. Jay braced himself, put his hands against the side of the container, and pushed. The container made no movement. Jay mumbled a word as dirty as the container, and now pushed with his shoulder. The container moved an inch. Jay pushed harder, until the container stood about five feet from its original position. The wall now showed a gap, which was just large enough for Jay to crawl through. Jay did so.
Jay was now in a very narrow space, only enlightened by a light bulb hanging on a thread from the ceiling. Before him was a stairs down, hewn out of rock. Jay turned around and climbed down backwardly; he left the container. The security would fix it.
It was a long way down. Once there, Jay was once again in a narrow space, this time with a stone door before him. There was some kind of handprint on the door. Jay knew this door was made of plexicum, a type of metal that could resist a nuclear explosion. When you pushed your hand on the handprint, the sensor-computer behind would scan your fingerprints and would either approve or deny access to what was behind.
Neither of this happened when Jay pushed his hand against it; instead, a small computer screen popped up from a hidden hatch in the door Jay didn’t notice. Jay was surprised; the door should have swung open. On the computer screen a strange computer face of green pixels appeared. ‘Password?’ It said in a metally voice.
‘File?’ Jay asked, surprised. ‘Since when do I need a password to enter?’ ‘No jokes this time’ said the face. ‘You can either give me the password or leave.’ ‘Cut this out, File, I don’t have time for this. Minus told me to hurry!’ ‘I swear, Jay, I’m bloody serious.’ said File, stubbornly. Jay was losing his temper. ‘Now listen up, you pixel head. I walked all the way to the alley in the freezing cold, need to push away a very heavy and very dirty garbage container, climb myself all the way down here and now you’re not even letting me in? For Gargoyle’s sake! I’ll plug you out, demolish your screen, cut down your circuits and fry your chips, you idiotic blockhead! I’ll…’ ‘Alright, alright, no need to get personal. Do you have a distinct message?’ ‘Of course I do, you think I’m doing all of this by free will?’
Jay pushed a button on his watch. The usual digital numbers disappeared and made place for a tiny TV-screen which showed Makad Minus. “Mand, I want you to come here immediately. It’s urgent. Hurry up” she said. Then the numbers appeared again, showing 02,27 AM.
‘Now you’re convinced?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, I suppose that’ll do. I bid you welcome,’ said File as if nothing happened. ‘You better,’ said Jay, but the screen was gone already.
The door swung open to show one of the most remarkable things imaginable: an enormous cave. Enlightened by enormous lights, the cave looked spooky. The could easily be a thousand men inside, but Jay was all alone.
That is, except for the giant dragon that stood just before Jay. It was enormous, with bat-like wings like boat sails, strong paws with terrible claws and a large head with frightening teeth.
Despite the dragon’s fearsome appearance, Jay didn’t panic at all. ‘Hello Yeooz’ he said. The dragon grunted softly to greet.
Jay ignored the dragon furthermore and turned to the right. There was the least thing anyone would expect in a cave like this: A small office building. Jay walked towards it and rang the doorbell. The door swung open immediately. Jay walked in.
_________________

Chapter 2: The Assignment
Makad Minus sat in a chair in her regular underground office. As usual, she was worrying. It seemed that everything she didn’t want to happen happened. First, she was tipped that It had returned. She had decided the tip was to be taken lightly, until B. Allaw, her best finest agent, disappeared when checking Its former base planet. Allaw was traveling in a B-Class ship, a small, swift but indestructible plane-like spacecraft which in Allaw’s case carried the most advanced transmitting devices. Allaw leaded a team of experienced agents. It seemed hardly impossible a flight like that would vanish, but still it happened. Makad Minus had formed a new plan, something very dangerous and ambitious. Something she needed Jay Mand for.
On the computer screen on Minus’ desk appeared a face. ‘Go ahead, File’ Minus mumbled. ‘Kazul has left the building, ma’am,’ said File in his mechanic voice. ‘That’s good. What about the dragon?’ ‘It’s in the cave,’ File said. ‘Okay. Anything more?’ ‘Well…’ File said nervously. ‘I kind of let Jay in, ma’am. He didn’t have the password, but showed a watch message of yours on his wristwatch computer. I had to let him thorough. I suspect he’ll be with you shortly.’ ‘Jay… Right. I forgot to give the password to him. Good work, File. That’s all?’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ ‘Good night then.’ G’night ma’am.’ File turned off. At the same time, the doorbell rang.
‘Come in,’ said Minus. The door opened slowly, and a tall, teen aged boy walked in, nervously. ‘Hello, Mand,’ said Minus. ‘I was expecting you.’ ‘Well, it seems File wasn’t,’ responded Jay, a little irked. ‘Yes, the password, I know. I’m sorry for that. It’s “zookeeper”.’ ‘Thank you.’ Jay took a seat. ‘Well, what do you need me for?’ Minus hesitated.
‘Have you…’ she started ‘Ever heard of a certain… er… Queen Z?’ Jay taught for a minute. ‘Yes, I believe so. I know she was some kind of criminal mastermind, but that was donkeys ago. She was arrested by XPLO and exiled to Jupiter, right?’ ‘Right you are. Though “criminal mastermind” is not a very appropriate word, since she was much, much more. In her days, she terrorized our solar system, especially Earth, more than you could ever imagine. Although we could manage to arrest her a good couple of times, she kept escaping and returning in other forms… Together with Gargoyle I managed to put her behind the unforgiving bars of Io-Niath on Jupiter, the most heavily guarded and hardest to escape from prison in the solar system. She was inactive for a while but now…’ ‘She has escaped?’ ‘Exactly,’ Minus said, sadly. Jay swallowed. There was a painful silence.
The silence was broken by Jay. ‘What do you need me to do?’ ‘I suppose you know B. Allaw?’ Jay nodded assent. ‘I sent him out do examine Planet X, the planet that used to serve as Queen Z’s home base, and he didn’t return. He even vanished from our light-years range radar system.’ ‘That’s strange. Ben isn’t someone who gets lost often,’ said Jay. ‘That’s what troubles me,’ said Minus. ‘I want you to go look for him now.’
Jay was rather surprised. Minus usually gave Jay minor tasks, and he wouldn’t have expected more than “stay covered”. Now Minus gave him a great responsibility. Jay felt proud for just one moment in time; after that, he got a vision of himself flying a minor spacecraft and being beamed into a black hole by one of Queen Z’s minions. Jay wondered what he preferred. He asked: ‘How exactly did you imagine that?’ ‘Well, first, you will need some special units. You will fly a giant, fully armed spacecraft to full frontal attack Planet X and bring B. Allaw back. You will lead a special selected group of units.’
Jay was dazzled. Was he going on a major quest? Like Frodo in Lord of the Rings? Then why would he be the “chosen one”? And what would be his fellowship? ‘Why do you assign me on this important job?’ Jay asked carefully. He half-hoped to hear he would be very special and have some hidden abilities he didn’t know of. But no, Minus said: ‘That’s simple-all of our best agents were on that vanished flight. You’re the best one lasting.’ Jay was puzzled for a moment. He was wondering if that was a compliment or an insult. After deciding it would be neither, but a simple statement of the facts, he asked: ‘Who are these special selected units?’ ‘File will inform you about that.’
Minus pressed a button. File’s pixeled face appeared on the computer screen. ‘File, please inform Mand about our selection project.’ ‘Yes ma’am. You see, Jay. Our technicians gave me a special program that would search all the available data of all people in the world, and calculate the people that would be best capable of accompanying you. From those people I made a selection of six individuals.’ File’s face got replaced by six names Jay never saw or heard before.
Troy
Kandy Cane
J.W. Anderson
Searain S. Nign
Robbie B.
Luna Manar
‘Who are these, exactly?’ asked Jay. ‘I have never seen these in the XPLO agent register. ‘That’s the awkward part,’ said File, whose face appeared again. ‘They aren’t recruited yet. They are what we call “ordinary people”. They are unaware of our organization, our technology and our knowledge about space traveling.’
‘That’s where you come in. Your first job will be to find all these people and recruit them. Give them all the information they need to be XPLO agents,’ said Makad Minus. ‘Wow,’ said Jay. ‘How am I supposed to do all this?’ ‘I will be put on your wristwatch computer, if you don’t mind,’ said File. ‘With this program, I can always track down the one we look for. And you will receive a Regular Plexicum Armor armed with a Brain-Wash XP and a Standard Laser Gun. That should be enough for a Terrestrial mission like this.’
‘Good,’ said Jay. ‘Who will be the first one I look for?’ ‘A certain Troy,’ said File. ‘No surname?’ Jay asked. ‘Nope, just Troy. But we do have a location: Somewhere in England.’ ‘Okay then. When should I leave?’ asked Jay. ‘Right now!’ said Minus. ‘What?’ ‘Follow me, Mand. We’re going to the Wormhole Chamber.’

___________________

And here it is: Chapter three, featuring gbay999!

Chapter 3: The Wormhole
Th Wormhole Chamber was a huge underground cave hall, next to the cave that led to the entrance and exit of the complex. Cause that was what it was: an underground complex. Being one of XPLO’s main bases, New Jersey HQ had to be huge to home every single department, but there were never too many people around. Most things were taken care of by automatic computers.
File was different. File was the most succeeded achievement to create artificial intelligence so far. It was actually a computer program. File himself could randomly move around on any computer on which he was installed, as long as they were connected on a network.
The Wormhole chamber, too, consisted mainly of computers. These computers had special, ring-shaped Wormhole generators, within which a Wormhole could be formed. Their size could differ from not bigger than a hula-hoop for packages and persons up to enormous circles on the ceiling for giant spacecraft. To make a Wormhole work, you first need to search the data of another Wormhole generator. You needed a different password to gain access to every Wormhole generator. When access was provided, both your generator and the other created a Wormhole. If you walked into one, you came out of the other. It was the easiest way of movement.
The administrator of the Wormhole chamber was G. Bay, who was also XPLO’s weapon expert. Jay Mand had seen him a couple of times and they could get along well. G. Bay, or Agent 999, as he was often called, was known for his completely waterproof memory, and therefore was very handy to have as an XPLO agent.
When Makad Minus entered the room, followed by Jay, she called for Bay. His head appeared from between two huge computers. ‘Mrs. Minus! You’re going to move that dragon out after all?’ he shouted. ‘No, the dragon’s fine’ she shouted back. G. Bay walked to them. ‘I told you about operation Uncle Sam?’ Minus asked. ‘Just an hour ago. 56 minutes, to be exact. Just when you were about to move Kazul and her dragon in,’ Bay answered. ‘Right. I suppose you know what to do?’ ‘ “To provide Mand with all the equipment he needs and to transport him to UK headquarters” ma’am,’ Agent 999 repeated flawlessly. ‘Exactly.’ ‘Let’s see now, File told me about an armor, a gun…’ Jay said. ‘This is all you need,’ said G. Bay and he showed Jay something that looked like a belt. There was some kind of button in the middle. ‘What’s this?’ Jay asked. ‘It’s a Standard Instant Armor Belt, a SIAB. Put it on, and push the button. It’s a fine invention, if I may say so myself…’ ‘Er, what exactly does this do?’
‘If activated, your armor will be put on in less than a tenth second. It has to do with molecule reducing… It’s very interesting, but not important right now. Just try it.’ G. Bay pushed the belt in Jay’s hands. He figured that it would do no wrong if he tried it. He put on the belt, and pushed the button. Upon doing this, there was a small flash and Jay suddenly wore a Regular Plexicum Armor, a suit that was best comparable with a cross between a motor cross suit and the armor of an American football’s pitcher. The armor was equipped with a helmet with laser vision, and two holsters, one of them on every side. The right one carried a Standard Laser Gun, the other one was empty. There was also a small computer in the right holster, a Brain-Wash XP. This device could erase one’s memory, to avoid awkward situations. Despite all of this, Jay found that the armor was dynamic and easy to move in.
When G. Bay noticed the empty holster, he said: “Wait, you can carry another weapon!’ Jay answered: ‘That won’t be nece… Hey!’ Bay had already walked towards the weapon magazine. He came back with his arms crammed full of all kinds of weapons, from small, precise and discrete Sneak Attackers to big Repeating Laser Beam Cutters to enormous Bazooka Bombers.
‘Here! How about this one. The Thriller Killer. Or this one, the Spy Fry Y! And what about the Super-Duper Laser-Blazer! And the Mad Manic Mega Mortar!’ G. Bay was in love with all weapons, the bigger and deadlier they were, the better.
‘What’s this?’ asked Jay, pointing to a very small gun that was fallen on the ground. ‘That? Ooh, nothing. Just a silly tranquilizer gun. I wonder how it came there…’ ‘Good. I’ll take that one.’ Bay looked at Jay as if he were from another planet, but Makad Minus signed to him that he would give Jay what he wanted.
Jay got his tranquilizer gun. By pressing the belt button again, the armor disappeared. Minus installed File on Jay’s watch. G. Bay created a Wormhole to the XPLO HQ in the United Kingdom. Jay was not unknown with Wormholes. He had actually just traveled through one. He owned two houses: His own, in The Netherlands, and another one in New Jersey, just near the New Jersey HQ. He had a Wormhole generator in both of them, so he could easily travel from one side of the world to another, which could come in very handy at times.
Jay had never been in the UK-HQ though, and had no idea what to expect. He walked through the Wormhole.

Next up is Chapter four, featuring Skippy!
I’m going to write a story, folks. It will be about a team of agents working for the organization X.P.L.O. that travel into space. The nice thing is that all characters are based on people from this forum. Note that I in most cases only use your nicknames and not your whole characters, so there’s no need to feel offended or unsatisfied about your part, it’s just all meant sympathetically so all of you can enter into the feelings of certain characters. My goal will be to write one chapter every two days. Feel free to post suggestions about new appearances of forum members or how the story should continue.

Chapter 1: Office 1027
Jay put on his coat, opened the door and stepped into the late night. It was two o’clock AM, and freezing. Jay shivered; he should have put on another shirt. But the message was to hurry up, so Jay didn’t turn back.
Makad Minus never wasted any time giving details, she gave him the message to go to office 1027 and to hurry up. Urgent. Jay’s chief was a nice person, but she could be as cold as a rock.
As Jay crossed the street, he watched the sky. It was clear, with the stars and a full moon shining bright. Jay taught of someone of which he knew would be out tonight, and hoped not to encounter. Things were bad enough.
Jay turned left into a dark back-alley. This was no place Jay would go unless he really had to, but he had no choice. Against the wall was a rusty garbage container, which looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been emptied for years. Jay braced himself, put his hands against the side of the container, and pushed. The container made no movement. Jay mumbled a word as dirty as the container, and now pushed with his shoulder. The container moved an inch. Jay pushed harder, until the container stood about five feet from its original position. The wall now showed a gap, which was just large enough for Jay to crawl through. Jay did so.
Jay was now in a very narrow space, only enlightened by a light bulb hanging on a thread from the ceiling. Before him was a stairs down, hewn out of rock. Jay turned around and climbed down backwardly; he left the container. The security would fix it.
It was a long way down. Once there, Jay was once again in a narrow space, this time with a stone door before him. There was some kind of handprint on the door. Jay knew this door was made of plexicum, a type of metal that could resist a nuclear explosion. When you pushed your hand on the handprint, the sensor-computer behind would scan your fingerprints and would either approve or deny access to what was behind.
Neither of this happened when Jay pushed his hand against it; instead, a small computer screen popped up from a hidden hatch in the door Jay didn’t notice. Jay was surprised; the door should have swung open. On the computer screen a strange computer face of green pixels appeared. ‘Password?’ It said in a metally voice.
‘File?’ Jay asked, surprised. ‘Since when do I need a password to enter?’ ‘No jokes this time’ said the face. ‘You can either give me the password or leave.’ ‘Cut this out, File, I don’t have time for this. Minus told me to hurry!’ ‘I swear, Jay, I’m bloody serious.’ said File, stubbornly. Jay was losing his temper. ‘Now listen up, you pixel head. I walked all the way to the alley in the freezing cold, need to push away a very heavy and very dirty garbage container, climb myself all the way down here and now you’re not even letting me in? For Gargoyle’s sake! I’ll plug you out, demolish your screen, cut down your circuits and fry your chips, you idiotic blockhead! I’ll…’ ‘Alright, alright, no need to get personal. Do you have a distinct message?’ ‘Of course I do, you think I’m doing all of this by free will?’
Jay pushed a button on his watch. The usual digital numbers disappeared and made place for a tiny TV-screen which showed Makad Minus. “Mand, I want you to come here immediately. It’s urgent. Hurry up” she said. Then the numbers appeared again, showing 02,27 AM.
‘Now you’re convinced?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, I suppose that’ll do. I bid you welcome,’ said File as if nothing happened. ‘You better,’ said Jay, but the screen was gone already.
The door swung open to show one of the most remarkable things imaginable: an enormous cave. Enlightened by enormous lights, the cave looked spooky. The could easily be a thousand men inside, but Jay was all alone.
That is, except for the giant dragon that stood just before Jay. It was enormous, with bat-like wings like boat sails, strong paws with terrible claws and a large head with frightening teeth.
Despite the dragon’s fearsome appearance, Jay didn’t panic at all. ‘Hello Yeooz’ he said. The dragon grunted softly to greet.
Jay ignored the dragon furthermore and turned to the right. There was the least thing anyone would expect in a cave like this: A small office building. Jay walked towards it and rang the doorbell. The door swung open immediately. Jay walked in.
_________________

Chapter 2: The Assignment
Makad Minus sat in a chair in her regular underground office. As usual, she was worrying. It seemed that everything she didn’t want to happen happened. First, she was tipped that It had returned. She had decided the tip was to be taken lightly, until B. Allaw, her best finest agent, disappeared when checking Its former base planet. Allaw was traveling in a B-Class ship, a small, swift but indestructible plane-like spacecraft which in Allaw’s case carried the most advanced transmitting devices. Allaw leaded a team of experienced agents. It seemed hardly impossible a flight like that would vanish, but still it happened. Makad Minus had formed a new plan, something very dangerous and ambitious. Something she needed Jay Mand for.
On the computer screen on Minus’ desk appeared a face. ‘Go ahead, File’ Minus mumbled. ‘Kazul has left the building, ma’am,’ said File in his mechanic voice. ‘That’s good. What about the dragon?’ ‘It’s in the cave,’ File said. ‘Okay. Anything more?’ ‘Well…’ File said nervously. ‘I kind of let Jay in, ma’am. He didn’t have the password, but showed a watch message of yours on his wristwatch computer. I had to let him thorough. I suspect he’ll be with you shortly.’ ‘Jay… Right. I forgot to give the password to him. Good work, File. That’s all?’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ ‘Good night then.’ G’night ma’am.’ File turned off. At the same time, the doorbell rang.
‘Come in,’ said Minus. The door opened slowly, and a tall, teen aged boy walked in, nervously. ‘Hello, Mand,’ said Minus. ‘I was expecting you.’ ‘Well, it seems File wasn’t,’ responded Jay, a little irked. ‘Yes, the password, I know. I’m sorry for that. It’s “zookeeper”.’ ‘Thank you.’ Jay took a seat. ‘Well, what do you need me for?’ Minus hesitated.
‘Have you…’ she started ‘Ever heard of a certain… er… Queen Z?’ Jay taught for a minute. ‘Yes, I believe so. I know she was some kind of criminal mastermind, but that was donkeys ago. She was arrested by XPLO and exiled to Jupiter, right?’ ‘Right you are. Though “criminal mastermind” is not a very appropriate word, since she was much, much more. In her days, she terrorized our solar system, especially Earth, more than you could ever imagine. Although we could manage to arrest her a good couple of times, she kept escaping and returning in other forms… Together with Gargoyle I managed to put her behind the unforgiving bars of Io-Niath on Jupiter, the most heavily guarded and hardest to escape from prison in the solar system. She was inactive for a while but now…’ ‘She has escaped?’ ‘Exactly,’ Minus said, sadly. Jay swallowed. There was a painful silence.
The silence was broken by Jay. ‘What do you need me to do?’ ‘I suppose you know B. Allaw?’ Jay nodded assent. ‘I sent him out do examine Planet X, the planet that used to serve as Queen Z’s home base, and he didn’t return. He even vanished from our light-years range radar system.’ ‘That’s strange. Ben isn’t someone who gets lost often,’ said Jay. ‘That’s what troubles me,’ said Minus. ‘I want you to go look for him now.’
Jay was rather surprised. Minus usually gave Jay minor tasks, and he wouldn’t have expected more than “stay covered”. Now Minus gave him a great responsibility. Jay felt proud for just one moment in time; after that, he got a vision of himself flying a minor spacecraft and being beamed into a black hole by one of Queen Z’s minions. Jay wondered what he preferred. He asked: ‘How exactly did you imagine that?’ ‘Well, first, you will need some special units. You will fly a giant, fully armed spacecraft to full frontal attack Planet X and bring B. Allaw back. You will lead a special selected group of units.’
Jay was dazzled. Was he going on a major quest? Like Frodo in Lord of the Rings? Then why would he be the “chosen one”? And what would be his fellowship? ‘Why do you assign me on this important job?’ Jay asked carefully. He half-hoped to hear he would be very special and have some hidden abilities he didn’t know of. But no, Minus said: ‘That’s simple-all of our best agents were on that vanished flight. You’re the best one lasting.’ Jay was puzzled for a moment. He was wondering if that was a compliment or an insult. After deciding it would be neither, but a simple statement of the facts, he asked: ‘Who are these special selected units?’ ‘File will inform you about that.’
Minus pressed a button. File’s pixeled face appeared on the computer screen. ‘File, please inform Mand about our selection project.’ ‘Yes ma’am. You see, Jay. Our technicians gave me a special program that would search all the available data of all people in the world, and calculate the people that would be best capable of accompanying you. From those people I made a selection of six individuals.’ File’s face got replaced by six names Jay never saw or heard before.
Troy
Kandy Cane
J.W. Anderson
Searain S. Nign
Robbie B.
Luna Manar
‘Who are these, exactly?’ asked Jay. ‘I have never seen these in the XPLO agent register. ‘That’s the awkward part,’ said File, whose face appeared again. ‘They aren’t recruited yet. They are what we call “ordinary people”. They are unaware of our organization, our technology and our knowledge about space traveling.’
‘That’s where you come in. Your first job will be to find all these people and recruit them. Give them all the information they need to be XPLO agents,’ said Makad Minus. ‘Wow,’ said Jay. ‘How am I supposed to do all this?’ ‘I will be put on your wristwatch computer, if you don’t mind,’ said File. ‘With this program, I can always track down the one we look for. And you will receive a Regular Plexicum Armor armed with a Brain-Wash XP and a Standard Laser Gun. That should be enough for a Terrestrial mission like this.’
‘Good,’ said Jay. ‘Who will be the first one I look for?’ ‘A certain Troy,’ said File. ‘No surname?’ Jay asked. ‘Nope, just Troy. But we do have a location: Somewhere in England.’ ‘Okay then. When should I leave?’ asked Jay. ‘Right now!’ said Minus. ‘What?’ ‘Follow me, Mand. We’re going to the Wormhole Chamber.’

