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“What do you mean no one is returning your calls from the DAM? Have you tried Roosevelt’s direct line?” Pound asked though he already knew the answer.
“Yes, I tried Roosevelt’s office, and there was no answer. I left a message, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that he is avoiding us,” Crush explained. “In Director Roosevelt’s short tenure, we’ve never seen eye to eye. Dr. Tatum was able to manage his personality more effectively than I ever could. He is an oddball in my book, and he has never forgiven the disappearance of Sherry Lance and the death of Phil Potts. Since we haven’t been around to answer for ourselves for several weeks, we may have to go directly to D.C. to straighten things out with him first.” Pound returned a sideways glance.
“That’s stupid. Why would he hold back on us for doing our jobs? I mean, we were working on assignment, and sometimes it’s difficult to communicate with earth from another world. ‘Hello, could you please connect me to my boss. What? You mean the land line between worlds has been snipped somehow?’” Pound said with a roll of his eyes. Crush laughed at his partner’s over-the-top drama and did not take it personal; he knew Pound was easily frustrated with bureaucrats. Crush felt the same way himself, and that was why he had been more than happy to step down from being the manager of the Baltimore field office so many years ago. The exact same reason. Intractability on their part would not relieve their condition though, and both Crush and Pound knew it in their hearts. They would have to make the trip to Washington to see that arrogant pinhead and explain their “absence” face-to-face. Mayor Hunter reclined in his squeaky desk chair and listened to their conversation, and when they had finished, he offered up a suggestion.
“How about you fellows check your bank accounts and see if any deposits were made while you were away? At least then you would know if you’re still on payroll.” They looked at him questioningly and then at each other as they thought about, and they decided that what he said made sense. Both Crush and Pound dealt with the larger nationwide financial institutions, and Mayor Hunter told them he could drive them over once his own office closed at 4:00 pm. That would leave them an hour to check their payroll situation out first before they made the long five-hour drive up I-95. Mayor Hunter made another suggestion to Pound and pointed across the street to the consignment shop.
“You’ll want to get some pants there before we leave, buddy,” he advised Pound with a devious grin. Pound signaled that Hunter was number 1 as he walked out the door in his kilt. “You got a real fine partner there, Crush,” the mayor said with a laugh.
At 3:45 pm, Mayor Hunter hung up the ‘Closed’ sign on the office window, and he locked the door behind as they left. They drove the four miles to the nearest branch of their bank, and Crush and Pound entered with their driver’s licenses for identification. It was lucky for them that they still had identification after the many miles trudging through sewers and tunnels, but they kept the licenses safe since they knew that they would need them when they traveled back to earth. The teller looked up their information and confirmed their identification through the last four digits of their social security numbers, and to their satisfaction, they had both been paid the correct amounts on time. Content with their employment status, Crush and Pound went back out and gave the good news to Mayor Hunter.
“Sometimes you have to give us politicians the benefit of the doubt,” the mayor said as he backed out of the parking space. “I suppose it would have sucked royally to have fought a dragon and freed all of those people without due compensation.”
“No, I guess it would have been worth getting fired over,” Crush explained. “Hell, I’ve been working long enough to get one heck of a retirement anyways, so the joke would have been on the department. They’re going to pay me one way or the other.”
“Speak for yourself,” Pound countered. “I’ve got a long way to go to retirement.”
“Did either of you make a withdrawal while you were inside?” the mayor asked as he waited in the parking lot. Crush and Pound looked at each other and shook their heads. The thought had not even crossed their minds. “That’s all right. You can add another bank stop to the list of accomplishments for the last adventure,” he said as he pulled back into the empty space. The two agents went back inside and withdrew enough cash to get back to Washington, D.C. They had lost their company credit cards somewhere along the way though, possibly in a giant toilet or on a queen ant’s bedroom floor, neither one could really say, and they would have to rely on the mayor to get a rental car for the drive back.
“You boys really owe me,” the mayor said as he folded up the rental car receipt and put it into his pocket.
“Don’t worry, Hunter. We’ll pay you back if you fax a copy of the receipt,” Crush declared with confidence.
“I suppose you’ll