___________________

And here it is: Chapter three, featuring gbay999!

Chapter 3: The Wormhole
Th Wormhole Chamber was a huge underground cave hall, next to the cave that led to the entrance and exit of the complex. Cause that was what it was: an underground complex. Being one of XPLO’s main bases, New Jersey HQ had to be huge to home every single department, but there were never too many people around. Most things were taken care of by automatic computers.
File was different. File was the most succeeded achievement to create artificial intelligence so far. It was actually a computer program. File himself could randomly move around on any computer on which he was installed, as long as they were connected on a network.
The Wormhole chamber, too, consisted mainly of computers. These computers had special, ring-shaped Wormhole generators, within which a Wormhole could be formed. Their size could differ from not bigger than a hula-hoop for packages and persons up to enormous circles on the ceiling for giant spacecraft. To make a Wormhole work, you first need to search the data of another Wormhole generator. You needed a different password to gain access to every Wormhole generator. When access was provided, both your generator and the other created a Wormhole. If you walked into one, you came out of the other. It was the easiest way of movement.
The administrator of the Wormhole chamber was G. Bay, who was also XPLO’s weapon expert. Jay Mand had seen him a couple of times and they could get along well. G. Bay, or Agent 999, as he was often called, was known for his completely waterproof memory, and therefore was very handy to have as an XPLO agent.
When Makad Minus entered the room, followed by Jay, she called for Bay. His head appeared from between two huge computers. ‘Mrs. Minus! You’re going to move that dragon out after all?’ he shouted. ‘No, the dragon’s fine’ she shouted back. G. Bay walked to them. ‘I told you about operation Uncle Sam?’ Minus asked. ‘Just an hour ago. 56 minutes, to be exact. Just when you were about to move Kazul and her dragon in,’ Bay answered. ‘Right. I suppose you know what to do?’ ‘ “To provide Mand with all the equipment he needs and to transport him to UK headquarters” ma’am,’ Agent 999 repeated flawlessly. ‘Exactly.’ ‘Let’s see now, File told me about an armor, a gun…’ Jay said. ‘This is all you need,’ said G. Bay and he showed Jay something that looked like a belt. There was some kind of button in the middle. ‘What’s this?’ Jay asked. ‘It’s a Standard Instant Armor Belt, a SIAB. Put it on, and push the button. It’s a fine invention, if I may say so myself…’ ‘Er, what exactly does this do?’
‘If activated, your armor will be put on in less than a tenth second. It has to do with molecule reducing… It’s very interesting, but not important right now. Just try it.’ G. Bay pushed the belt in Jay’s hands. He figured that it would do no wrong if he tried it. He put on the belt, and pushed the button. Upon doing this, there was a small flash and Jay suddenly wore a Regular Plexicum Armor, a suit that was best comparable with a cross between a motor cross suit and the armor of an American football’s pitcher. The armor was equipped with a helmet with laser vision, and two holsters, one of them on every side. The right one carried a Standard Laser Gun, the other one was empty. There was also a small computer in the right holster, a Brain-Wash XP. This device could erase one’s memory, to avoid awkward situations. Despite all of this, Jay found that the armor was dynamic and easy to move in.
When G. Bay noticed the empty holster, he said: “Wait, you can carry another weapon!’ Jay answered: ‘That won’t be nece… Hey!’ Bay had already walked towards the weapon magazine. He came back with his arms crammed full of all kinds of weapons, from small, precise and discrete Sneak Attackers to big Repeating Laser Beam Cutters to enormous Bazooka Bombers.
‘Here! How about this one. The Thriller Killer. Or this one, the Spy Fry Y! And what about the Super-Duper Laser-Blazer! And the Mad Manic Mega Mortar!’ G. Bay was in love with all weapons, the bigger and deadlier they were, the better.
‘What’s this?’ asked Jay, pointing to a very small gun that was fallen on the ground. ‘That? Ooh, nothing. Just a silly tranquilizer gun. I wonder how it came there…’ ‘Good. I’ll take that one.’ Bay looked at Jay as if he were from another planet, but Makad Minus signed to him that he would give Jay what he wanted.
Jay got his tranquilizer gun. By pressing the belt button again, the armor disappeared. Minus installed File on Jay’s watch. G. Bay created a Wormhole to the XPLO HQ in the United Kingdom. Jay was not unknown with Wormholes. He had actually just traveled through one. He owned two houses: His own, in The Netherlands, and another one in New Jersey, just near the New Jersey HQ. He had a Wormhole generator in both of them, so he could easily travel from one side of the world to another, which could come in very handy at times.
Jay had never been in the UK-HQ though, and had no idea what to expect. He walked through the Wormhole.

Next up is Chapter four, featuring Skippy!
I’m going to write a story, folks. It will be about a team of agents working for the organization X.P.L.O. that travel into space. The nice thing is that all characters are based on people from this forum. Note that I in most cases only use your nicknames and not your whole characters, so there’s no need to feel offended or unsatisfied about your part, it’s just all meant sympathetically so all of you can enter into the feelings of certain characters. My goal will be to write one chapter every two days. Feel free to post suggestions about new appearances of forum members or how the story should continue.

Chapter 1: Office 1027
Jay put on his coat, opened the door and stepped into the late night. It was two o’clock AM, and freezing. Jay shivered; he should have put on another shirt. But the message was to hurry up, so Jay didn’t turn back.
Makad Minus never wasted any time giving details, she gave him the message to go to office 1027 and to hurry up. Urgent. Jay’s chief was a nice person, but she could be as cold as a rock.
As Jay crossed the street, he watched the sky. It was clear, with the stars and a full moon shining bright. Jay taught of someone of which he knew would be out tonight, and hoped not to encounter. Things were bad enough.
Jay turned left into a dark back-alley. This was no place Jay would go unless he really had to, but he had no choice. Against the wall was a rusty garbage container, which looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been emptied for years. Jay braced himself, put his hands against the side of the container, and pushed. The container made no movement. Jay mumbled a word as dirty as the container, and now pushed with his shoulder. The container moved an inch. Jay pushed harder, until the container stood about five feet from its original position. The wall now showed a gap, which was just large enough for Jay to crawl through. Jay did so.
Jay was now in a very narrow space, only enlightened by a light bulb hanging on a thread from the ceiling. Before him was a stairs down, hewn out of rock. Jay turned around and climbed down backwardly; he left the container. The security would fix it.
It was a long way down. Once there, Jay was once again in a narrow space, this time with a stone door before him. There was some kind of handprint on the door. Jay knew this door was made of plexicum, a type of metal that could resist a nuclear explosion. When you pushed your hand on the handprint, the sensor-computer behind would scan your fingerprints and would either approve or deny access to what was behind.
Neither of this happened when Jay pushed his hand against it; instead, a small computer screen popped up from a hidden hatch in the door Jay didn’t notice. Jay was surprised; the door should have swung open. On the computer screen a strange computer face of green pixels appeared. ‘Password?’ It said in a metally voice.
‘File?’ Jay asked, surprised. ‘Since when do I need a password to enter?’ ‘No jokes this time’ said the face. ‘You can either give me the password or leave.’ ‘Cut this out, File, I don’t have time for this. Minus told me to hurry!’ ‘I swear, Jay, I’m bloody serious.’ said File, stubbornly. Jay was losing his temper. ‘Now listen up, you pixel head. I walked all the way to the alley in the freezing cold, need to push away a very heavy and very dirty garbage container, climb myself all the way down here and now you’re not even letting me in? For Gargoyle’s sake! I’ll plug you out, demolish your screen, cut down your circuits and fry your chips, you idiotic blockhead! I’ll…’ ‘Alright, alright, no need to get personal. Do you have a distinct message?’ ‘Of course I do, you think I’m doing all of this by free will?’
Jay pushed a button on his watch. The usual digital numbers disappeared and made place for a tiny TV-screen which showed Makad Minus. “Mand, I want you to come here immediately. It’s urgent. Hurry up” she said. Then the numbers appeared again, showing 02,27 AM.
‘Now you’re convinced?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, I suppose that’ll do. I bid you welcome,’ said File as if nothing happened. ‘You better,’ said Jay, but the screen was gone already.
The door swung open to show one of the most remarkable things imaginable: an enormous cave. Enlightened by enormous lights, the cave looked spooky. The could easily be a thousand men inside, but Jay was all alone.
That is, except for the giant dragon that stood just before Jay. It was enormous, with bat-like wings like boat sails, strong paws with terrible claws and a large head with frightening teeth.
Despite the dragon’s fearsome appearance, Jay didn’t panic at all. ‘Hello Yeooz’ he said. The dragon grunted softly to greet.
Jay ignored the dragon furthermore and turned to the right. There was the least thing anyone would expect in a cave like this: A small office building. Jay walked towards it and rang the doorbell. The door swung open immediately. Jay walked in.
_________________

Chapter 2: The Assignment
Makad Minus sat in a chair in her regular underground office. As usual, she was worrying. It seemed that everything she didn’t want to happen happened. First, she was tipped that It had returned. She had decided the tip was to be taken lightly, until B. Allaw, her best finest agent, disappeared when checking Its former base planet. Allaw was traveling in a B-Class ship, a small, swift but indestructible plane-like spacecraft which in Allaw’s case carried the most advanced transmitting devices. Allaw leaded a team of experienced agents. It seemed hardly impossible a flight like that would vanish, but still it happened. Makad Minus had formed a new plan, something very dangerous and ambitious. Something she needed Jay Mand for.
On the computer screen on Minus’ desk appeared a face. ‘Go ahead, File’ Minus mumbled. ‘Kazul has left the building, ma’am,’ said File in his mechanic voice. ‘That’s good. What about the dragon?’ ‘It’s in the cave,’ File said. ‘Okay. Anything more?’ ‘Well…’ File said nervously. ‘I kind of let Jay in, ma’am. He didn’t have the password, but showed a watch message of yours on his wristwatch computer. I had to let him thorough. I suspect he’ll be with you shortly.’ ‘Jay… Right. I forgot to give the password to him. Good work, File. That’s all?’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ ‘Good night then.’ G’night ma’am.’ File turned off. At the same time, the doorbell rang.
‘Come in,’ said Minus. The door opened slowly, and a tall, teen aged boy walked in, nervously. ‘Hello, Mand,’ said Minus. ‘I was expecting you.’ ‘Well, it seems File wasn’t,’ responded Jay, a little irked. ‘Yes, the password, I know. I’m sorry for that. It’s “zookeeper”.’ ‘Thank you.’ Jay took a seat. ‘Well, what do you need me for?’ Minus hesitated.
‘Have you…’ she started ‘Ever heard of a certain… er… Queen Z?’ Jay taught for a minute. ‘Yes, I believe so. I know she was some kind of criminal mastermind, but that was donkeys ago. She was arrested by XPLO and exiled to Jupiter, right?’ ‘Right you are. Though “criminal mastermind” is not a very appropriate word, since she was much, much more. In her days, she terrorized our solar system, especially Earth, more than you could ever imagine. Although we could manage to arrest her a good couple of times, she kept escaping and returning in other forms… Together with Gargoyle I managed to put her behind the unforgiving bars of Io-Niath on Jupiter, the most heavily guarded and hardest to escape from prison in the solar system. She was inactive for a while but now…’ ‘She has escaped?’ ‘Exactly,’ Minus said, sadly. Jay swallowed. There was a painful silence.
The silence was broken by Jay. ‘What do you need me to do?’ ‘I suppose you know B. Allaw?’ Jay nodded assent. ‘I sent him out do examine Planet X, the planet that used to serve as Queen Z’s home base, and he didn’t return. He even vanished from our light-years range radar system.’ ‘That’s strange. Ben isn’t someone who gets lost often,’ said Jay. ‘That’s what troubles me,’ said Minus. ‘I want you to go look for him now.’
Jay was rather surprised. Minus usually gave Jay minor tasks, and he wouldn’t have expected more than “stay covered”. Now Minus gave him a great responsibility. Jay felt proud for just one moment in time; after that, he got a vision of himself flying a minor spacecraft and being beamed into a black hole by one of Queen Z’s minions. Jay wondered what he preferred. He asked: ‘How exactly did you imagine that?’ ‘Well, first, you will need some special units. You will fly a giant, fully armed spacecraft to full frontal attack Planet X and bring B. Allaw back. You will lead a special selected group of units.’
Jay was dazzled. Was he going on a major quest? Like Frodo in Lord of the Rings? Then why would he be the “chosen one”? And what would be his fellowship? ‘Why do you assign me on this important job?’ Jay asked carefully. He half-hoped to hear he would be very special and have some hidden abilities he didn’t know of. But no, Minus said: ‘That’s simple-all of our best agents were on that vanished flight. You’re the best one lasting.’ Jay was puzzled for a moment. He was wondering if that was a compliment or an insult. After deciding it would be neither, but a simple statement of the facts, he asked: ‘Who are these special selected units?’ ‘File will inform you about that.’
Minus pressed a button. File’s pixeled face appeared on the computer screen. ‘File, please inform Mand about our selection project.’ ‘Yes ma’am. You see, Jay. Our technicians gave me a special program that would search all the available data of all people in the world, and calculate the people that would be best capable of accompanying you. From those people I made a selection of six individuals.’ File’s face got replaced by six names Jay never saw or heard before.
Troy
Kandy Cane
J.W. Anderson
Searain S. Nign
Robbie B.
Luna Manar
‘Who are these, exactly?’ asked Jay. ‘I have never seen these in the XPLO agent register. ‘That’s the awkward part,’ said File, whose face appeared again. ‘They aren’t recruited yet. They are what we call “ordinary people”. They are unaware of our organization, our technology and our knowledge about space traveling.’
‘That’s where you come in. Your first job will be to find all these people and recruit them. Give them all the information they need to be XPLO agents,’ said Makad Minus. ‘Wow,’ said Jay. ‘How am I supposed to do all this?’ ‘I will be put on your wristwatch computer, if you don’t mind,’ said File. ‘With this program, I can always track down the one we look for. And you will receive a Regular Plexicum Armor armed with a Brain-Wash XP and a Standard Laser Gun. That should be enough for a Terrestrial mission like this.’
‘Good,’ said Jay. ‘Who will be the first one I look for?’ ‘A certain Troy,’ said File. ‘No surname?’ Jay asked. ‘Nope, just Troy. But we do have a location: Somewhere in England.’ ‘Okay then. When should I leave?’ asked Jay. ‘Right now!’ said Minus. ‘What?’ ‘Follow me, Mand. We’re going to the Wormhole Chamber.’

___________________

And here it is: Chapter three, featuring gbay999!

Chapter 3: The Wormhole
Th Wormhole Chamber was a huge underground cave hall, next to the cave that led to the entrance and exit of the complex. Cause that was what it was: an underground complex. Being one of XPLO’s main bases, New Jersey HQ had to be huge to home every single department, but there were never too many people around. Most things were taken care of by automatic computers.
File was different. File was the most succeeded achievement to create artificial intelligence so far. It was actually a computer program. File himself could randomly move around on any computer on which he was installed, as long as they were connected on a network.
The Wormhole chamber, too, consisted mainly of computers. These computers had special, ring-shaped Wormhole generators, within which a Wormhole could be formed. Their size could differ from not bigger than a hula-hoop for packages and persons up to enormous circles on the ceiling for giant spacecraft. To make a Wormhole work, you first need to search the data of another Wormhole generator. You needed a different password to gain access to every Wormhole generator. When access was provided, both your generator and the other created a Wormhole. If you walked into one, you came out of the other. It was the easiest way of movement.
The administrator of the Wormhole chamber was G. Bay, who was also XPLO’s weapon expert. Jay Mand had seen him a couple of times and they could get along well. G. Bay, or Agent 999, as he was often called, was known for his completely waterproof memory, and therefore was very handy to have as an XPLO agent.
When Makad Minus entered the room, followed by Jay, she called for Bay. His head appeared from between two huge computers. ‘Mrs. Minus! You’re going to move that dragon out after all?’ he shouted. ‘No, the dragon’s fine’ she shouted back. G. Bay walked to them. ‘I told you about operation Uncle Sam?’ Minus asked. ‘Just an hour ago. 56 minutes, to be exact. Just when you were about to move Kazul and her dragon in,’ Bay answered. ‘Right. I suppose you know what to do?’ ‘ “To provide Mand with all the equipment he needs and to transport him to UK headquarters” ma’am,’ Agent 999 repeated flawlessly. ‘Exactly.’ ‘Let’s see now, File told me about an armor, a gun…’ Jay said. ‘This is all you need,’ said G. Bay and he showed Jay something that looked like a belt. There was some kind of button in the middle. ‘What’s this?’ Jay asked. ‘It’s a Standard Instant Armor Belt, a SIAB. Put it on, and push the button. It’s a fine invention, if I may say so myself…’ ‘Er, what exactly does this do?’
‘If activated, your armor will be put on in less than a tenth second. It has to do with molecule reducing… It’s very interesting, but not important right now. Just try it.’ G. Bay pushed the belt in Jay’s hands. He figured that it would do no wrong if he tried it. He put on the belt, and pushed the button. Upon doing this, there was a small flash and Jay suddenly wore a Regular Plexicum Armor, a suit that was best comparable with a cross between a motor cross suit and the armor of an American football’s pitcher. The armor was equipped with a helmet with laser vision, and two holsters, one of them on every side. The right one carried a Standard Laser Gun, the other one was empty. There was also a small computer in the right holster, a Brain-Wash XP. This device could erase one’s memory, to avoid awkward situations. Despite all of this, Jay found that the armor was dynamic and easy to move in.
When G. Bay noticed the empty holster, he said: “Wait, you can carry another weapon!’ Jay answered: ‘That won’t be nece… Hey!’ Bay had already walked towards the weapon magazine. He came back with his arms crammed full of all kinds of weapons, from small, precise and discrete Sneak Attackers to big Repeating Laser Beam Cutters to enormous Bazooka Bombers.
‘Here! How about this one. The Thriller Killer. Or this one, the Spy Fry Y! And what about the Super-Duper Laser-Blazer! And the Mad Manic Mega Mortar!’ G. Bay was in love with all weapons, the bigger and deadlier they were, the better.
‘What’s this?’ asked Jay, pointing to a very small gun that was fallen on the ground. ‘That? Ooh, nothing. Just a silly tranquilizer gun. I wonder how it came there…’ ‘Good. I’ll take that one.’ Bay looked at Jay as if he were from another planet, but Makad Minus signed to him that he would give Jay what he wanted.
Jay got his tranquilizer gun. By pressing the belt button again, the armor disappeared. Minus installed File on Jay’s watch. G. Bay created a Wormhole to the XPLO HQ in the United Kingdom. Jay was not unknown with Wormholes. He had actually just traveled through one. He owned two houses: His own, in The Netherlands, and another one in New Jersey, just near the New Jersey HQ. He had a Wormhole generator in both of them, so he could easily travel from one side of the world to another, which could come in very handy at times.
Jay had never been in the UK-HQ though, and had no idea what to expect. He walked through the Wormhole.

Next up is Chapter four, featuring Skippy!

We're all gonna get lost in space, but it's not that far yet. for now, hete's the fourth chapter. Not much exitement in this one, but much humor. And much music, too. And Skippy is in it!

Chapter 4: Heavy Metal
UK HQ was located in Greenwich, a town near London. It was not situated in an underground cave, but in an office complex. That may sound like it would be likely to be discovered, but again, the cover-up was completely waterproof. Not even the CIA would ever find out what was hidden in the complex. Still UK HQ was larger and more hectic than the base in New Jersey, since it was the most important HQ of Europe. Most of the important areas were, again, underground, but more in the fashion of a huge basement instead of a cave.
Jay came out of the Wormhole and found himself in another Wormhole Chamber. But this Wormhole Camber wasn’t anything like the one in New Jersey HQ. It was not in a cave, but in a huge hall. There were no windows, but it was brightly enlightened by TL lights. There were more Wormhole computers, and they were more in-lined and sorted on magnitude. There were also more people around. The whole thing gave a very well-organized impression.
When Jay walked out, immediately one of the strangest people he ever saw came to him. Partially, he was an ordinary young man, partially a machine. He was much like the Terminator, but he looked less fearsome. He wore a black shirt, a black pair of jeans and sunglasses, and looked more “cool” than “dangerous”. He gave a tough but friendly impression. A little clumsy, even.
‘Hello there, Mr. Mand. M’ name is Skipp-E. Apparen’ly, your big cheese ove’ there wants me to take you to the exit as fas’ as possible.’ Jay didn’t know what to say, but started with ‘Thank you. Call me Jay.’ ‘Right. C’mon now, let’s get goin’.
Skipp-E walked away, followed by Jay. ‘I’ll get ya to me office. There’s an escape lift ove’ there,’ said the remarkable Cyborg. ‘Can’t we take the main exit?’ asked Jay. ‘It’s a li’l hectic ove’ there. This HQ ain’t like New Je’sey’s. You gotta ge’ outta here fast.’
Skipp-E made his way through the hall. Jay could barely follow the flesh and metal legs of the Cyborg. Eventually, Skipp-E walked through a door in a corner and held it open for Jay. Out of breath, Jay walked in.
They had come into a relatively small but still rather large room that maybe was an office once, but was now the room of a very fanatic rocker. Jay supposed that this rocker was Skipp-E. The walls were painted black, and hung full of posters of rock singers. There were four guitars standing against the wall, and a percussion next to the desk. There was also an impressive ghetto-blaster and a trunk full of CD’s and old gramophone records. In the corner was something that looked like an elevator shaft.
‘This is your office?’ asked Jay. ‘Sure is.’ ‘Boy! Are you allowed to have all this stuff?’ ‘Actually it ain’t permitted, but I was ‘coz I can do two things a’ the same time. I’ll get the lift for ya.’
Skipp-E pressed a button located net to the elevator shaft. It appeared as though nothing happened. ‘Bugger!’ Skipp-E suddenly screamed. ‘The darn thing ain’t workin’!’ ‘What? Is that a bad thing?’ ‘I ain’t hope so! I’ll get a technician ove’ ere.’ The Cyborg pushed a button on his desk. There was a beep to be heard. ‘There. No we gotta wait.’ ‘How long will it take?’ ‘’Bout ten minutes for the fellow to ge’ ere. Can’t tell ya how long he’ll take to fix it, though.’
Jay sighed and walked around the room. He looked at the posters for a while. He saw Ozzy Osbourne, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and even Jack Black. He looked at the guitar. He remembered that he played guitar himself the other day, but he quitted with it for some reason. All of them were magnificent looking. So did the percussion. ‘Can you play?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, it’s sor’ of a hobby to me. I’m a lousy player.’ ‘Really? Can you play me something?’ ‘No, I bet you got better things to do…’ ‘I’m serious. We’ll waiting for ten minutes anyway. I like guitar music. You’re probably not as bad as you may think.’ ‘Oh well, I’ll give i’ a shot.’
The human jukebox took a guitar from its standard and played an F. It came out fairly well. Jay always screwed up the F himself. Skipp-E started playing something. Jay recognized it immediately as “How you Remind me” by Nickelback, one of his favorite songs. He started singing along. ‘It’s not like you, to say sorry. I was waiting on a different story…’ After the chorus, Jay took a guitar himself and started playing along the chords as well. Together, they played the whole song without having to start over.
Skipp-E turned out to be a great guitarist. Together, they also played “Come as you are” by Nirvana and “What if” by Creed. Then, Skipp-E plugged both guitars in and attached them to the giant ghetto-blaster. Both played “Points of Authority” by Linkin’ Park now, very loudly. During the last chorus, the door suddenly swung open and both heard a thud. They stopped playing, to see what happened.
In the doorway was a pair of shoes, and three feet behind them lay a man on his back. It was the technician, literally blown off his feet by the music.

Next up: Chapter five, featuring Troy (I hope)


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.


And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.



And here it is: Chapter five, starring Troy (and a VERY small part for Greengo)!

Chapter 5: Search for Troy
Jay walked on the street again. As soon as Skipp-E and he helped the poor technician back on his feet, the man, a certain G. Reenego, fixed the elevator in a snap (Skipp-E had damaged a wire by tripping over it accidentally). Jay was pushed in by hasty hands, and found himself on the estate of the office complex only seconds later.
It was rather crowded around here, in the streets of Greenwich. Jay couldn’t turn on File now and get away with it. After all, talking to a watch is not considered a very sane thing.
After all, Jay came into a park. He found a lonesome spot there, in the bushes. He sat down on the ground and pressed a button on his watch. File’s face appeared on it.
‘Gee, Jay, you really did take your time, didn’t you?’ File said. Jay sighed. ‘Could I help it if the elevator was broke. Just give me all the information about our man.’
‘Right. Troy, real name unknown. Former spy, working for unknown, independent organization. 34 years old. Nicknamed “Troy” for his legendary double-spying. Like the Trojan horse, you know. Knows how to disguise very well. It’ll be hard to find the guy, even if I track down his precise position.’
‘Probably, but do it anyway. We need to start somewhere…’ said Jay. ‘Will do.’ File started to zoom for a while, then his screen showed a green dot on a grid. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘He’s currently in Brentwood. That’s not too far from here. We could take a train.’ ‘Good idea. Could you give me the schedule of trains leaving for Brentwood?’ He could. The next train would leave twenty minutes from now, and Jay happened to be near a station. ‘Thanks, File. We’ve been very lucky so far.’ ‘Yes, haven’t we?’ Suddenly, File started beeping. ‘Oops, Minus is calling me now. Bye. File off.’

To cut a long story short, one and a half hour later Jay was in Brentwood, a town northeast of London. He found himself a place out of sight near the railway, and activated File again. ‘Hello, File. I need an exact position of Troy this time, so just scan of the whole of Brentwood.’ File did. ‘Here he is,’ File said. ‘Somewhere in the outskirts. He’s barely moving, so I presume he’s in a house. Let’s hope it’s his.’
Jay roamed the streets of Brentwood for a while, in the direction of the outskirts. Finally, he saw an apartment.
File showed Troy was in here somewhere. ‘File, have you any idea what room he’s in?’ ‘Yes… let’s see now… Somewhere on the third floor. On file’s screen appeared a colored 3D model of the building, with a green spot on the third floor. Detailed as the model was, Jay could even see the numbers on the rooms; Troy’s seemed to be C306. Jay walked through the door, and found the next one locked. Of course, you needed permission by one of the inhabitants… Jay wasn’t prepared for that. He taught for a while what he would say.
Eventually, Jay pressed the button next to the plate with C306 on it. After a few seconds, you could hear a man answering through the intercom. ‘Come in,’ the man said and immediately, the door swung open. Jay was surprised by the imprudence of the man, but it all worked out for the better. The man, weather it was Troy or someone else, probably got a lot of visitors.
After taking the elevator to the third floor, Jay rang the doorbell of C306. When it was opened, a man, hardly younger than Minus, opened the door. Jay didn’t know what to say, since he was still a teenager himself, although he was significantly taller than that man. He said the first thing that came to his head.
‘Err, please. mister, can I look through your window for a while? My friend kicked our football on a roof and it should be seen from here. It was my turn to ask this time.’ The man looked surprised, but said: ‘Sure, come in.’ It was the same voice a the one on the intercom. The man seemed very friendly. While walking trough the man’s room, he took a good look. It was an ordinary room, but it occurred to him that there were quite some toys on the floor. There appeared to be nobody else in the room. This man had to be Troy.
Jay looked through the back window, but was actually thinking of a plan quickly. Eventually, he turned at the man. ‘So. Troy, I presume?’ The man first turned completely pale, then completely red. He put a step backwards and started stammering.
‘What? How do… I’m not… Who is… You are…’ ‘Jay Mand, thank you. You are needed on a mission once again, Troy.’ The man seemed to have gotten his speech back. ‘I’m not Troy, my name is Corey Thompson.’ ‘Really? We’ll see. File, is this our man?’ Corey Thompson was dazed when the boy started to talk to his watch. He was even more dazed when the watch talked back. ‘He sure is.’ Jay looked at the man again. ‘You might be Corey Thompson or whatever your real name is. You used to be a spy, named Troy, master of disguise. You are 34 years old, and have a reputation as a double-spy. Am I a little close? Slowly, the man nodded. ‘Great,’ said Jay. ‘Listen, Mr. Troy, we need to talk. You can relax now, I won’t bite.’ ‘Listen, err, Mr. Mand or whatever. I will not be coming on any mission. My spying days are over!’ ‘Mr. Troy, trust me. It’ll be worth your while.’ ‘No way. I will not put my life at stake again.’ ‘Mr. Troy, you really put your life at stake if you don’t listen to me. Now sit down, this is of somewhat importance.’ Troy was out of defending measures, and sat down with a bad grace.

In the next chapter, Jay tries to convince Troy.

And here it is, the latest episode! And a major one, since it reveals more of XPLO. It also introduces LF as bad guy, explains why Mars is believed to be uninhabited and features another short appearence of Greengo.

Chapter 6: Return to Greenwich
‘So you’re an XPLO agent?’ Troy had calmed down a bit, but was still looking at Jay with an open mouth. ‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ Jay answered. ‘It is of vital importance that all of our technology and every intergalactic conflict keeps hidden from the “ordinary people”. That’s what we take care for. We work for the G7 government, although we are not supervised by them. We mind our own business, which is keeping alien life and technology hidden for earth’s inhabitants. Off course, mistakes are made sometimes. Then, people get to see a flying saucer or something…’ ‘You mean a UFO?’ ‘I guess so, but that’s not a word we use a lot, since these “Unidentified Flying Objects’ are perfectly identified by us.’ ‘Wow, so UF.. flying saucers DO exist! I knew it! What planet are they from?’ Troy asked. Jay found Troy a very friendly person indeed, and he was looking forward to working with him.
‘Alien spacecraft on Earth are mostly from Mars, sometimes scientists, from a more distant planet.’ ‘What? You mean there’s actually life on Mars?’ ‘Life on Mars! Man oh man! I think there are more Martians than humans in this solar system!’ ‘But, I was always told life on Mars was impossible!’ ‘Of course you were! Because of XPLO! We need to keep you from finding out the truth!’ ‘Why?’
‘That’s simple. For one thing, humans are not ready for all of this. I mean, if whites can’t even get along properly with blacks, or humans with other animals, then how are we supposed to get along with aliens? Just look at the Martians. Their anatomy strongly resembles that of a human, and Martians are average smarter than humans. There are even Martians that speak English perfectly well, as a matter of fact I met one today, a very decent technician called G. Reenego. What would happen if an ordinary human would encounter a Martian? Sure, there are examples known of humans and Martians making piece and becoming close friends, but overall, it would be just another source of much disrespect, misunderstandings and discrimination.
Secondly, our technology is state of the art. In our hands, they are important tools to keep the world safe, but in the wrong ones they could mean a disaster to the world order, as bad as it is already. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, it all sound very logical to me. But why are you telling me all this?’ Troy asked. Jay told Troy that aliens are not always peaceful, like G. Reenego. He told him of a Martian called Lord Frenzia, a terrible terrorist that hasn’t been caught so far. He told him about Diamoh, a dark planet far away that was inhabited by creatures that were powerful, cunning and evil beyond imagination. He told them about Queen Z, the disappearance of B. Allaw and the assignment Makad Minus gave him. Troy listened, still with an open mouth.
‘List’n, Mr. Mand. You must see that I’m quite dazed with all of this.’ ‘I understand, but you have to decide now. I don’t want this to take too long, there are five more people out there to recruit.’ ‘I see. Anyway, this assignment sound exiting, but very dangerous. If your main man apparently couldn’t stand up to this Queen Z, how are we supposed to?’ ‘I don’t know, but Minus trusts us. Files system is not often wrong.’ Troy taught it over for a while.
‘I don’t think I will be going with you.’ ‘You’ll have to. You know of our existence. You have only one option: going with me and becoming a proper XPLO agent. This assignment has to be done within one to two weeks. You are not one to refuse.’ ‘What if I do refuse?’ Troy asked, nervously, but challenging. Jay smirked. ‘I’m a fully trained XPLO agent. I know a hundred ways of convincing you, none of which is very pleasant, if you know what I mean.’ Troy swallowed. ‘I think you’ve made your point. I’m in.’

After an altogether two hour’s trip, Jay and Troy stood before the office building of UK HQ again. Jay was about to lead the way to Skipp-E’s elevator shaft, but Troy hesitated. ‘What’s the mater?’ Jay asked. ‘I hear something,’ Troy answered. Jay listened. ‘It’s probably a plane. Come on, the sooner we get to New Jersey, the better.’ ‘This is not what a plane sounds like…’
Both looked to were the sound came from. It was a plane indeed, but defiantly no normal one. It was not even an XPLO aircraft. It flew faster than any plane could, and looked like it couldn’t have been made by human hands. ‘File, what the heck is that thing!’ Jay screamed to his watch. File appeared. ‘You don’t have to shout at me like that, it’s not like I can’t hear you or anything…’ ‘Whatever, just tell me what that is!’ Jay showed File the plane, which was moving towards the office complex fast. ‘Strange aircraft. It’s not made by humans, nor by Martians. I think it’s Fridgican, although not made by any official Fridgican company… Best match I can find was a plane made by the Lord Frenzia-gang.’ Suddenly, File realized. ‘Holy…!’ he said. ‘The Lord Frenzia-gang! What on Earth…’ (actually, that’s not what File did say, but young people might read this).
Jay figured standing there would not be the most clever thing to do, so he turned File off, shouted to Troy: ‘Come on, follow me!’ and ran off towards the building next to which Skipp-E’s secret elevator shaft was located. When they got there, Jay pushed the button, and started waiting for the elevator.
Meanwhile, the aircraft had reached the office complex and was flying over it in circles. Troy still didn’t really understand what it was all about. ‘Err, Jay, what kind of thing is that?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure, but if it could belong to the Lord Frenzia-gang we have to be careful. I told you about Lord Frenzia, right?’ ‘Yes, I guess so. The notorious space terrorist.’ ‘Yes. XPLO defeated him before, but if I know Frenzia, he wants to take revenge.’ ‘Well, the ship is not attacking us, is it?’ Right when Troy said that, the ship fired a green, light-emitting laser bullet. It hit the ground, not far from the main building, and caused a small explosion.
‘That’s it,’ said Jay. ‘The ship has fired. I think the HQ has mobilized its Security and Defense troops already. If that elevator doesn’t hurry up, we’ll be caught in the middle of a very unpleasant battle.’
Fortunately, the elevator arrived at that very moment. Jay and Troy walked in. Right when the doors closed again, the ship fired another blast.



It had a long time coming, but an Elephant is always faithful to his word...

CHAPTER SEVEN!!!!! Featuring Rickyboi!

Chapter 7: First day on duty
The elevator stopped at Skipp-E’s unusual room. Skipp-E, who had seen Jay and Troy coming, pulled them out and said hello. G. Reenego, the Martian technician, was there too. Both looked nervous. From the door, there was quite some noise to be heard; the presence of the Fridgican terrorists had not remained unnoticed.
After a very short introduction, Troy asked: ‘What is happening around here?’ ‘No big deal, appearen’ly we’re bein’ attacked by them Fri’gicans,’ Skipp-E answered. ‘It’s just that this never happened before at UK HQ,’ said G. Reenego. Troy never saw, nor heard a Martian speaking before. He reckoned they could do it fairly well, although G. Reenego did have a funny accent. Martians were pretty similar to humans, but their skin was pale green, their hair dark green and their eyes marine blue.
G. Reenego continued: ‘Usually those darn Fridgicans attack a larger base, like those in New York or San Francisco. But don’t worry, we got it covered. The Defense team is on it’s way. I think I’ll be having a lot of ships to repair, but that’s what I do.’
Skipp-E, who was sitting in front of his computer monitor now, said: ‘Come on you guys, we can follow the whole thing from here! They’re about to launch the Chargers!’ Everyone gathered behind the monitor to watch the event. The monitor was apparently attached to a camera that was outside, on which the whole fight could be seen now.
The Fridgican ship was floating in the air, now firing a blast every second. Suddenly, a small, light blue Charger aircraft appeared, that started shooting at the ship. The ship didn’t receive any notable damage, and fired back at the Charger. The Charger avoided the shot with it’s speed. More Chargers appeared, that all started shooting at the ship. The ship fired back and managed to hit a Charger. The pilot used his ejector seat but the plane crashed.
The battle went on for a while, but the Chargers were not as tough as the big ship. After a while there were only three Chargers left while the ship was still in one piece. Paying no attention anymore to the Chargers, the ship fired at the buildings now, but these seemed to be stronger than they looked, they didn’t receive any damage at all. Still, the whole company was in shock.
Suddenly, on another screen, an unfamiliar face appeared. Jay saw that he wore the same uniform as Makad Minus; this had to be the Head of UK HQ. He also wore a nameplate; it said “Rick E. Boy”. ‘Skipp-E!’ Rick E. Boy said. ‘We need your help!’ ‘Go ‘head, Mr. B.’ ‘We want to launch a C-Class ship. A or B-Class ships will do no good here. Those A-Class Chargers are destroyed in one hit.’ ‘You can say tha’ again, Mr. B.’ ‘There’s only a minor problem: All of our C-Class pilots are in Cape Gargoyle, in training for Mission Zeta.’ ‘Ya mean all of ‘em?’ ‘I’m afraid so.’ ‘That’s a blemish to our safety measures!’ G. Reenego said. ‘I know that, my dear Reenego,’ said Boy. ‘I couldn’t help it, I’ve been trying to keep at least one, but orders are orders, and Mission Zeta has a priority over the security of our base.’ ‘Jus’ great. Now I guess you wan’ me to…’ Skipp-E said. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, if there would be another way…’ ‘It’s alright. Reenego will take care of things ‘ere. And ‘bout those two visi’ors… I guess they can find their own way to the Worm’oles,’ said Skipp-E.
Boy’s face disappeared, and Skipp-E stood up from his chair. Jay was confused, he couldn’t follow it anymore. ‘Now wait wait wait. What exactly are you gonna do?’ he asked, after walking to him. ‘I’m gonna kick some Fri’gican butt!’ Skipp-E wanted to walk away, but Jay grabbed his shoulder. ‘Now hold on there. You can’t fly a C-Class ship by yourself! You need at least three people to fly a C-Class!’ ‘I got to.’ ‘No way. You know what, I’ve learned how to fly a C-Class in a 3D simulation. I’ll go with you.’ Skipp-E wanted to protest, but Troy stood up too. ‘If he’s going, I’m going. I don’t know what it’s all about, but you can use all the help you can get.’ ‘Now wait a minute,’ said Jay. ‘You never even saw a C-Class in your whole life!’ ‘No, but I got an idea. Can you give me a watch with File on it? I’m sure he can help me.’
Neither Skipp-E nor Jay knew any arguments for Troy to stay with G. Reenego, so the three of them left the Martian behind. Troy received a wristwatch computer on which Jay installed File. The whole matter was explained to him and he was sure he could help Troy out. Skipp-E leaded the way to the Wormhole chamber, where a C-Class ship had just been made ready.
A C-Class ship looks much like a Lockheed plane, but it’s the size of a large sea ship. Troy was impressed by it’s massive size, but had not much time to be, because before he knew it, he was inside of it. The cockpit was about the size of an average hotel room. In front, there were two seats, and there was one more in the back. The front two were for the commander and the co-pilot, respectively Skipp-E and Jay. Troy would fire the missiles from his back seat. In front of that seat were two small computer screens. File was put on one of them, the other one was the radar. Troy would have to use only a joystick to fire, File would do all the additional programming.
As soon as everyone had suitable outfits on and was completely seated, the countdown began. The plane would be launched into a Wormhole, and would come out from a generator on top of the main building. The countdown continued. 10…9…8… Troy, who had become rather nervous, was sweating. So was Jay. Skipp-E, who knew what kind of nasty situations could occur if you would sweat when you were partially mechanical, tried to be as cool as possible. 5…4…3…2… Troy bit on his lip. Jay closed his eyes. Skipp-E braced himself. …1…liftoff.

Heeeeeeerez: Chapter eight! Starring no one other than the alien terroist himself: LF. He's been banned lately, so I don't have to worry about offending him

Chapter 8: Fighting the Fridges
When the ship blasted off with a tremendous shock, Troy immediately felt an incredible concentration of adrenaline in his belly. The C-Class ship flew into the Wormhole and the very next moment they were outside, actually looking at the Fridgican ship. The two ships were equally matched in size. Skipp-E flew up to the ship, hovering next to it, to show the Fridgicans that he wasn’t scared. It was now waiting for one of the ships to make the first move.
The Fridgicans did. They fired one of their green blasts at the C-Class. It was hit in its right wing, but since it was completely made of Titano-Plexicum, it was undamaged. Skipp-E laughed, though nervously. ‘Wanna shot me, ‘ey? It’ll take ya more than that to take this li’l beauty down! Troy, give ‘em some!’
Troy, who had been waiting impatiently for further orders so far, said: ‘Right! File, help please.’ File popped up. ‘I’ll activate the bombs, you’ll do the aiming and shooting. Just use the joystick.’ Troy grabbed the joystick, but when he was about to aim, their ship was blasted again, this time hit near the cockpit. A shock went through the ship, and Troy accidentally pushed the firing button. The blast was shot, completely missed the Fridgican ship and landed on the ground with a bang. ‘Sorry,’ said Troy. ‘It’s okay, just hit next time!’ Jay said back.
Jay, who was operating the radar systems, was constantly paying attention at the Firdgicans’s position, steered away from a blast. The Fridges were now firing at a higher frequency, and Skipp-E and Jay both tried to avoid as many blasts as possible.
Troy grabbed the joystick again. Quick and instinctively, he aimed at the Fridgican ship and pushed the button. The blast hit the ship’s head. ‘Good work!’ Skipp-E screamed. ‘But you’re gonna need a lot more of those!’ Troy fired another blast, that hit the ship again. He was getting a hang of it, but the Fridgican ship didn’t seem to experience much trouble.
Jay was getting a hang of it too, with his nervousness replaced by a pleasant form of excitement. Apart from his radar’s, he was also equipped with a small cannon, which was way to light to face the ship, but was capable of destroying the blasts before they hit. Skipp-E did a fine job in avoiding massive attacks. The C-Class would be pretty safe for now, but the Fridgican ship was still in one piece.
‘Troy, this ain’t workin’. Try somethin’ heavier.’ Right when Skipp-E said it, the screen in front of him suddenly went off. ‘What the…’ Jay’s screen turned black as well, and so did Troy’s right screen. File, who was always on a private channel, was still to be seen on the left one. ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’ Jay screamed. ‘We’re being hacked!’ said File.
The screens that had just turned off, now turned on again, but didn’t show the usual radar’s and gauges. Instead, there was an extraordinary ugly face to be seen. It was bald, completely purple and grinning with yellow teeth. ‘Oh my, It’s Lord Frenzia himself,’ said Jay. ‘I didn’t know you had the guts to come and get annihilated yourself.’ Frenzia talked back in a very weird accent. ‘I not gonna get annihia… what you said. I want make sure you dead. You no put Frenzia behind bars!’ Frenzia’s ship fired again. The C-Class was fully hit, since Jay was unable to steer. ‘I has hacked you compiouters! You not get away! You in my power! Har hahar!’ Skipp-E whispered to Jay that it was best if they would play for time. Troy had a computer left, and with Files help they could still win.
Jay began. ‘So, Frenzia. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’ ‘It not can be long enough to me,’ answered Frenzia. ‘You show always up when I try destroy a thing!’ ‘And for good reason, as I have seen. So… how was you stay in Io-Niath? I heard it’s the most heavily guarded prison on Jupiter!’ ‘Heavily gardened? There no gardens!’ ‘I said guarded, not gardened!’ ‘Har hahar! Me outsmarted guards!’ ‘What!?!? Now how did you do that?’
Frenzia was obliviously falling for it. While Frenzia and Jay bombarded each other with pompous language, and Skipp-E was enjoying the verbal battle, Troy and File tried to form a plan. ‘Okay, Troy, here’s the deal,’ whispered File. ‘I’ll arm you with a very heavy bomb. It moves slowly, but Frenzia’s distracted. One hit and he’ll be off. If you miss, Frenzia might discover our plan and we won’t get another chance.’ ‘Got it. Can you give me another aiming screen? The other one is hacked.’ ‘Can a dog bark? Off course!’ File turned his face into an aiming screen.
Troy grabbed the joystick and aimed at Frenzia’s ship. Frenzia was still talking about how good he was to Jay. Troy found the target, pushed the button, released it, and off was the radioactive bomb. It moved slowly indeed, but Frenzia wasn’t suspecting a thing.
When the bomb was only twenty feet away from Frenzia’s ship, he suddenly noticed it. He screamed something in Fridgican language, tried to give his troops a steering order, but it was too late: the bomb hit the ship and exploded. You could see Frenzia screaming for one moment; after that, File managed to put the original screens back. And no second too early; Skipp-E immediately moved his ship away from the explosion.
When the smoke cleared, the Fridgican ship was still airborne, but in a sloppy state. It tried to fire again, but the blast got stuck and exploded inside the ship. Unable to attack or defend, the ship turned around and flew away. Too fast for Skipp-E to catch up, the ship disappeared from sight.
-------------------------------------

Ladies and gentlemen: Chapter nine. Where Jay and Troy go off in search for the next victim: Kandy Cane!

Episode 9: Next stop
Jay woke up. He wondered where he was for no longer than a second: He was in Greenwich. He shared his room, that was in the office complex, with Troy. After a message from Makad Minus, which included compliments for finding Troy and defeating the Fridges, a statement of the fact that the first day of operation “Uncle Sam” was running at its end with nine more days left to find five more people, and a new name of a future member: Kandy Cane, Vermont, USA. Age 21, gender female. ‘Well, at least we have a full name this time,’ Jay had said. ‘With File’s help, we won’t have too much trouble finding her.’
Jay looked at the bed in the other corner. Troy was still asleep, and was snoring with the sound of a speeded up motorcycle. Jay wondered what waked him up, until he noticed that File’s built-in alarm-clock on his watch was ringing. Time to get up. Jay looked at the clock. Six thirty A.M. A lousy time to get up, but he had to. He got out of bed and changed clothes. He put on his SIAB armor belt. Troy had been given one too. It occurred to Jay that they didn’t have had to use the SIAB’s so far.
As soon as Jay was done changing, he shook Troy. Troy, still partially asleep, mumbled: ‘Not now honey, I got a headache…’ ‘Wake up, Troy, it’s me.’ Troy groaned. ‘Jay, what the heck is the tome?’ ‘It’s been half past six. We’re being expected in the Wormhole chamber at seven. Come on, get up.’ ‘Five more minutes.’ ‘No way.’
While Troy started wrestling with his blanket in an attempt to get out of bed, Jay walked to the sink to brush his teeth. When he was done, Troy had managed to get up as well. He looked dreadful, with his pyjamas still on, his eyes full of sleeping-sand and his hair looking like the Eiffel Tower. But a quick wash and a comb worked wonders; In a minute he was his old self again.
He quickly changed and followed Jay through the corridor to Skipp-E’s room. Skipp-E was there already, oiling his mechanical leg and looking grumpy. ‘You’re late!’ Skipp-E said. He put his bottle of oil on the table and stood up. ‘C’mon, to the Worm’oles. Reenego is openin’ one for HQ Montpelier. That’s the location you gotta be.’ ‘What? We’re going directly to Montpelier? No stop in New Jersey?’ asked Jay. ‘Ey! You might have recrui’ed Troy fast but that don’t mean you can waste all y’r time now!’ said Skipp-E. Skipp-E wasn’t an early bird either, that was for sure. ‘C’mon, let’s get goin’.
Skipp-E leaded the way to the Wormhole chamber. There were few people there. G. Reenego was waiting for them. The Martian seemed as cheerful as always. ‘There you are. Did you enjoy your stay?’ He was immediately stared at by three irked faces. ‘Err… well. I’ve made a Wormhole ready for you. You’re about to leave for Montpelier.’ Reenego pushed a button on the remote control. The Wormhole generator created a Wormhole.
‘I guess this is goodbye then,’ said Reenego. ‘Yes, I guess so,’ answered Jay. No one really felt for a group hug, so everyone shook hands. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again sometimes,’ Jay said. ‘Yes, that is most likely’ answered G. Reenego. Skipp-E smiled for the first time this day and said: ‘Well, we did have a good time playing those guitars.’ Troy said: ‘It’s been a weird first day. I think I’m gonna like my new job.’
After greeting for the last time, Jay and Troy walked into the Wormhole.

What’s to say about HQ Montpelier? It was one of the smaller XPLO headquarters. Instead of a complex, the office was located in one single block of flats. As soon as Jay and Troy arrived in a relatively tiny Wormhole chamber with only three generators (two small and one large) they were immediately approached by a XPLO agent. This agent brought them outside, and before they knew it, Jay and Troy were somewhere in a Montpelier suburb.
‘Wow, that was fast. And look, it’s only seven thirty!’ said Jay. ‘You can say that again. It’s just unbelievable I was lying in a bed in Greenwich only an hour ago,’ answered Troy. ‘Anyway, we’ve got all day to find this Kandy Cane, so let’s call File.’ ‘Right,’ answered Jay. He turned File on. ‘File is reporting in, sir!’ said the animated face. ‘Good morning to you, File. You can guess why I’ve called you?’ ‘You want me to make some coffee?’ asked File. ‘You really look like you can use a cup of coffee right now.’ Jay, still morning cross, was really not in the mood for File’s jokes. He wanted to scold File, but decided not to do that. Instead, he asked: ‘We need the position of Kandy Cane.’ ‘Practically done.’ A virtual map of Vermont appeared, with a flashing dot in it. The map zoomed in on the dot. ‘She’s in Middlebury.’ said File. ‘That’s about 50 miles away from here.’ ‘Well then , Middlebury it is.’ said Jay. ‘Seems like we are going to take a train. File, where’s the station?’ File indicated the way to the station with one of his maps. ‘Looks like quite a walk,’ said Troy. ‘Yeah. I’m not as lucky as I were in England,’ said Jay. ‘Now I understand why they gave us this much time, we’re gonna need every second of it. Come on, let’s get going.’

Hello, true believers! I'm here to bring you the latest XPLO chapter! Too bad I didn't get it to feature Kandy (yet), but we get to see the SIAB's in action for the first time!

Chapter 10: Achazwopzz
Jay and Troy were sitting next to each other in a train for Middlebury. Troy was reading a paper, Jay was staring out of the window. Someone could have mistaken them for a father and son, as they sat there quietly. Actually, it was still Jay who was guiding Troy. Troy was getting more and more used to his new occupation. He knew that, with Jay next to him, anything could happen. And it was alright with him; he was looking forward to whatever adventures lay ahead of them. It was like in the good old days, when he was still a spy.
The train was slowing down, to stop at a station. It was not yet time to disembark; they had still a couple of miles to go. When the trains stopped, a strange man embarked who came sitting two chairs away from Troy and Jay. The man wore a long raincoat and a big hat, so his face was barely seen. Troy looked Argus-eyed at him; in his spy period, Troy had learned carefulness, and this man looked suspicious. Troy knew that one should never judge someone by looks, but there was something mysterious about the man…
The train started moving again. The suspicious man didn’t move and Troy decided that he was probably being paranoid. He took his paper once again and smiled while reading an article about a bomb outrage in a Greenwich office complex. He gave Jay a jab. ‘Look at this! They just got everything perfectly covered!’ ‘Don’t underestimate them. Commander Rick E. Boy is a clever man, and that’s what you need to be when you’re in this job.’
They continued talking, until Troy suddenly noticed that the man had gone. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Jay. ‘I don’t trust that man,’ answered Troy. ‘Nah. He’s probably gone to the toilet or something. Nothing to worry about. No one could possibly know we’re here!’
Suddenly, the man was there again, returning from the toilet to his place. Jay had to commit he looked suspiciously. His face was almost completely covered by his collar and his hat. The man stopped right next to the seat of Troy and Jay. Troy quickly held the newspaper before their faces, but suddenly the man said: ‘Jay Mand. What a most unpleasant surprise.’ Jay got the scare of his life. ‘Err, excuse me, sir, but I don’t know who you mean, err…’ Jay stammered. The man snatched the paper away from Troy. People were watching. The man took op his hat. Troy saw that he had a green skin and green hair. A Martian, but definitely not G. Reenego. A woman noticed this and screamed. In a few seconds, the whole train was thrown into confusion.
The Martian was distracted. He turned around and screamed ‘Shut up!’ ‘Jay, who is this?’ asked Troy. ‘Achazwopzz. Infamous Martian criminal.’ Achazwopzz took a laser gun from his pocket and shot in the air. The people were silenced. ‘Listen up. From now on, you do exactly what I tell you to. You will be my hostages. You!’ Achazwopzz pointed his gun at a random man. ‘Tell the driver to set course to the nearest airport!’ Frightened and with his hands up, the man ran away to do so.
Achazwopzz turned on Jay. ‘What a coincidence I meet you here. I will never forget how your team destroyed my space ship! My fingers are itching… But it’ll be better if I’ll take you with me. With you as my hostage, XPLO will do anything!’ This was not right. Achazwopzz was telling everything the people in this train definitely should not know out loud. ‘Anyway, who do you got with you? A friend? No room for witnesses!’ Suddenly, a girl in the back started crying. Achazwopzz was agitated. He walked frightfully towards the back of the wagon.
Jay suddenly remembered something. He whispered something in Troy’s ear.
Achazwopzz was nearly in the back. The girl started crying louder, despite her mother trying to silence her. When the Martian reached the girl, he said: ‘You’re driving me mad, you know that?’ The girl cried even louder. ‘Stop it!’ She didn’t. ‘Shut up!’ She went on. ‘That’s it!’ Achazwopzz pointed his gun at her. The girl was smart enough to be silent now. ‘Humph’ said Achazwopzz and he was turning around again. Then, the girl cried again. Achazwopzz was really mad now. ‘AAARGH!’ He was about to fire at the girl, but then, Troy said: ‘Hey! Take someone your own size!’
Achazwopzz looked. Jay and Troy had stood up. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ screamed the Martian. Jay looked at Troy. ‘ “Take someone your own size?” ’ asked Jay. ‘Sorry, I thought it sounded pretty cool.’ ‘Think again’ Troy sighed. ‘It always worked in the good old days…’ ‘Hey, what’s the deal?’ asked Achazwopzz. ‘Deal? Deal. Deal! Right!’ Jay stammered. ‘Okay Troy, on the count of three! One, two, three!’
Almost synchronically, Troy and Jay pushed the button on their SIAB belts. After a flash, both wore their Standard Armors. ‘Alright!’ said Jay, now through his helmet. ‘Now we can handle you!’ Achazwopzz yawned. ‘Listen, if you guys think you’re impressing me with your little “Power Rangers” act, you’re seriously mistaking.’ ‘Oh. well, better luck next time, ‘ey fellow?’ Troy said to Jay. Jay sighed now. ‘Whatever. Anyway, impressed or not, I’m going to waste you!’ Jay took the laser gun from its holster.
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Again, it had a long time coming, but here's chapter 11! In the last episode, Jay and Troy were traveling by train and taken hostage by the evil Martian Achazwopzz. Will they survive?

Episode 11: Emergency brake
Achazwopzz shot first. He hit Jay. Jay was blown off his feet but not injured, thanks to the armor. Worse was that he lost his laser gun. When Troy saw this, he took his own gun and aimed. He was unable to fire though, since Achazwopzz was still threatening the passengers.
‘One move and this one dies!’ the green hostage keeper screamed while pointing his laser gun at the crying girl. Her mother held her tight, so if Achazwopzz would fire now, both would get hit. Troy hesitated. ‘Drop your gun!’ said Achazwopzz. Troy decided it would be best if he did.
In the meantime, Jay was looking for his own gun. It had fallen under a seat somewhere, and Jay couldn’t find it. Unable to move thanks to Achazwopzz’ threatening, he whispered quietly, so Achazwopzz couldn’t hear him: ‘Anyone. I am on your side. If you can find me my gun, maybe I can stop this guy.’ A random teenager heard him. He whispered Jay’s message to his neighbor, who told it to the one behind him, and so on.
Achazwopzz noticed the muttering. ‘What’s going on here?’ he blustered. The people were silenced immediately, but most people knew what they had to do now. All of them started to search under their seats. Achazwopzz got suspicious. He stepped at Jay frightfully.
While Achazwopzz passed by and paid no further attention to him, Troy immediately took his chance. He ducked, picked up his gun and shot Achazwopzz in his back.
Achazwopzz made one fast step forward, seemed stunned for a while, and then turned around, looking completely mad. He was not injured, tough. Troy realized that his raincoat was laser proof. Achazwopzz, now in complete frenzy, jumped at Troy screaming. Troy couldn’t avoid him anymore, so he was now in an incredibly violent wrestle with Achazwopzz. Troy was strong, but he had to struggle to keep Achazwopzz’ heavy, frantic blows away from his vital parts.
Both Achazwopzz’ and Troy’s laser guns lay on the floor. The one of Achazwopzz was out of reach for Jay but Troy’s wasn’t. He grabbed it, and aimed at the wrestling Achazwopzz and Troy. He couldn’t fire because of Troy, so he screamed. ‘Alright now! Leave him alone or I’ll blast your head off!’ Achazwopzz had enough sanity left to leave Troy and to stand up with his hands in the air. Troy coughed and said down on a seat. ‘I’m okay… I think…’ he mumbled. ‘Good,’ said Jay. He pushed a button on his watch. ‘Now to deliver this guy to Security. Would someone please pull the emergency brake? There’s a lot of work to do here…’ Not fully understanding why, a passenger pulled the emergency brake. With a shock, the train slowed down.
Achazwopzz used the confusion caused by it. He kicked Jay in his leg. ‘Ow!’ Instinctively, Jay wanted to hold his leg, but doing so, he dropped Troy’s gun. Achazwopzz immediately took it. ‘Hahaha! You’re mine now!’ Jay cursed. ‘Now sit down next to that friend of yours!’ said Achazwopzz. Jay did, with a bad grace.
‘Forget it, Achazwopzz. When Security gets here, you’re toast! They’re already alerted.’ ‘Not with you two as hostages.’ The train had stopped now. Achazwopzz made the passengers give him Jay’s gun and his own back. He put Troy’s and Jay’s in the pockets of his raincoat, and used his own to keep everyone still.
Security took long to get to the train. Of course, the nearest XPLO base was the one in Montpelier. Achazwopzz had calmed down now, enjoying is position as hostage keeper. He walked around the wagon with a big grin, paying less attention to Jay and Troy, who were still wearing their armors but had taken off their helmets.
When Achazwopzz was standing near Jay and Troy, scaring some people, Jay changed the position of his arms, thus having them located around his waist. There, he suddenly felt the other holster which carried… the tranquilizer gun. Jay had a tranquilizer gun. Of course! Why didn’t he think of that before!
Jay’s euphoria made room for consciousness. This was a great opportunity, since Achazwopzz was near and paying no attention to them. He knew he had only one chance. If it would fail, the last chance to maybe survive would go up in smoke. If Achazwopzz would win, he’d ask to rule XPLO for Jay and Troy’s lives. And since XPLO was still more important, and Jay and Troy were unlikely to be saved in this time of chaos, they might just be at the mercy of Achazwopzz.
Jay aimed at Achazwopzz’ head, concentrated, and fired. The tiny dart, filled with a fluid called ‘K-O drops” by G. Bay, hit the thick, green neck of the Martian hostage keeper. Achazwopzz made a strange, high-pitched sound and fell to the ground as if he were a bag of potatoes.

After the arrival of two Security combo-jeeps, Achazwopzz, still unconscious, was put in one of them and driven to prison. The driver of the other jeep brainwashed all the passengers of the train. To thank Jay and Troy for helping to catch Achazwopzz, a long wanted enemy, he was willing to drive them to Middlebury before they would get caught in another unhealthy situation. Jay and Troy were more than eager to accept, so little later, the two XPLO agents were in Middlebury.
It was snowing big time, and very cold. ‘Brrr, I hate this part of the US. I know weather can be bad in Britain, but this is ten times worse!’ said Troy. ‘You said it,’ said Jay. ‘Anyway, we’re looking for Kandy Cane. Let’s call File.’

Finally: The debute of Kandy at XPLO! Rock on...
I've made a cop out of you. Hey, that sounds familliar...

Chapter 12: Constable Cane
'They're bad at thinking up names for cities here. There's a town in France called Montpellier, and I must be very mistaking if Middlebury doesn't descend from Middelburg. That's a city in Holland.' Jay was talking to Troy in a tremendous, unstoppable flow of words Troy couldn't catch. To pretend he could, Troy grunted. Jay went on talking about unimportant stuff and complaining about the cold.
Troy was in a state of partial sleep, caused by the early waking, the fight with Achazwopzz only hours ago, the freezing cold and Jay's incredible talking machine. Especially the last worked on his nerves. In an attempt to get some distraction, he checked his watch. It displayed a radar screen witch Kandy Cane's dot on it. The dot was moving; looked like Kandy was on the move. File had calculated the dot that was Kandy headed for the town center, and it was still moving towards that direction. It was basically where they were, so they were now sitting on a bench waiting, with Jay talking, Troy getting annoyed and both supposed to keep a close eye on the dot. In an attempt to shut Jay up, Troy said: 'Look. She's approaching.'
Jay looked at his own watch. The dot was approaching their position fast; File was great at predictive calculating. They watched the dot heading their way for a minute. At the same time, a siren could be heard. 'Look! She's coming exactly this way!' Just then, a police bus with its sirens on drove around the corner. The dot moved along with it, so Kandy had to be in it. 'Okay then! She must be a cop or something!' said Jay. 'Quick, let's follow that bus!'
He wanted to run after it, but quickly realized that that would be pretty useless. He cursed, and pressed the File button on his watch. 'Please File, tell me we don't have to take a cab to follow a police car!' 'Hey, relax!' was the agitated answer. 'It's all included on your SIAB. There's a small button, near the main armor button on your SIAB. That will open a flap. Press the blue button on it and a Hover Bike will appear.' 'Great! Now he tells me!' 'Hey, I'm only manmade!' responded File. 'File off!'
Jay pushed the armor button on his SIAB. 'Come on, Troy!' he said, now wearing his armor. 'We've got a bus to catch!' Troy summoned his armor too and both followed the instructions given by File to summon their Hover Bikes as well. The Hover Bikes looked like scooters without any wheels. Instead, they floated above the ground. They were easy to drive and fast, so in no time they were chasing the police bus. The Hover Bikes had radar screens, so finding the bus again wouldn't be a problem.
While driving to the Middlebury town center, quickly passing all the shops and restaurants, Jay an Troy were less striking than one would expect. There were hardly any people on the street in this weather. People that did see them didn't notice the missing wheels or thought it was just another new, popular sport.
'We're closing in!' said Troy over the built-in transmitter on their helmets to Jay. 'I see,' Jay replied. 'It seems to be slowing down; it's probably going to stop somewhere. That's good, we'll be able to talk to Kandy.' Only a few moments later, they had to slow down themselves. They were on the corner of a street, with the police bus in sight. They made their armors and Hover Bikes disappear in order not to attract too much attention.
The police bus was standing near a jewelry. There was an alarm to be heard; there had probably been broken in. There were two police agents outside; the one driving the bus, and another one, a young lady, standing next to it. the rest had to be inside.
'Okay, now which one is Kandy Cane…' said Jay. He looked at File's radar. 'Hmm, how convenient,' he said. 'File indicates her to be actually that girl over there.' He pointed at the young female constable next to the bus.
'Okay. Now to get to talk to her,' said Troy. 'That won't be much of a problem. You just go up there and start a nice conversation,' said Jay. 'Right,' answered Troy. 'I'll get up there and… hey? Why is it me who has to do this? You're the one in charge here!' 'Well, you're the oldest, aren't you? It would be best if you'd pretend to be my father or something.' 'Hey, I'm not THAT old you know!' 'Now be honest Troy, you know darn well you could be my father.' 'Ooh, alright then,' Troy sighed. He didn't want to argue with Jay, so he walked up to the girl, followed by his "son". He gathered all of his British charm and started.
'Hello there, pretty lady. Would you mind telling me what's the cause of all this rush?' The constable looked up at Troy. She had a friendly face, which was looking flattered at the moment. 'The jewelry is being robbed. The thug took the jeweler to the attic and is threatening him. The team's at it already.' 'Oh, really?' said Troy, who pretended to be interested. 'Gee, that's cool! Isn't it son?' he asked Jay. Jay forced an English accent in order to sound like Troy's son. 'Absolutely, dad! You must have an exci'ing job, miss…' 'Cane. Kandy Cane.' Alright, we've got a bite, thought Jay.
Kandy Cane was holding a walkie-talkie. She received a message through it. 'Bravo to alpha-2.' 'Alpha-2, over,' said Kandy. 'Emergency,' said Bravo. 'Suspect had armed helper. All units but me and Johnson now kept hostage. Me and Johnson both unarmed. Call for reinforcements. Over.' 'Message received and understood, Bravo. Alpha-2, over and out,' said Kandy.
Jay and Troy looked at each other and were both thinking the same thing. And just when Kandy was about to call for reinforcements, Troy said: 'Don't bother, my dear, we shall handle this.' '…beg pardon?' said Kandy, astonished. 'Don't worry. You ready, Jay?' 'Sure am!' Both pressed their SIABS and walked into the jeweler's shop.

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Woohoo! Because you guys love this story so much, you're not getting one but two chapters today!

Chapter 13: Brave attempts
The jeweler's shop was not big. The ornaments were all behind plates of thick glass, but the unknown thug had still managed to break some of these and collect the jewels, diamonds, necklaces, rings and everything else that was on the shelf. Jay didn't like jewelry's. He didn't believe in expensive ornaments to make a person happier, or more beautiful.
'They said "in the attic",' said Troy, 'but I don't see any stairs here. And what about those two cops that were still free? Johnson and the other guy?' 'Well, this building does have several floors. Let's check if there's something behind the desk,' said Jay. Indeed, there was a door behind the desk. It wasn't locked. It leaded to another room. This room was as large as the shop, and full of boxes, which probably contained more ornaments. There was also a stair. 'Well, I guess that's the way we have to go,' said Jay, referring to the stairs.
'Come on.' They climbed the stairs and found themselves in a small room with only a door. 'Behind here?' asked Troy. 'Probably. Wait,' said Jay, and he put his ear against the door. He could here people talking.
'Stop doing this, Paul. You know you won't get anywhere,' said a man's voice. It sounded calm. 'Shut up!' another, heavily breathing man shouted back in a strange French accent. Off course, Vermont. French was probably his native language, which he probably spoke a lot. 'You are not in ze position pour commander! I want all ze jewels in zis whole damné shop and c'est ce.' The French talking guy called Paul was undoubtedly the robber.
Another voice could be heard now. It was a nervous, stammering man's voice. 'Y-you can't do this to me! This shop is my entire life!' That was the jeweler. 'It's been owned by my father, my grandfather, my grand-grandfather, my grand-grand-grand…' 'Shut up already!' said another voice. This was a very loud, low-pitched voice of a large man. Probably Paul's armed helper. 'Ooh, now what do I do!' said the jeweler. 'Don't worry. He can't go on like this forever,' said the calm voice. 'Johnson and I might have been caught, but there's still Hill and Cane outside. You hear that, Paul? They're calling for reinforcements!' 'Tant pis! said Paul. 'I won't surrender wizout a fight!'
Jay heard enough. He whispered to Troy: 'The two robbers are behind this door. One French speaking and angry, the other one big and dumb. The two free cops are caught too. I think both of the robbers are willing to hurt people, so we have to move fast.' 'Okay. I'll get my laser gun.' 'Good, but don't use it unless you really have no other choice. I prefer no one to get hurt. I'll take the tranquilizer gun to knock them out. On the count of three, we knock in the door. One, two…'

Commander Floyd Harris, a veteran police officer, and his team that consisted of four constables and their driver William Hill had been sent on a robbery job at Preciousson's Jewelry. He immediately had a bad feeling about it. When driving to the crime scene, he felt as though the bus was being followed.
As soon as he sent constables Münster and Pataki to the attic, where jeweler Preciousson was kept hostage by Jean Paul, the robber, they were captured themselves by a previously unnoticed gorilla-like helper. They were then lured into the building by the robbers. They ordered Harris and Johnson to get into the building unarmed to spare their colleagues lives. Doing so, they were captured themselves. Al Harris could do now was to act cool and to hope for reinforcements.

'…Three!' Jay and Troy bashed into the door. 'Hands up everybody!' they screamed. In the room were three men in a police uniform, a man with a gun, a big gorilla-like goon, also with a gun, and a small, crying man. The cops and the small man put up their hands. The gorilla was looking puzzled, but the other robber, which was probably Paul, had gotten himself together already.
'Un movement, tu imbecile, et deez' cute peepies 'ere get zeir littl' 'eads blown off, un by un…' Jay and Troy took a look at each other. They didn't expect such a quick strategic movement by Paul. But after the train robbery with Achazwopzz, which had happened the very same day, this one wasn't so bad.
'You wouldn't shoot them, would you?' asked Jay calmly. 'Try me out! Tu zink I don't dare?' said Paul. He aimed his gun at commander Harris, and Jay saw he wasn't bluffing. He had to play it differently.
'Of course I don't think you don't dare. That's very brave, shooting an unarmed man from so close.' Troy swallowed. Jay played a dangerous game. But it seemed to be working; Paul got upset. Jay continued: 'If you want to shoot someone, go ahead.' He put his tranquilizer gun (which Paul thought to be a deadly weapon) in its holster. 'C'mon, shoot me.' Paul hesitated. 'Come on, what are you waiting for? Shoot me!' Paul aimed his gun at Jay, but didn't fire. He didn't know what to do. 'You don't dare, do you?' asked Jay teasingly. That was it. Paul fired.
He might as well have thrown a grain of sand at him; the bullet bounced against the armor and fell on the ground. Jay laughed. 'Honestly, you didn't think I would dare you like that if I thought you could actually hurt me?' Paul hit himself in the face. How could he have been so stupid? He wanted to shoot the jeweler, but Jay quickly took his tranquilizer gun and shot both robbers unconscious. 'Compliments of XPLO… cowards.'

Chapter 14: Kandy resigns
Harris looked at the two lifeless bodies on the ground. 'You… you've killed them!' he said bewildered. 'You were in no direct danger, and yet you've killed them in cold blood!' Jay looked nonchalant. 'Cool it, man. They're as alive as we are. Look.' He showed the tranquilizer gun. 'You see, this thing shoots darts instead of bullets. Darts filled with anaesthetic fluid. Knock-out drops. They'll be unconscious for a day or so. That should be enough for you to toss them in the slammer.'
Harris took a look at the tranquilizer gun, labeled "K-O-matic". 'Ooh… in that case, you kind of saved our lives!' he said. 'Yeah, pretty much,' said Jay. 'And my dear jewels!' said Preciousson, the small jeweler. 'How can I ever pay you back? Five thousand? Ten?' He already took his wallet, but Jay said: 'No, thanks. We are doing this on voluntary basis.' The truth was that Jay didn't like the little snob and his money, and he beckoned Troy to go outside with him. They were followed by Harris, Johnson (who carried Paul on his back), Münster and Pataki (Both carrying one side of the goon) and Preciousson. Jay and Troy deactivated their armors.
Once outside, Harris was going to return to the police station, but before doing so, he wanted to thank Jay and Troy one more time. When shaking hands with Jay, he asked him: 'Still, if I could do you one more favor…' 'Anything?' asked Jay. 'Well, it depends of course, but…' answered Harris. Jay knew this was a nice chance to get to Kandy Cane. 'Well, can Troy and I talk to miss Cane for a while? Alone?' Harris was slightly surprised by this unexpected request, but approved.
Jay walked to Troy, saying: 'They're gonna stay here for a while, so we can talk to Kandy.' 'Really? Great!' said Troy. 'Let's go.'
They walked to Kandy, who was now in a conversation with Harris. He told her that Jay and Troy wanted a word with her. That was also what she wanted, because she was eager to know more about the mysterious armored agents.
Harris walked away, thus giving Kandy space to talk to Jay and Troy alone. She asked: 'Okay, now who are you really? You're not father and son, are you?' 'No, not really,' said Troy. 'I'm actually under his command,' he pointed to Jay, 'though our relation is quite informal.' '…right…' said Kandy. 'But what are you? I mean, Why are you here? What's with those cool suits? What do you want from me?' 'Gee, that's a lot of questions,' said Jay. 'But I'll answer them. We are XPLO security agents, we're here for you, those suits are SIAB armors and we want you to join us. There.'
Those answers were far from satisfying, so Kandy asked more. 'Okay, now what is XPLO and why do you want me to join you?' 'XPLO is like… err, a space traveling police force. We prevent intergalactic conflicts to happen, and ordinary people to find out about the state-of-the-art technology that is already in circulation around the many inhabited planets of our galaxy.' Kandy gaped at Jay, speechlessly. '…err, could you please repeat that?'
Jay and Troy told her that there were many inhabited planets other than Earth, many of which were way further developed in technology and space traveling as Earth. That XPLO was an intergalactic organization inherited that technology to keep the peace between all those planets. That it would be better if humans, which were very warlike, didn't know about all of this, and that XPLO took care of that too.
They told her about Queen Z and their mission. About UK HQ, Skipp-E, the search for Troy and the fight with Lord Frenzia. About this crazy day, the train heist with Achazwopzz and the chase after their police bus. 'You know the remaining part,' said Jay finally.
Like Troy when he first heard this, Kandy was dazed, but also enthusiastic. 'Wow, that sounds really exciting! I'd love to help you!' 'Well, so it's settled. We're supposed to go to Montpelier now to await further instructions,' said Jay. 'Good, but how will I tell Harris and the guys?' asked Kandy. 'Err, I don't know really. As long as you don't tell him what I just told you.' Kandy thought for a while.
After that, she walked to Harris. They had some words. Jay and Troy couldn't catch it from their position, but Harris was looking indignant. When they finished talking, Harris walked to Jay, looking angry. 'Now what's this all about?' he asked sternly. 'I let you two talk to Cane and now she wants to resign! Explain, please!' Jay didn't know what to say. He couldn't explain why, but didn't want to take Harris' employee from him just like that. Fortunately, Troy was a quick thinker.
'It's an important matter, though it needs to be kept strictly secret,' he said. 'We need miss Cane to come with us; there's no other way.' 'Then at least tell me why!' 'I'm not sure, but I think it might even be a matter of life or death.' Harris still looked at Troy in disbelief, but he said: 'Alright. If you really have to, I'm not one to stop you. But I still don't know why.' 'Sometimes it's better not to know everything.'
Not long afterwards, Kandy said her old team goodbye and went with her new one. 'Where are we going?' she asked. 'To Montpelier,' said Jay. 'Err, we're not gonna take the train again, huh?' asked Troy. 'I'm afraid so!' laughed Jay. 'But there's no Achazwopzz anymore, and we've already done enough today. It'll be a nice opportunity to get to know Kandy and explain her some.' 'It's all fine by me,' said Kandy.
'There's the station,' said Troy. 'It's about bloody time. It's getting cold.'
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Heerez chapter 15! Time for some rest after all the hectic adventures. Next target: JWA!

Chapter 15: Finding out more
After a quiet hour of traveling Jay, Troy and Kandy were heading for the Montpelier XPLO base. ‘So, what’s an XPLO HQ like?’ asked Kandy. ‘All HQ’s are different,’ answered Jay. ‘My home base, in Trenton, New Jersey, is an underground cave complex, though that’s rather unusual. The one in England is an office complex. The base nearest to Trenton is New York, which is the largest base of all. It’s built completely underground, though it’s not a cave but more like a huge tunnel complex. The one we’re going- Montpelier- is rather small compared to the ones mentioned before. Located inside a single block of flats. Those are more common over the world.’
‘Okay, but what is all inside those bases?’ ‘Most important to us are the Wormhole chambers. I’ll show those to you when we get there. Each base has several offices, for Chiefs and Executives… There are always some weaponry stores… Some bases have Technology Factories, cause all that stuff has to be made somewhere. The rest is kept secret to Agents like us.’ ‘Don’t you have any idea?’ ‘Well, I think there may be done some designing of new technology, secret meetings with representatives of other planets, and probably they are currently thinking up some kind of “master plan” to defeat Queen Z.’
‘Wow, must be quite a crowd over there.’ ‘Not really. A lot of work has been taken over by computers. But of course, computers can’t think for themselves. At lest, they couldn’t until now.’ He showed her his watch and pressed File’s button. ‘Let me introduce you to File; the very first completely intelligent computer program. But let him do the word; he’s good at selling himself. File, meet Kandy Cane.’ Jay handed his watch over to Kandy, who looked at it with interest.
‘Well hello there, my lady. How are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Fine, thank you,’ said Kandy. And to Jay: ‘I like him already.’ ‘Oh really? He’s never been that polite to me…’ Jay answered. ‘That may be because she didn’t greet me with “it looks really weird” when she first saw me!’ said File. ‘Hey, I told you I was sorry about that, didn’t I? How was I supposed to know that…’ Jay defended himself. ‘Yeah yeah.. it’s alright,’ said File. ‘Anyway,’ he continued to Kandy. ‘I can calculate everything, can perform very precise predictions and generate high quality graphics. I can…’
Jay, who had heard File’s self-promotional babble over a thousand times, turned to Troy, who had been rather quiet during the journey. ‘Hello Troy. You’re not talking much. What’s the problem?’ ‘Ooh, nothing. It’s just..’ Troy hesitated. ‘Well, what’s it?’ asked Jay. ‘Jay, listen. Yesterday, I was Corey Thompson, just a simple ordinary person, and then you come around and turn my whole life upside-down.’ ‘I thought you liked it!’ ‘I do, I do… but it all seems so unreal. Why actually are we the “chosen ones” for this crazy mission?’ asked Troy.
‘Well,’ said Jay. He hesitated. ‘Err, File calculated it. Kandy, could I get my watch back? Thank you. Now File, tell me. How exactly did you make your list of people I need to search for?’ File said: ‘It’s all a calculation. I made a big calculation, you know, to find out what people had the correct abilities. But of this calculation I only got the answer, and not the hows and whys. you’ll have to find that out for yourself. File off.’
Jay put his watch around his wrist again. ‘There you have it; You are definitely the right people, but we don’t know why. Well, of course Troy is a good spy..’ ‘I used to be a spy, but I never said I was a good one!’ ‘You wasn’t?’ ‘Well, not really. More than a few times I almost got caught!’ ‘Well, almost isn’t completely, is it?’ ‘No, but you can’t afford any mistake!’
Suddenly, Jay’s watch beeped. ‘Hey, looks like someone wants to talk to you’ said Troy. ‘It’s probably Makad Minus. She said she was going to call me about now,’ said Jay. he pushed a button on his watch. ‘Jay Mand, XPLO security.’ Indeed, Makad Minus’ face appeared. ‘Hello Mand. How’s progress?’ ‘Good, ma’am. I am happy to inform you that Kandy Cane is with us.’ ‘I already know, File just told me that. You did a great job, both of you.’ ‘Thanks ma’am.’ Jay always felt particularly proud when Minus gave him a compliment.
‘Anyway,’ said she. ‘Your next recruitment will be that of J. W. Anderson; he’s next on the list. Age 31, location Dallas, Texas.’ ‘Alright! You hear that, guys? We’re going to the land of the cowboys!’
‘Yes. I’d be pleased if you’d go there right away by Wormhole.’ ‘Err… Now?’ ‘Yes, now.’ ‘Err, with all the respect, but we’re all tired and cold. We’ve been in two heists today… Can’t we go back to New Jersey for the rest of the day, and go to Texas tomorrow? I really want to go home now.’ Minus sighed. ‘Alright, because you did such a good job. I’ll inform the guys in Montpelier to send you here.’ Jay sighed too, this time of relief. ‘Thanks a bunch, ma’am.’ ‘You’re welcome. Over and out.’
‘Good news!’ said Jay to his friends. ‘We’re getting the rest of the day off! We can spend the rest of it near my second home in Trenton!’ Troy was happy, but Kandy was disappointed. ‘So we’re not going anywhere anymore today?’ ‘No, we’re free!’ ‘Bummer. I was hoping to get to fight some alien scum today…’ Jay and Troy gave each other a surprised look.
When they arrived in Montpelier, the people there had already gotten their orders from Makad Minus. Jay, Troy and Kandy were brought to the Wormhole chamber. Jay gave Kandy a short explanation about Wormholes. Afterwards, they walked trough the Wormhole.
Jay was at the same place where he was two days ago, when he first left. But now he had only four more people to find, starting with J.W. Anderson. With eight more days remaining and File on his wrist, it would be a piece of cake, he thought

Chapter 16: Lightning strikes twice
Jay, Troy and Kandy were in the central cave of New Jersey HQ. It was the morning after Day Two of Operation Uncle Sam, and Day Three was at its beginning. It was seven o’clock and the three agents had pushed away the garbage container, walked down the dark stairway and gained permission to enter Makad Minus’ office to get going for the next recruiting.
When they entered the office, Makad Minus sat there talking to G. Bay, the technology and weapon specialist. ‘Wait a sec,’ she said to Bay, and to the agents she said: ‘Sit down, you three. I’m afraid I’ve got some really bad news for you.’ Jay and the others sat down worriedly. Minus began:
‘Yesterday, a couple of hours after you left, we had a major blackout at the base. We were completely out of electricity; even the back-up power source didn’t respond. The power returned after a half an hour. We received a message from Central HQ, New York City; Their major power source, which provided electricity to XPLO headquarters all around the world, had suddenly failed to work. This way, XPLO had become totally immobile for thirty minutes, until the technicians fixed it.’
‘Unbelievable,’ said Jay. ‘This never happened before, did it?’ ‘No. The power source is very well controlled. That’s why it’s such a mystery. It couldn’t possibly have been a technical error.’ ‘Then what was the cause?’ asked Jay. ‘Sabotage,’ Minus answered. ‘A crucial part of the NY mainframe computer had been heavily damaged with a powerful laser weapon,’ sad G. Bay, who knew all about those things. ‘The weapon didn’t belong to our arsenal, so it had to be an outsider,’ he said.
‘What part was damaged?’ asked Jay. ‘That’s the real problem for us,’ said Minus. ‘It was File’s operative computer. File doesn’t work without it, and it’s heavily damaged.’ ‘What? That’s not a problem, that’s a disaster!’ screamed Jay. ‘It is?’ asked Troy. ‘Of course it is! Without File, we can’t track down the people we need to find! We can’t fulfill our mission without File!’
‘Well actually, you can,’ said G. Bay. ‘We’ve got other tracking systems apart from File. They’re not as fast or precise, but they work.’ ‘Not all hope is lost yet,’ Minus added. ‘We’ve done a tracing today on J. W. Anderson. Apparently, he lives in Dallas. We know the whereabouts of his approximate position during daytime… It’s all we can do for you.’ Jay wasn’t satisfied. ‘And how do we find him? Dallas is a big city! We’re talking in millions here!’ ‘Just ask around the block if they know a certain J. W. Anderson,’ said Minus. ‘Our tracings are precise enough to do that.’
Jay raised his shoulders. ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked his two colleagues. ‘It’s too bad we’re without File from now on, but I think we will still be perfectly capable of finding four people in eight days,’ said Troy. ‘No matter what, I’m with you guys!’ said Kandy. ‘Well, that’s settled, isn’t it?’ said G. Bay. ‘Indeed,’ said Minus. ‘The Wormholes still work. Could you lead them to them, Bay?’ ‘No problem,’ said Bay. ‘Follow me, you guys. Jay knows the way already. Oh, and you can both carry another weapon. From what I’ve heard, you can sure use them.’

In the Wormhole chamber, G. Bay got his chest of weapons again. ‘Here you are, folks,’ he said. ‘You can both carry one more weapon, besides your Laser Gun. So, go ahead and pick one!’ Troy and Kandy started looking at all the weapons, and G. Bay turned to Jay. ‘Are you sure you don’t want another one for that tranquilizer gun?’ he asked. ‘No thanks,’ said Jay. ‘It did me a lot of good yesterday, and it might come in handy again.’
Troy and Kandy had made their choice. Troy picked a Spy Fry Y, of which he liked the name. It was one of the smaller guns in G. Bay’s impressive collection, a lightweight, but discrete and efficient. Kandy preferred a Laser Crossbow, which, as the name suggested, was a crossbow that shot laser beams. It was very long-ranged, and Kandy, being a police agent, was excellent at aiming.
Troy found that he couldn’t quite put the gun in his pocket. ‘Call me nuts, but how am I supposed to carry this thing with me all day?’ ‘Carry it in the empty holster of your armor, of course,’ said G. Bay. To Kandy he said: ‘Oh, wait, you don’t have a SIAB yet? Wait a sec, I’ll get you one.’ He ran away and came back two seconds later with a SIAB in his hand. Jay noticed that the button on it was different-colored from his. He looked at his own SIAB and saw the button was red, while the button on Kandy’s was light blue. when he looked at Troy, he saw that his was dark blue. ‘That might come in handy,’ he thought. ‘This way, we won’t confuse our own SIAB for one another’s.’
‘Well, err, Troy, would you demonstrate the use of a SIAB to your colleague?’ G. Bay asked. Troy pushed his button and activated his armor. ‘You see, there’s nothing to it.’ Troy put the Spy Fry Y in his left holster and deactivated the SIAB again. Kandy, on her turn, activated her own armor. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘This is awesome! Is there a mirror here somewhere?’ ‘Err, yeah, in the bathroom over there,’ pointed Bay. Kandy ran off to the bathroom. When she came back a couple of minutes later, she put her Crossbow in the left holster ad deactivated her armor as well.
G. Bay had already opened a Wormhole. ‘Hold on, guys. Dallas HQ is quite large. Makad has sent you a map program on your watches; it’ll indicate you where to search. Good luck!’ And the three friends walked trough, on their way to a new adventure.
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Chapter 17: Day Three
HQ Dallas was located in the center of the city, like UK HQ disguised as an office. When Jay, Kandy and Troy arrived in the base’s Wormhole chamber, a man waited for them. ‘You’re the ones from Trenton?’ he asked. ‘Err, yes,’ said Jay. ‘Good. I am a Wormhole supervisor. Follow me.’ They followed the man through the exceptionally large Wormhole chamber, which was more complex and more crowded than Jay had ever seen, even for a Wormhole chamber. They stopped at another Wormhole. ‘This one leads right outside,’ said the Wormhole supervisor. ‘Come on.’ He pushed the three through and suddenly Jay, Troy and Kandy were in the center of Dallas.
‘Well, at least you can’t blame them for wasting time…’ said Kandy. ‘You said it. I guess we can thank Makad for that; she hates wasting time. So when she gave her instructions to HQ Dallas, she probably said they had to drop us here quickly,’ said Jay. ‘Well, let’s not disappoint her. Let’s check that map program of G. Bay’s,’ said Troy.
Jay activated the map program on his watch. ‘Ow.’ ‘What do you mean, “Ow”?’ ‘This could become a problem. The program is, err, really bad.’ ‘You mean “bad” in the sense of “not good” or “totally useless”?’ asked Troy. ‘In between,’ said Jay. ‘But it’s better than nothing. At least we know were to search. Err, let me think. Yes, we could take a bus. Darn, I can’t even ask File for the bus department schedule. Well, we’re gonna have to ask,’ ‘Okay. Where’s the bus station?’ asked Kandy. Jay looked at his watch again. ‘Can’t be far away, we’re in the town center. Ah, there it is. Come on, you guys.’

‘Good after noon, miss. I was wondering, do you by any chance know a certain J W Anderson?’ said the man. He appeared to have a British accent. The woman in the doorway though for a moment. ‘Let’s see, Anderson, Anderson… I know a lot of Andersons, but a J W? I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.’ ‘Never mind. Thank you.’ ‘You’re welcome.’
The woman closed the door, and Troy walked away. He tried the next house.
‘J W Anderson? I wouldn’t know, sorry.’
‘Nope, I don’t know a J W Anderson…’
‘J W Anderson… Never heard of him.’
Thus Troy tried every house on the street, but every time he had the same result; some of them knew a few Andersons, but not a J W.
At the end of the street, Kandy was waiting for him. ‘Any success?’ she asked. ‘Nope. What about you?’ She shook her head. ‘Well, let’s hope Jay’s in better luck,’ Troy said. ‘Ah, there he is now.’ But he didn’t have any success either. ‘Are you sure we’re in the right block, Jay?’ asked Troy. ‘About ninety percent sure…’ said Jay. ‘We’ll find him. There’s still time. Let’s ask around the next street. Troy, if you’d do that street, Kandy this one and I that one, we meet here again. Okay?’ ‘Okay.’ ‘Got it.’
But again, neither found anyone who even heard of a J W Anderson. Troy started complaining. ‘No one heard of ‘m. It’s getting late and I’m hungry.’ ‘Now hold on, Troy.’ said Jay. ‘We’ve only got a few streets to go. I’m certain that we will…’ ‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Troy. ‘I’m hungry. It’s five o’clock, and I haven’t ate a single bloody thing today!’ ‘Easy, easy!’ ‘Well, he has a point,’ said Kandy. ‘Okay okay, I surrender,’ said Jay. ‘As a matter of fact, I could use a bite right now too…’ ‘Well then what are we waiting for?’ asked Troy. ‘I’ve seen a café here somewhere.’

The café was small and snug, but there was hardly any elbow-room. ‘Do you think this is a good idea? It’s crowded. I don’t see any free tables here,’ said Jay. ‘Now don’t be a wet blanket,’ said Troy. ‘You see, there’s a single man sitting at a four person’s table. He won’t mind us joining him.’ Troy walked to the man, who was about his age and eating a beefsteak. ‘Excuse me, sir, could we…’ The man looked up from his food. ‘Oh, yes, of course, be my guest.’ Troy, Kandy and Jay sat down. Troy, in a jolly mood, felt like starting a conversation. ‘So… How’s the food here, Mr…?’ he asked their neighbor at table. ‘Anderson. Jack Anderson.’
‘What?’ said Jay. ‘You mean Jack Anderson like in J W Anderson?’ ‘Err, yeah. How did you know? I never tell my second name to anyone…’ ‘You see? That’s why no one knew him!’ said Jay to the others. ‘They know him as Jack Anderson, not as J W Anderson!’ Jack Anderson looked puzzled. ‘Err, you were looking for me?’ ‘We sure were!’ ‘Now where’s the point in that?’ Jay, Troy and Kandy looked at each other. ‘That’s a long story, but worthy to tell,’ said Troy.
Jay and the others spent the rest of the dinner explaining everything to Jack Anderson, who listened with interest. ‘Hmm, yes yes,’ he sad when they were ready. ‘I must say, that it explains a lot to me. I’ve been noticing some strange events lately…’ ‘You have? That’s bad news,’ said Jay. ‘The security department is failing. It’s not my responsibility, but I’ll tell it to Makad Minus when we get back- that’s our Executive chief.’
‘Well, do you think you can help us on our mission?’ asked Kandy. ‘Well, I’ve studied a lot in my younger years…’ said Jack Anderson. ‘My friends do call me the “Living Encyclopedia”… If I can put my knowledge to good use, I will of course help you.’

Chapter 18: Invaded
‘It’s settled then,’ said Jay. ‘We’ll meet again here tomorrow at noon, so you can properly leave all your stuff behind. You spend the night at your home, we at the Dallas base.’ ‘It’s a deal,’ said Jack Anderson. He shook hands with Jay, Kandy and Troy and the four of them walked out. Outside, they gave each other a final greeting. Jack went left; the other three right, as they had appointed that Jack would be given the rest of the night and next morning to resign and to get ready.
Jay walked back to the bus station, followed by Troy and Kandy. All in all, the recruiting of Jack Anderson had taken longer than that of Troy or Kandy. If they would have File, it would have taken only half as long, Jay thought. The traveling, asking around and eating had taken all day; it was already getting dark. After all, it was January, though thankfully not as cold as in Vermont. After the bus trip back to the base, an hour would have passed and it would be completely dark. But a city like Dallas never sleeps, Jay thought. He yawned.

In the bus, Jay could barely keep his eyes open. Looking backwards, the questioning of the whole neighborhood had been immensely tiresome. Apparently, Troy thought about it the same way. Only Kandy looked as if she was still full of energy. Jay looked though the window and saw how the houses and buildings of Dallas passed by.
When they were approaching the base, Kandy said: ‘Look, over there. Is that a shooting star?’ Jay looked. ‘I believe so. No, wait… a shooting star is disappeared in a few seconds.’ ‘Maybe it’s a comet?’ said Troy. ‘I think we would have known if we could see a comet tonight, though it’s always possible…’ said Jay. ‘Did you follow the news lately?’ ‘I did,’ said Troy. ‘That is, until the day before yesterday, when we first met.’ ‘Well, I guess the scientists can’t predict everything, can they?’ said Kandy. ‘Nope, guess not. Though you would expect an organization like XPLO to… Never mind, I didn’t follow the XPLO astronomy department lately…’ said Jay.
Jay and Troy were quiet again, but Kandy couldn’t stop looking at the supposed comet. She had a suspicious feeling about it… It seemed to be getting bigger and bigger… ‘Err, Jay, is this usual for a comet?’ Jay looked again, now very intensely. ‘That’s not a comet,’ he said. ‘It seems like a big flare…’ ‘What could it be?’ ‘I seriously don’t know…’ ‘It seems to be getting bigger…’ said Troy. ‘And it’s surrounded by… dots.’
‘Wait, I got something for that,’ said Jay. ‘I have a magnifying program on my watch. You can make a picture and zoom it in as much as you like…’ He pushed some buttons on his watch, then aimed it at the thing in the air, pressed another button, and looked. ‘There, now I’ve made a picture of it. Let’s zoom in…’ On Jay’s watch was now a miniscule photograph of the dark sky, including the flare. He showed it to Kandy and Troy. Jay pressed another button and the photo started zooming in on the flare. There appeared a spot before the flare, the dots around it appeared to be small flares too, the spot started to get shape…
‘Holy fiddlesticks!’ said Jay. ‘Troy, do you recognize that?’ ‘What? Oh, no!’ ‘What is it?’ asked Kandy. ‘Lord Frenzia’s ship! Escorted by Fridgican Battle Jets! I told you about Frenzia, didn’t I?’ said Jay. Kandy nodded. ‘Of course! The flare we saw was the jet engine of the ship! And those dots were those of the Battle Jets!’ said Troy. ‘But why is it here?’ ‘He’s trying to somehow destroy XPLO bases- after all, he’s a terrorist.’ said Jay. ‘Since UK didn’t work with one ship, he’s now escorted. And he tries a larger, more important base. You see those smaller planes? They’re still large enough to carry a lot of Fridgicans. And I bet there are also quite some Fridges in that big ship. This must be part of a Master Plan to destroy or at least weaken XPLO. Either that, or he’s very stupid.’
‘So it’s going to attack Dallas HQ?’ asked Kandy. ‘Most likely,’ said Jay. ‘Then what do we do?’ ‘We wait. It’s all we can do. When the bus arrives, we activate our armors and Hover Bikes, and go to the HQ. We don’t have to worry about being seen; I suspect that there’s going to be some major memory-erasing tonight.’

When the bus arrived, the ship was very clearly to distinguish without a magnifier; it flew lower than ever, but the smaller Battle Jets were going first and were flying even lower. When Jay, Kandy and Troy disembarked, there were people looking at them with interest. Some of them thought it was an attack (which was the case) and ran away in panic. ‘Well, I guess it’s a little too late to do this discretely…’ said Troy. ‘You’re right. We might as well just go to the base on our Hover Bikes. I think it’s better to be inside right now.’
While Jay said this, a low-flying Battle Jet fired a laser beam. It hit somewhere behind some buildings. ‘You’re absolutely right, it’s better in there than out here,’ said Kandy. ‘If we’re ever going to use those SIAB things, this would probably be the time to do it.’ She activated her armor. Jay and Troy followed. Jay showed Kandy how to activate the Hover Jet. A few seconds later, they were driving down the nocturnal streets of Dallas.
These streets were more and more struck by panic. The Battle Jets were flying very low now, some even flew over the people’s heads, thus blowing them off their feet. They continued firing blasts, which mostly hit the ground. Still, no one appeared to be hurt yet. This all passed Jay, Troy and Kandy by with a 75 mph speed.
That is, until they came into a broad avenue. A Fidgican Battle Jet pilot thought this was a good place to land his jet, right before our heroes’ noses. They had to stop in order to not run into the Battle Jet. They could only watch in desperation as a hatch in the back opened and showed a pack of Fridgican Battle Troops, marked with a label with “LF” on it, fully armed with laser weapons and ready to go outside.
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If you liked that one, you'll love this!

Chapter 19: Ten little Fridgicans
Automatically, Kandy pulled her weapon, as she had done numerous times at the police academy. She aimed it at the leg of a Fridgican Battle Trooper, who, together with all the others, was still in the Battle Jet, as if they were waiting. Jay and Troy deactivated their Hover Bikes and pulled their Laser Guns too. One moment, the time seemed to freeze. Then, a Battle Jet fired a bast behind them.
Kandy accidentally pulled the trigger of her Laser Gun. The blast missed its target, but had another effect: It caused the LF Troopers (There were ten of them, nine Troopers and a leader, as Troy had counted) to be alarmed. They walked out and attacked.
Whoever thought they did this disciplined, in a straight formation with an equal marching pace, is terribly mistaking. Something you should know about Fridgicans (Or Fridges, as they are sometimes mockingly called) is that they are very dumb. They are not represented in the Intergalactic Council, some kind of NATO for inhabited planets. All represented planets have the privilege to be allied with the others and helped by XPLO Intergalactic. For example, the Earth is represented by Z. Keeper, who is also the Executive Director of XPLO Earth. XPLO is active on all those planets, but Z. Keeper is the only XPLO member of the Council. That is because no Earthling that’s not an XPLO-member knows about the Council (abbreviated to IC) or about XPLO.
Anyway, these ten very dumb, not represented and thus enemy Fridges attacked with a lack of military discipline. In practice, this meant shooting at anything you think is an enemy. Right now, Jay, Troy and Kandy were the most appropriate targets, so they were first in line. All the Fridges shot, preferably at the least dangerous-looking of the three. That meant that Troy got a full load, but also Jay and Kandy were getting aimed at continuously. They wore their protective armors, but every hit still hurt. It took them a while to get themselves together and to shoot back.
Kandy was the first one who did. She shot at a mean-looking Fridge (they all looked mean as a matter of fact). The blast hit him right in his chest. Fridgicans are tough and these wore protective clothing as well, but XPLO weapons are among the finest in the universe. The Fridgican fell down and was out cold.
Inspired by Kandy’s quick, impressive action, Jay started shooting too. His aiming wasn’t half as good as Kandy’s though. After a few missed shots, he managed to hit a Fridge in his arm. Unable to hold his gun much longer, this Fridge was now harmless. By that time, Kandy had knocked out two more Fridges. There were now only six left.
Meanwhile, Troy was having a hard time. The Fridges had probably picked him as an easy target, cause he got hit continuously. He had dropped his gun and had to struggle not to fall down. Jay noticed this. ‘Troy? Are you alright?’ he said through the built-in transmitter of his helmet. ‘Not really…’ Troy moaned. ‘I can’t hold on for much longer… Would you give me a hand here?’ ‘Right. Kandy, shoot the guys who aim at Troy!’ said Jay. Kandy hit one of them, while Jay also hit a Fridge this time. ‘Quick, pick up your gun, we’ll distract them!’
There were now four of them left: three Troopers and their leader, a Fridge who was taller than the rest and had a bigger gun. This one was a bit of a problem, he wore an armor that seemed to be as powerful as the SIABs. For now Jay and Kandy managed to stay away from his gun, but Troy was in less luck. A blast from that gun had made him loose his own gun in the first place.
With the remaining Fridges distracted Troy could now pick up his gun again. Meanwhile, Kandy had shot another Fridgican. Troy had a bit of experience on shooting too. With a quick movement from his wrist he could knock out a Fridge. Eight down, two to go. The last Trooper was a bit smarter than the rest; he figured that laser weapons were no good against the SIABs. That’s why he charged at Jay and attacked him physically.
This was an attack Jay didn’t expect; suddenly, the was a wildly punching and kicking purple guy in front of him, hitting him wherever he could hit. In no time, Jay had dropped his Laser Gun, fell on the ground and had the Fridge sitting on top of him. This Fridge aimed his gun at Jay’s head, ready to shoot. Jay looked at Kandy and Troy, but they were busy fighting the leader. Jay was on his own.
Jay grabbed his attacker by the hands, put his knee against the Fridge’s chest and threw him over his back. It was pathetically easy; this Fridge had probably never had any training. Jay had, though. Self-defense was included in the Basic Agent Training. Now to handle the leader.
Troy and Kandy were still fighting him. Kandy and also Troy gave him a couple of dire hits, but this leader was way better armed than his minions. He now frequently used his impressive laser gun, a weapon of tremendous caliber. Kandy was agile enough to avoid the full blast, but right when Jay was about to step into the fight, Troy got fully hit. He fell down unconsciously. Jay had no time to help him now. He had to help Kandy.
Kandy and the leader were actually pretty well-matched. Kandy avoided all of his blasts, while the leader on his turn didn’t get hurt by Kandy’s. This was a battle Kandy was doomed to loose, because she would get hit one time. Fortunately, Jay had an idea. ‘Kandy, this won’t work. You got to use the Laser Crossbow.’ ‘Isn’t that impact to big? The lest thing we need now is to get ourselves blown to pieces!’ ‘We won’t get hurt from this distance, but Troy will.’ ‘He’s knock out.’ ‘I know. I’ll get him out of there. Cover me, will you?’ ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’ ‘I am. I hope.’

Chapter 20: Dallas to the Fridges
Jay counted down. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ He then made an amazing sprint towards Troy, who lay on the ground. The Fridgican leader was thus surprised that he didn’t react until Jay was with Troy. But then. he decided that he would blast them both. He aimed his big gun at them, but before he could shoot, something else hit him.
Kandy had to distract the Fridge while Jay towed Troy away. The blast had served its purpose; the Fridge now turned on her. Within a second, Kandy was again trying hard to avoid the blasts.
Meanwhile, Jay had taken Troy over his shoulder. He could do so because the armor also provided the wearer with increased strength. The Fridge seemed completely focused on Kandy. Jay turned on his transmitter. From now on, it was a matter of timing.
‘I got Troy,’ said Jay through the transmitter. ‘Quick now.’ Jay activated his Hover Bike again. Hover Bikes always had a passenger’s seat; Jay put the still unconscious Troy in it and fastened a seatbelt around him, so he wouldn’t fall off. After that, Jay shot at the Fridge. This Fridge appeared easily distracted; he now targeted Jay and shot at him. Jay really found it difficult to avoid all the blasts, but he only needed to boy Kandy a few seconds.
She used these to activate her Hover Bike and pull her Laser Crossbow. She used her Laser gun to draw the Fridge’s attention once again. Thus Jay had a chance to hop on his Hover Bike. ‘I’m on, Kandy! Shoot!’ While Saying this, Jay drove away as fast as he could. Kandy pulled the trigger of her Crossbow on the same moment she drove away too. The Laser Arrow moved slower than the average blast, but still fast enough. While Jay and Kandy fled as quick as they could, the blast hit the jet engine of the Fridgican Battle Ship.
It turned out that Jay had underestimated the firepower of the Laser Crossbow. The blast had hit the fuel tank of the Battle Ship, thus causing a big explosion. It was not big enough for Jay and Kandy to get caught in, but it was followed by a tremendous shock-wave. This caused all near windows to break instantly, and both Jay and Kandy to loose their balance and fall from their Bikes.
Jay was the first one to get up again. ‘Kandy? Are you alright?’ ‘Yeah, I guess so… How’s Troy?’ ‘He doesn’t look like he’s made a bad fall. A few bruises at the most. Long live the SIAB.’ ‘What do we do now?’ ‘What we were doing already: Try to get to the base. I think the base is pretty much alarmed by now, the reinforcements should arrive any minute .’
The city seemed to be silenced. There were hardly any people on the street any more. Also there were no more Battle Jets to be seen, nor was the big ship. But Jay and Kandy knew better. All the people were being scared at home, and all the Battle ships had landed. They knew that there could be a Fridge squad now behind every corner. Dallas now belonged to the Fridgicans. What kept the XPLO reinforcements? They were soon to find out, because they were on their Hover Bikes again racing to the base.
Then, they came in a street where another team of Fridgicans was on the patrol. They hadn’t seen Kandy and Jay yet. These hid behind the corner and hopped off as soon as they noticed the patrol. ‘They’ve actually taken over the city!’ said Kandy. ‘It looks like it,’ answered Jay. ‘What keeps XPLO so long!’ The building of HQ Dallas was in sight. Jay looked at it, until something occurred to him. ‘Holy Fiddlesticks!’ ‘What?’ said Kandy. ‘Look! The base! The light’s are supposed to be burning, but they aren’t!’ ‘How come?’ ‘This can only have one meaning: There’s another blackout! Come on, we have to get to the base!’ Jay jumped on his Hover Bike again. ‘But the Fridgicans…’ said Kandy. ‘Forget about the Fridgicans! We’ll drive past them. Let’s go!’
Jay jumped on his Hover Bike, and Kandy saw by the looks of his eyes that there was no way she could ever have him change his mind. Instead, she hopped on her bike too and followed Jay. Jay took the speed to the highest level and drove right past the Fridges, followed by Kandy. They didn’t even know what happened; before they realized there was something going on, Jay and Kandy were disappeared from sight. Naturally, it didn’t take them long to reach the base without further incidents. They deactivated their Hover Bikes and Armors. Jay took Troy over his shoulder and they went inside.
Maybe outside would be better than inside after all. At least, everything was quiet now on the streets, which was more than you could say of the base. It was the most hectic situation one could imagine. All the lights were off. People were running from side to side through the darkness, paper flew around everywhere and there was a lot of screaming. Jay would almost have gotten desperate, but a man walked to them.
‘Who are you?’ ‘Err, Jay Mand and Kandy Cane. We’re on an important mission regarding the missing agent Ben Allaw.’ ‘What do you need?’ ‘Well, we’ve just fought our way out of a Fridge Battle Squad…’ ‘They’ve got Battle Squads? How many?’ ‘I wouldn’t know. I’d say about twenty, the ones from the big ship not counted.’ ‘Oh no, this is bad. Someone sabotaged the power source. There’s a repair team working on it now. Until they’re done, we can’t do a thing.’ ‘There’s more. We’ve got an injured man. I think he needs some help.’ ‘Right. I’ll bring you to the infirmary, but don’t expect much help there. We’re without power.’ ‘Can’t you transport us somewhere else?’ ‘Impossible. No power, no Wormholes.’ ‘The infirmary, then.’ ‘Follow me.’ Jay and Kandy followed.
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Here's chapter twenty-one... the invasion goes on...

Chapter 21: XPLO strikes back
‘Look, he’s waking up!’ Troy opened his eyes. ‘Welcome back, Troy!’ The words penetrated Troy’s mind. Troy felt a terrible pain in his back. It took him a while to realize what happened. He saw a restaurant, a bus, a flare… A spaceship. With Fridgicans in it. He realized that he was now looking in Jay’s face. ‘Jay? I… good lord, where am I?’ Troy noticed it was all dark around him. He tried to sit up, but he was pushed down by a pair of hands. ‘Stay down, you’re still in a pretty bad shape.’ That was Kandy’s voice. ‘Don’t worry, you’re in HQ Dallas. We’re safe now.’ Troy somehow knew she didn’t mean that. ‘That is, as safe as you can be with evil alien terrorists destroying the city and with no electricity,’ Jay continued. ‘Jay!’ said Kandy. ‘Stop, stop,’ said Troy. ‘You were saying?’
Jay explained the matter to Troy in a few sentences. Troy started to feel very helpless. ‘We can’t do Anything? Come on, this is XPLO! The space police! Don’t tell me we get disabled so easily!’ ‘Usually we don’t but it’s crisis, remember? XPLO on both Earth and Mars is now fully concentrated on the threat of Queen Z, and some low-time thugs like Frenzia might want to take advantage of that.’
Troy didn’t seem too satisfied. ‘Isn’t XPLO a VERY large organization?’ ‘Oh my, yes it is!’ said Jay, a little proudly. ‘We’re active on forty-three planets, to be exact, all represented in the IC. They’re all located in the Milky Way. No one still knows what lays beyond,’ he added dramatically.
‘What does XPLO stand for anyway?’ asked Troy. ‘Extra-terrestrial Policy of Law and Order.’ said Jay. ‘That would be EPLO’ said Troy cynically. ‘What ever!’ Jay got irritated. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it should be XPLO or EPLO, it matters whether our guys down there can get the electricity back up!’
Right when Jay said “back up” all the lights in the room suddenly turned on. ‘Hey? What happened?’ said Jay. Kandy looked around. ‘Looks like we’ve got power again.’ Jay could scream of euphoria. And so he did. ‘Yeehaw! They fixed it! They actually did! Hahahahaaa!’
‘Hold it Jay, we’re not there yet. Who says this goes for the whole building?’ said Troy. His question was answered when a voice was heard through the speakers that were in every corridor and room, also in the infirmary: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Executive Chief speaking. You are urgently requested to turn on your screen. I repeat, Urgently requested to turn on screen. Thank you.’
There was also a computer screen in every room. Jay turned on the one in the infirmary. The Executive Chief was to be seen. ‘…In response, a dozen of Carrier Trucks filled up with SIAB troopers, a handful of A-Class Charger aircraft and a D-Class Trilobyte ship are now on their way to repel the invasion of Fridgicans, supposedly led by Lord Frenzia. Live footage is being sent, taken by several cameras aboard of the Chargers.’
‘I think all of this is going to end well after all,’ said Troy. ‘By the way, Jay, you’re sitting on my leg. Would you mind…’ Jay quickly jumped from the place he was sitting. ‘OH! I’m so sorry… It’s the excitement you know.’
The screen now showed an image taken from a Carrier Truck, that was driving through the streets. The material was provided with some chaotic comment of the man who wielded the camera. ‘Err, we are the Gold Mercury squad, say elite XPLO troopers, and we are err, say closing in on the Fridges. I’m say, the reporter. I’ve got a small camera in my helmet, so all I see, well, you see. We’ve got some SIAB troopers in the back’ –the camera turned to the back of the truck to show a dozen of people with SIAB armors- ‘and we’re, say escorted by these Chargers up there.’ The man looked out of the window so the camera now viewed a low-flying Charger. ‘And that would be the Trilobyte…’ -looking at an immensely huge beetle-shaped aircraft- ‘…and with that, we’re going to bring down that big ship, ‘coz ours is bigger.’
‘Seems like we’re going to have some entertainment tonight after all,’ said Jay. ‘Who wouldn’t want to see the pounding of evil alien slackers?’ ‘Well, you go watch that. I’m tired, and my back hurts like crazy. I’m sure the good ones will win,’ said Troy. ‘Well, suit yourself!’ said Jay. ‘Are they gonna hurt the Fridgicans?’ said Kandy, a little worried. ‘Hurt, yes. Kill, no. XPLO doesn’t kill if it’s not necessary,’ said Jay. ‘The main target of this one is to scare away and to capture when possible. We don’t like to kill. It solves absolutely nothing. It’s something we’ve learned from the aliens.’ ‘Aliens must be very wise.’ ‘They are, most of them. Actually, it’s more the opposite. Earthlings are known as a naive and warlike race. That’s why the existence of both alien life and XPLO is kept secret on this planet. There have been some Great Wars in the past…’
The rest of their attention was taken by the incredible fight between the Fridgicans and the Gold Mercury squad. It started when the Carrier Truck stopped by a team of Fridgican Battle Troops. All SIAB troopers from the truck, including the reporter, attacked them. They were in the majority, and way more organized than the Fridgicans. Within a few minutes, all Fridgicans were knock-out and taken away by empty Carrier Trucks, that where also on the scene. Meanwhile, an aerial battle between the Chargers and the Battle Jets was going on in the sky. The Chargers clearly had the upper hand. They didn’t want to make the Jets crash over the city though, so they purposely missed and hunted them away instead. The Trilobyte was after the big Fridgican ship Jay and Troy had encountered in Greenwich. This ship was also ready to retreat, but not until Lord Frenzia again sent a message with his face through the television channel much like he did in Greenwich on the C-Class ship: ‘I’ll be back!’

Finally, Episode 22! I've been stuck here for some time but I'm satisfied about it now. And Josh is in it.

Chapter 22: Day Four
‘There it is. Good thing this block remained untouched by the Fridgicans.’ Jay and Kandy were back at the small café to collect Jack Anderson. They had to leave Troy behind; he was still too badly hurt. They had made an appointment to meet at the café at twelve o’ clock. Jay and Kandy sat down at the same table they had sit the day before. It was a quarter to twelve, so Jay and Kandy put their remaining time to good use by ordering respectively a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee.
At five to twelve, Jack entered the café. He looked around for a while, noticed Jay and Kandy and sat down next to them. ‘Well, here I am. I’m well prepared. But something happened last night, right?’ ‘So you noticed,’ said Jay. ‘It’s in all the papers,’ said Jack. ‘And even if it wasn’t, there was enough noise and flashes to alert the whole place.’ ‘The whole place? You mean everyone knows?’ ‘Pretty much.’ Jay suddenly became very angry. He smashed his fist on the table. ‘Argh! What’s with Security these days?’ he screamed. Some people stared at them curiously, so Jay stopped screaming. ‘You’re not supposed to have any memory at all about last night!’ ‘Well, it is crisis, isn’t it?’ Jack said calmly. ‘Just be happy I do. You would have had to tell me everything all over again!’ he added with a smile. Jay didn’t laugh.
Kandy, who hadn’t said anything yet, now said: ‘Calm down, Jay. Security isn’t our problem, is it? We got where we came for, so let’s just pay and leave.’ Jay didn’t seem satisfied. ‘Okay, okay,’ said Kandy. ‘I’ll pay the drinks, happy now?’ Jay didn’t respond, but suddenly didn’t quite look as grumpy anymore. ‘You’re Dutch, aren’t you?’ asked Jack. ‘Yes, why do you ask?’ said Jay. ‘Oh, nothing…’ Jack said. Jay was given food for reflection.
When they had paid, Jay, Kandy and Jack Anderson walked to the bus stop.
Kandy asked: ‘Well, I think you’re halfway there, Jay. You’ve already found three and you got three more to go. And you’ve got seven more days, including this one which has just begun. We’re gonna succeed.’ Jay cheered up a little. ‘You know, you’re right. Even though we’re gonna take on the most dangerous psychopathic madwoman ever, we’re gonna be alright…’
‘Where are we going now?’ asked Jack. ‘To the Dallas base,’ Kandy answered. ‘And from there to… to where?’ ‘Canada,’ said Jay. ‘I got a message from Makad this morning with the new instructions. Next up will be someone called Searain S. Nighn, age 23. Nearest tracings have been around Toronto.’ ‘Searain… That’s an unusual name,’ said Jack. ‘Also a beautiful name.’ ‘We’ll find out about it soon enough,’ said Kandy.
They took the bus back to the town center. They walked back to HQ Dallas. When they arrived there, they decided to go to the infirmary.
‘Hi there, Troy. Look who we brought with us,’ said Jay. ‘Jack Anderson!’ said Troy, who was still in bed. ‘That means we have only three more people to recruit!’ ‘Yeah! And how have you been in the meantime?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, the people are friendly here. Though the food is bad. They really don’t know what a good English breakfast is… But I still managed to get a cuppa tea so I guess I’m okay.’
‘Anyway, we’ll be going to Canada. Think you can come along?’ asked Kandy. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m still in no shape for such a trip. My back’s killing me,’ moaned Troy.
‘Well then, I guess the three of us will be going,’ said Jay. ‘There’s already a guy standing outside that will take us to the Wormhole chamber, and from there to HQ Toronto.’
‘Toronto… I always wanted to see that town. They say you have a magnificent view from the CN tower,’ said Jack. ‘Well, we won’t have time to do any sightseeing,’ said Jay. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ ‘In that case, I won’t hold you up any longer,’ Troy said.
They said goodbye and Jay, Kandy and Jack followed their guide, a certain Josh, to the Wormhole chamber.
Jay had to ask. ‘The sabotage yesterday… what gives?’ ‘Fridgicans. Two of them,’ said Josh. ‘They were spotted near the control room, but never seen again. Strange, since Fridges aren’t easily missed. The Chief now believes they had devices to turn themselves invisible.’ ‘That’s odd,’ said Jay. ‘A tactical move. That’s not Frenzia’s style. And he never had any Stealth-gear either. I never understood those meaningless attacks on XPLO bases lately. Maybe…’ ‘Maybe?’ Jack asked. ‘Nothing. But I’d swear there would be more behind all this than only Frenzia’s vendetta. What does he want to commence by those attacks?’

Toronto is the biggest city of Canada and ranks among the biggest in the world. The skyline is marked by some sky scrapers and of course the characteristic CN tower. It’s a very important and a very busy city. Yet also here was an XPLO base, but how would you hide something that big in such a hectic place?
HQ Toronto was built, or actually “dug” underneath Union Station. The Wormhole Chamber looked somewhat like a railway station too, though there were no trains but all sorts of air- and spacecraft around the place. Jay, Kandy and Jack came out of the Wormhole at two o’clock. They had quite some time ahead of them, but how were they going to find Searain?
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On to a new adventure finding Searain!

Chapter 23: Hot dog
‘That Troy is one lucky bird for staying in bed. For a second there I forgot how much fun this was…’ Jay’s morale, which was already pretty bad, had sunken to below zero.
The latest satellite tracings had led them to a village just outside of Toronto. Again, they had to ask every person in every house if they knew a certain Searain S. Nign, and again, with no success. Even Kandy was starting to lose her hopes. Only Jack seemed to enjoy it. They had noticed that he had an infatigable will and a lot of perseverance. Although they had been walking around for an hour or two Jack marched the street whistling, while Jay and Kandy became tired and bored.
Now, the three had met up in a grass field. Jay looked somber. ‘It’s hopeless,’ he said. ‘The thing is, that the tracings weren’t precise enough. Searain might as well live at the other side of the village, or even in another one.’ ‘Well, in that case, we search them all. We’ve got time, haven’t we?’ said Jack. ‘Yes, but not if we have to find three more people like this. It could take a couple of weeks and we have only one,’ said Kandy. ‘In that case, we’ll just have to hurry,’ said Jack. He already wanted to go to another street, but Jay signed him to stop. ‘Forget it, Jack. Only by luck we’ll find her.’ ‘Believe me or not, Jay, but I’ve got a feeling we’re about to get lucky soon.’
Right when Jack said “Lucky” Jay was suddenly scared the heck out of himself by a loud noise behind him. He jumped forward and looked around to get another shock: There was a huge, incredibly mean-looking Rottweiler dog standing behind him. The noise Jay heard was its loud, low-pitched barking. The dog was held leashed by a tall man who looked just as mean as his pet.
‘Down Hector! Down boy! Don’t worry,’ said the man with an evil-looking smile, or was that Jay’s imagination? ‘He don’t bite, do you, Hector? Nope, he just wanna play. Down Hector!’
Jay didn’t believe him at all; the dog grunted, jumped, showed its teeth and barked at Jay in fury. Jay realized that the only reason why he wasn’t ripped to pieces was that Hector was held leashed by a very unreliable-looking man. Jay quickly put some paces back.
Hector and his master walked on again. ‘What’s the matter, Jay?’ Kandy asked friendly. ‘You dislike dogs?’ ‘That’s not it, they dislike me,’ said Jay. His eyes followed the suspicious man and his dog. He suddenly saw Jack run up to them. ‘Hey? What does he want?’ asked Jay. ‘Ask him. I think he’s gonna ask if he knows Searain.’ Kandy walked to Jack and Hector’s master, followed by Jay with a bad grace.
‘…Do you know a certain Searain S. Nign?’ Jack asked. ‘Nign, Nign…’ said the dogman. ‘Yes, that’s my neighbor!’ ‘Okay then! Could you tell me where she lives?’ ‘In the house next to mine, where else!’ said Dogman. ‘Ah,’ said Jack, not upset by the dumb remark. ‘And where do you live, then.’ ’17 Russell street. They live at number 15. I’m just going home, I’ll take you there if you like.’ ‘We do, thank you,’ said Jack. And to Jay he said: ‘I told you we were gonna get lucky?’
They had been lucky, Jay had to admit. Still, he didn’t like Dogman, who had introduced himself as Walt Rong. The trio followed W. Rong to Russell street, with Jay walking behind. He nervously kept an eye on Hector, but the dog had eased up a little, and walked next to Rong. Still, Jay held his hand close to the button on his SIAB, in case of emergency.
Eventually, they reached Russell street, which was, indeed, at the other side of the village. ‘Well, guess you can take it from here,’ said W. Rong. ‘Thanks a lot!’ said Jack. ‘Welcome. By the way…’ said Rong and there came a mysterious expression on his face. His voice became a whisper just loud enough for Jay to hear it. ‘Be careful there, okay? I know the Nigns… Strange people, I tell you. I wouldn’t trust them if I were you. Got it?’ Jack nodded and so did Kandy. Jay skeptically raised his shoulders, but Rong didn’t see that. He was already off to his own house.
‘Gee, what a creep was that!’ said Kandy. ‘Pheew, happy you feel the same way!’ said Jay. ‘Well, creep or not, he did save us, didn’t he?’ said Jack. ‘I guess you’re right. But let’s forget about him and focus on Searain Nign,’ said Jay. ‘Yeah. I wonder what he meant by “strange people”,’ said Kandy. ‘Oh, he’s strange himself. Any ordinary person must be strange in his eyes…’ said Jay. ‘Well, let us not judge them before we’ve seen them, don’t you think?’ said Jack. ‘You are so right!’ said Kandy.
They looked at the house numbers. 32, 30. Those were even numbers. They needed to be on the odd side. 29, 27, 25, 23. They were on the right way. 21, 19, 17. This was W. Rong’s house. They noticed that this house was significantly larger than the others on the street. 15. That was the house they needed to be.
When they walked the drive, they noticed there was a scent coming from the house. The smell of cats…
Unaware of what lay beyond, Jay rang the doorbell.

We're about to find out now!

Chapter 24: Curiosity killed the cat?
All in all Jay was pretty nervous when he rang the doorbell. Strange people? No one opened the door. Jay waited. Five seconds. Ten. Jay felt his own heartbeat. He rang again, and noticed that his finger was shaking. Why did no one open the door? Were they out? No, there was a car on the drive. Maybe something was happening inside the house the light of day couldn’t bare… Jay started to notice how much 15 Russell street looked like a spook house… He noticed some spider webs in the corner with big spiders in it… He saw birds flying around the chimney, or were it bats? That smell, was it really a cat, or something else? The smell of… decay?
The door opened.
Jay almost immediately got a heart attack.
In the doorway stood a dark shadow. ‘Yes?’ said the shadow, but Jay was unable to speak. Luckily Kandy was around.
‘Uh, hello, sir. We are looking for Searain Nign. Does she live here?’ Pace after pace the shadow stepped forward. Jay wanted to scream but couldn’t make a noise. The shadow walked out of the doorway, stepped into the light and revealed itself.
It was a man in middle age, with gray hair, glasses and a long, somewhat worn raincoat. All in all there was nothing strange about him, let alone frightening. On the contrary.
Jay, angry with himself for letting himself get scared that much by Rong’s silly advice, quickly regained his down-to-earth mind. The house didn’t look haunted at all; the bats around the chimney were just birds and the smell was really that of a cat.
‘It’s Searain you’re looking for?’, asked the man. ‘You’re classmates of hers?’ Kandy taught fast. ‘Yes. I am Kandy, this is my brother Jay and this is uncle Jack.’ ‘Hmm,’ said the man slightly surprised. ‘Never heard of you. Well, I’m bad at remembering names… she probably mentioned you before. Anyway, I am Searain’s father. Should I get her for you?’ The man was already gone.
‘Sea!’ he was heard screaming. ‘Searain! There are some friends here for you! Sea?’ Searain apparently didn’t respond, because Mr. Nign came back. ‘Sorry, she’s busy on her computer again. That’s her, you know. Put her behind a PC and there is no such thing as a “rest of the world”. I’ll get upstairs, be right back. Meanwhile, come in and make yourselves comfortable.’ Nign was gone again. This time he walked up the stairs.
Meanwhile Kandy, Jay and Jack took advantage of his offer to come in and make themselves comfortable. They went into the house, closed the door and sat down on the couch in the living room. Jay noticed that there were several cats in the living room.
‘What exactly are you doing?’ Jay asked Kandy. ‘If Searain comes down and doesn’t recognize us we’ll be kicked out!’ ‘Maybe, but what did you have in mind?’ said Kandy. ‘It won’t get any better than this. Maybe Searain trust us and plays the game along.’ ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Kandy. But if we have to own up, I’m your little brother and know of nothing, okay?’ ‘Fine.’
Mr. Nign came back down and walked into the living room, followed by Searain. Searain was a pretty and smart-looking girl with red hair. When her father told her there was an old study companion of hers who wanted to see her, she immediately got eager to see who that was. In the living room, she saw an adult man, a teenage boy and a girl about her age, but she recognized neither of them.
Kandy said: ‘Ah, Searain, long time no see!’ and she gave Searain a couple of very obvious winks. Searain saw those and decided to give them the advantage of doubt. ‘Yeah, err…’ she stammered. ‘Kandy, remember?’ said the unknown girl. ‘Kandy! Right…’ Searain said. She turned on her father. ‘Err, Dad, would you please leave us alone?’ ‘Why?’ asked Nign. ‘Well, we’ve got a lot to tell each other. After all, the last time we’ve seen each other was a half a year ago, when we graduated, right Kandy?’ ‘Right!’ said Kandy. ‘Okay, okay. I know when I’m beaten. I guess I’ll go upstairs then,’ said Nign. ‘I’ll tell Mom we have visitors.’ ‘Right. And tell her not to disturb us!’ said Searain. ‘I will.’
When Nign was gone, Searain asked: ‘Who the crashing servers are you?’ Jay smiled. He knew it was his time to take the word again. ‘Name’s Jay Mand, leading officer of XPLO.’ ‘Kandy Cane, XPLO too I guess…’ ‘Jack Anderson, nice to meet you.’ ‘XPLO?’ asked Searain. ‘What’s XPLO?’ ‘What is XPLO you ask? That’s a long story and I wanted to keep it short for now…’ said Jay. ‘Some kind of intergalactic FBI.’ ‘You’re crazy!’ was the unexpected answer.
Jay didn’t get upset; he was used to this. ‘Crazy, huh? Well then, did you never see anything strange?’ ‘I sure did. My neighbor, Mr. Rong, that’s quite a character,’ said Searain. ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ said Jay. ‘I mean really unusual, unexplainable things no one really seems to understand?’ Searain’s face took a somewhat strange expression. It was something with her eyes. Jay suddenly noticed that they were green. ‘You can say that again,’ said Searain and she started to unroll her belt. This belt seemed to be made of fur and was winded around her waist. When she had unrolled it, they noticed that it was attached to her. It took them a while to realize what it was: A cat tail! Searain had a tail!

I couldn't find any possible way to squeeze BachiKari in, so that'll have to happen later. But you're on my list (and that's a good thing). For now, enjoy some more of the latest chapter.


Chapter 25: Tails to tell
Kandy and Jack were too amazed to speak any word. Not Jay. If you are a full trained XPLO agent you don’t get amazed soon. ‘Well, don’t get me wrong, I’m used to certain things, but I honestly never saw that before,’ he said. Now it was Searain’s time to get surprised. ‘Aren’t you… scared or anything?’ ‘Rule one: Never judge by looks,’ Jay replied. ‘You have no visible intentions to hurt me, so I have no reason to be scared. On my guard, but not scared. And even if you would seem to mean some harm, I think I would still be pretty fine…’ Searain gaped at Jay, who continued: ‘What makes me wondering is how you got that tail thing.’
Searain’s reaction was irked. ‘Why would I tell you? You’re the ones that owe me an explanation!’ ‘It’s exactly as I said,’ said Jay.
And Jay told Searain all about XPLO, helped by Kandy and Jack, who told their own recruiting experiences. Searain’s expression switched to something that held the middle between disbelief and excitement.
‘XPLO… can you show me a proof of that?’ she asked. Jay nodded, and gave her his watch. ‘This is actually a tiny computer.’ ‘No kidding?’ said Searain and to Jay’s indignation she suddenly got a screwdriver out of nowhere and tried to open the computer. ‘Hey! Don’t do that!’ said Jay. ‘Relax, man. I’m just trying to see how it works.’ Jay wanted to protest, but then he saw that Searain had already succeeded in opening it.
‘Hmm, yes,’ said Searain, and she sounded like a professional. ‘This looks interesting. It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before.’ ‘Martian technology,’ said Jay, a little proud. ‘Best in the universe. Our neighbors.’ ‘Really?’ asked Searain, full of interest. ‘Maybe I could get one of them take a look at my computer. Internet refuses to work, again…’
Kandy had really gotten curious after the origin of Searain’s tail. ‘Well, we gave you an explanation,’ she said. ‘Now we’d like to hear yours.’ ‘What? Oh, the tail. That’s right,’ said Searain. She closed the watch with a single movement and handed it back to Jay. She sat down on a chair and began.

‘I had my tail ever since I was born. My mother has one, too. My dad doesn’t. I don’t know about my grandparents on Mom’s side, though. they died before my birth, and she never wants to speak about them. I don’t know why. She never tells me how she got her tail, but I suspect my parents are keeping some kind of secret for me.
‘I grew up believing having a tail was the most common thing in the world. But when I started playing with other girls, I noticed that they didn’t have one. That wasn’t such a big problem at first, but when I got to school, the troubles began.
‘At primary school I was teased a lot. They called me a freak, or worse. luckily I also had friends, who thought my tail was pretty cool. They helped me through the first years. After that, I got used to it, and so got the bullies. I learned to roll my tail around my waist so it would look like a belt. And I also found that it could come in quite handy at times. I also developed a sense for computers.
‘I finished secondary school without any problems and started studying for my big passion: computers. I learned how a computer worked, how to program, how to manage a server, how to hack. I finished my studies a half a year ago and am now, sort of, looking for a job. Actually, I’m pretty happy here living with my parents, but they think, and they’re right by the way, I should get a job now.’
‘Look no further,’ said Jay with a smile. ‘We are your new job. And you’ll have a lot of computers to go round.’
This time, he told Searain about Queen Z and his recruiting mission, Operation Uncle Sam. ‘And since you’re good with computers and things, you’ll be more than welcome in our organization,’ said Jay. ‘Have we convinced you now?’
Searain was still in doubt. She couldn’t entirely believe what Jay and his compatriots say. What if they were fooling her and she was obliviously falling for it? But then again, no one could think up a story like this!
‘Can you show me more proof?’ asked Searain. ‘Hard one to please, huh?’ said Jay. ‘Okay then. This is standard equipment for ever XPLO agent.’ He pushed the red button on his SIAB.
A flash and Jay wore his impressive armor. Searain stared at it in amazement, and so did Jack, who hadn’t received a SIAB yet in all the hurry of that morning. ‘Well, if this isn’t enough proof for you, my name is Hermann Schwanz Flasche der Zuvielsten. And it’s not.’ ‘Wow,’ said Jack. ‘Is that Martian technology too?’ ‘You bet!’ said Jay. ‘Designed by a few Martians, along with some other kinds of aliens that always give off great stuff.’
Searain could only stare. ‘Well, what do you think?’ said Jay, who turned on her again. ‘It’s… incredible!’ said Searain. ‘And, are you going with us?’ asked Jay. ‘Well, I would like to, but I will have to ask my parents first.’
‘You can,’ said suddenly a voice. They looked; the one who had spoken was Searain’s dad. He stood in the doorway of the living room, with a woman next to him. She had a tail as well, so she had to be Searain’s mother. They looked both sad and nervous. Searain got read. ‘Have you been listening?’ she asked. ‘Child, sit down. All of you, do,’ said mom. ‘It’s about time you hear the truth about this,’ and she pointed at her own tail.
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Okay, since this is sort of my week this wil also be sort of the week of XPLO... I guess that's what I'm all about. So, get ready for more tension and shocking revelations!

Chapter 26: Echo of Goloria
‘Searain, I’ve waited way too long with this,’ said Searain’s mother dramatically. ‘Many times have I been going to tell you how I, how we got our tails. But just as many times have I changed my mind. Now that I heard about the adventures you are going on, I decided…’ Jay, who was still wearing his armor, suddenly interrupted her. ‘So you did hear us! Jeez, if XPLO is still “top secret” when all this is over I’ll eat my refrigerator!’ Kandy sighed. Just when it was about to become exiting. No matter, Searain’s father took off where her wife had stopped.
‘It’s a strange story and you might not believe it. But I want to tell you that it is absolutely the truth.’ No one spoke a word, not even Jay, who had suddenly noticed he still had his SIAB on and had deactivated it.
‘You see, long ago…’ said mom. ‘Very long ago…’ dad added. ‘I was…’ said mom again… there was a long silence. Searain couldn’t bear the tension. ‘Well?’ she said.
‘…a cat,’ mom and dad said in chorus.
Everyone, Searain, Kandy, Jack and Jay, had their mouths open. Searain looked at her tail and realized what their parents had said. It sounded ridiculous, but it did explain why she had a tail. And this confession was hardly stranger than Jay’s. What a day.
Jay was amazed. True, a lot was possible with all the intergalactic technology, but he never heard of anyone who could transform a cat into a human being. Though there were certain races of aliens that had the ability to transform, this would be impossible for others. ‘So, you were a cat, and you somehow became a human?’ he asked with interest. ‘How?’
‘Have you ever heard of Goloria?’ said mom. ‘Goloria… Yes,' said Jay. 'A friend of mine, Kazul, lives there. Of course, Goloria! The place were anything is possible!’ ‘Right.’
‘What is Goloria?’ asked Jack. ‘A planet?’ ‘No, not a planet, more like a “world”. Another dimension, parallel to ours,’ said Jay. ‘It’s kind of the realm of magic. You know, dragons, fairies, elves, that kind of stuff we think does not exist.’
Searain didn’t know what to believe. Her mother’s story matched with Jay’s. This couldn’t be a joke, no one could make this up. ‘Please mom, tell me more!’ ‘Alright, I will,’ said mom.

‘Well, I used to be the cat of, hold on, this is getting stranger by the minute: A witch. It was a really long time ago, so I don’t remember much of it. The last thing I recall is falling from very high as a cat in Goloria and landing on the ground in this world as a human… Now I believe I must have been flying along on the witch’s broomstick or something, fell off and somehow came into this world and got turned into a woman. Well, at least partly,’ she finished and looked at her tail. ‘In the beginning I had trouble adapting to this whole new life, but I’ve met this wonderful man’ - she winked at her husband – ‘and now I've built up a life here.'
‘That’s strange,’ said Jay. ‘What?’ asked Kandy. ‘It’s strange how she got to this world. Traveling from and to Goloria is not easy. And yet, this story is not unlike Kazul’s,’ Jay continued mysteriously. ‘And who is Kazul then?’ ‘Kazul is a Golorian elf. A Dragon Rider, actually. She came here accidentally when he was flying through a storm on her dragon Yeooz. That dragon made an appearance in the first chapter, actually.’ ‘I wasn’t in the first chapter.’ ‘No, you weren’t. Too bad, you should have seen that dragon.’
Searain had sat down. She couldn’t think clearly. No one knew anything else to say. There was an uneasy silence. After that, Searain stood up, beckoned to a gray cat that sat on the arm of a couch and went out of the room without saying a word, followed by the cat. She could be herd walking up the stairs.
Jay wanted to follow her, but changed his mind. She had had a lot to assimilate today. Searain’s father confirmed what Jay thought: ‘Leave her alone. She wants to talk to Odin for a while.’ ‘Odin?’ ‘Her cat. She’s crazy about him.’
‘What should we do?’ asked Jay. ‘Get some rest,’ said Searain’s mother with a smile. ‘It’s late. Are you eating with us? I’m frying fish today.’

There had been more eavesdroppers this day. ‘I knew something was wrong,’ Walt Rong said to himself. After he had made sure the three weirdo’s were inside the house, he rushed to an open window. He had caught every word of what was told about XPLO.
A secret organization? he thought. I’ll stake my dog’s life on it that it’s a criminal network. The words they spoke were some kind of slang, he was sure of that.
But what came next made him even more anxious: both She-Nighns were human cats! If that was true, the “strange people from number fifteen” were even stranger than he thought. Maybe there was some black magic going on here. Or maybe this was some kind of freaky scientific experiment. Maybe the Nighns were even possessed by demons. Either way, he didn’t want these freaks in his neighborhood. And his neighborhood it was.
Rong was a rich business man. Some people suspected him from fraud, but that was never proven. Together with his dog, he sort of tyrannized the neighborhood.
‘I’ll get them to leave this place tomorrow,’ Rong said. He looked at the cats in the living room. ‘And I just know how…’

The story continues...

Chapter 27: Over the rooftops
The fish looked rather suspicious. That was Kandy’s humble opinion. But Jack had his portion without complaining. Searain, who had come down again, also seemed to love fish. That was not surprising, since she had inherited more of her mother’s cat-like traits than just the tail. But nothing compared to Jay: He swallowed fish after fish, there was no end to it. It was not a very pleasant sight, since his table manners left quite something to be desired.
‘They’re great!’ he said after leaving no trail of yet another fish. ‘Really, I love fish! Though nothing beats the good ol’ Dutch herring. But don’t get me wrong, these are delicious!’
Mrs. Nighn had her hands full. But she didn’t mind, she was happy enough to have satisfied customers.
Jay got back to business. ‘It’s late. If we are going back right now we’ll have to sleep at the base.’ ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Searain’s mother. ‘You can stay here for the night. We’ve got one more bedroom, a stretcher, and, err…’ ‘The other one can have my bed. I guess I can sleep on the couch,’ said Searain.
No sooner said than done. Jay got the bed in the extra bedroom, with Jack sleeping next to him on the stretcher. Kandy got Searain’s bed, which was not really the place to be for someone who was allergic to cats. After some chatting and watching TV, they all went to bed.

Kandy couldn’t sleep. She felt uneasy. It wasn’t due to the bed being uncomfortable, she was sure of that. She just had a strange feeling. She looked out of the window. The sky was bright, the moon in its third quarter.
For the first time she fully realized all that Jay told her. All those stars… would it really be more crowded in space than the people thought? She noticed there was a dot moving, that turned red and green by turns. Would it be a plane, or… something else? I wouldn’t have surprised her.
Searain was looking at the skies too, thinking the same thing. She couldn’t sleep either. All she could think of was all there was out there. She was trying to imagine everything she was going to do with her new team.
She realized she wasn’t going to fall asleep like this, so she stood up from the couch. One of the cats was peacefully sleeping on the couch’s arm. Searain walked to the window and stared out of it. She didn’t have a very good sight from here… Wait. The window could open. If I would stand on a chair with my head out of the window, she thought, I might see more. She did so, but was repelled by the cold. After all, it was January. She put on her coat and tried again. There, that was better. She enjoyed the fresh air now. Look, there was a small shed near her. She’d have an even better view from there…

Kandy returned from the toilet. She wanted to go to bed, but realized that would be useless since she wasn’t going to get any sleep anyway. Instead, she wanted to look out of the window to the stars, but then she realized there was a shadow behind the window…
She could hardly repress a scream. For a moment she was nailed to the ground, but she quickly pulled herself together. She was a former cop, for crying out loud! She quickly turned on the light.
The shadow behind the window suddenly became visible. It was Searain! What was she doing on the roof?!?
Kandy opened the window. ‘Searain? What are you doing there?’ ‘Just a little walking around!’ was the answer. ‘Quickly, Searain, come in.’ Searain came in. ‘Now, exactly WHAT were you doing?’ asked Kandy. Searain looked happy, in a strange, ecstatic sort of way. ‘It was great! I walked all around the whole block, on the rooftops!’ ‘You did what?’ Kandy was dazed. ‘Yeah, pretty cool huh? I always had a good hit for heights,’ said Searain. She sat down on the floor.
Kandy started to realize what was going on. ‘Oh, I see. I think this is probably another cat trait of yours.’ ‘Could be. It was amazing,’ said Searain. She looked at her tail again and smiled. For a moment Kandy could even swear she was purring. It was almost scary.
Kandy sighed. ‘Listen, Searain, I appreciate it if you had fun, but you seriously freaked me out.’ Searain suddenly shook with her head. It looked as if she was waking up. ‘Yes… I did, didn’t I? Come to think of it, yes, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.’ Searain stood up and looked down out of the window. The ground was about fifteen feet away. It looked like a terrifying fall now, but it all had seemed so… easy…
Kandy took Searain by the hand and looked in her green eyes. ‘Listen, I think you should go back to bed now. Or do you want to sleep in your own bed?’ Searain looked back. ‘No, thanks. I’ll go back downstairs.’ ‘Alright. Tomorrow we’re going to Toronto.’ ‘Yes. Bye.’
Searain left. Kandy went to bed again, but again couldn’t sleep. She was terrified Searain would be doing any more dangerous things. She was starting to like Searain after this day.
But five minutes later someone knocked on her door. ‘Kandy! Kandy!’ Searain’s voice whispered. Kandy stood up and opened the door. Searain was there. She looked panicked this time. She didn’t give Kandy time to say anything. ‘Kandy, help me! It’s Odin!’ ‘Odin?’ ‘My cat! he’s gone!’

At long last, the anwer to the oh-so-burningly-earger-making-to-know-the-answer-to question... Where is Odin?

Chapter 28: Cat-napped
‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Kandy. ‘Are you sure Odin hasn’t gone outing about like you did?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ ‘The other cats told me.’ Kandy was, again, amazed. ‘The other cats…?’
‘Yeah!’ Searain continued. ‘I went down to go to bed, and the other two cats came to me, all meowing like crazy… but I understood what they said!’ ‘What?!?’ Kandy closed her eyes and sighed. ‘So you can talk to cats. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised… then what did they say?’ ‘That Odin was taken away in a gunny bag by a tall, scary man!’ ‘That’s bad. What do you suppose we do?’ ‘I don’t know! I have no idea who it was!’
‘Ask them!’ said Kandy, pointing at the cats. ‘Okay…’ said Searain. ‘Err… Does anyone of you… know who that guy was who took Odin?’ One of the cats meowed. “What is he saying?’ asked Kandy. ‘Quiet…’ said Searain. ‘Wait. Say that again, please?’ The cat meowed again. Searain was quiet for a moment, repeating the cat’s meow in her head.
‘He says… it was the man next door!’ ‘You mean W. Rong?’ asked Kandy. ‘You know him?’ said Searain. ‘Yeah, he showed us here. He gave me the creeps.’ ‘Yep, that’s the guy. Of course, Rong! I should have known, since he really terrorizes us, he and his… oh my god…!’ said Searain. ‘His…dog, right? Hector? Oh my god!’ repeated Kandy.
‘We need to get Odin back!’ said Searain in panic. ‘Who knows what might happen to him if he…’ ‘Calm down, calm down,’ said Kandy. ‘Panicking won’t help Odin. You’ll wake up the guys. Just try to relax and think of something.’ ‘Think? We gotta act! I’m going to get him back, right now,’ Searain said. ‘What, sneak into Rong’s house now?’ asked Kandy. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea…’ But Searain had already waked to the door. ‘Fine, then don’t go. But I will. It’s my responsibility to look after Odin and I love him,’ Searain said stubbornly. ‘Well, in that case I’m coming with you. Wait.’ Kandy took her SIAB belt from the pedestal cupboard and put it on. ‘There. No dog’s gonna bite me now.’

Kandy and Searain had jumped over the fence that enclosed W. Rong’s estate. They were hiding behind a shrub in Rong’s yard. It was a large yard which could be beautiful if it wouldn’t be kept up so badly. The lawn was far too tall and weed was growing everywhere. In the middle of the yard was Rong’s stately villa. It looked creepy in the clear, cold night and the light of the almost full moon.
‘Do you know where his bedroom is?’ asked Kandy. ‘No,’ was the reply. ‘No one besides him ever seems to get into his house.’ ‘Right. And when someone does, he never comes out, right?’ said Kandy in jest. Searain didn’t see the humor of it. She knew better.
Kandy decided to get to business. ‘So, where do you think the guy hid Odin?’ ‘Probably in the basement. But then again, it’s such a big house. He could be anywhere.’ ‘Well, first thing’s first. We need to get inside,’ said Kandy. ‘We should be pretty safe looking for Odin as long as we don’t wake up Rong, so we’d better play it quiet and sneaky.’
‘To get in, eehm…’ Searain said. ‘That’s gonna be a hard one. Rong is rather paranoid. Although… Bingo! We can use the back door. That door is viewable from my bedroom, so I know where it is. I never see Rong locking it, but even if it is locked we can get in easily.’ ‘How?’ asked Kandy. Searain smiled. ‘I have the key. He once dropped it on the street. My parents picked it up, but they had a copy made before returning it. Just in case, you know. My parents don’t trust Rong for a bit and they’re right, too. The key’s at home, I’ll get it. Wait here.’
Searain ran off. She came back a minute or two later. ‘Here’s the key.’ ‘Well then, let’s go.’ Searain showed the way to the back door.
‘Okay, here we go…’ Searain carefully put the key in the keyhole. She turned it around. Then she carefully opened the door. Too bad the door squeaked terribly. The noise pierced them to the very marrow. Searain decided to open it no further than necessary. They squeezed through. Kandy carefully closed the door again after putting the key out of the keyhole
‘Ow. I hope that noise didn’t wake Rong up,’ whispered Kandy. ‘Me neither,’ Searain whispered back. ‘Now where do we start searching?’ asked Kandy. ‘I don’t know. Odin is not here, I would have heard or smelt him.’ ‘Smelt?’ ‘Yes, smelt. If you love your pet as much as I love my Odin, you’ll recognize his scent.’ Kandy decided not to go into the subject.
Silently, they started their search around the big villa. It was full of expensive or at least expensive-looking stuff. Everything gave the impression Rong had a lot of money to spend, because what does a bachelor with only a dog need an antique china dinner-set or a collection of clocks? He probably had nothing better to do than spoiling himself. Still, the house was overall badly kept up.
They looked in every room, whispering and sneaking, sometimes gasping when one of them stepped on a creaking floor. Because the least thing the wanted now is Rong to wake up.

Unfortunately, Rong was very much awake.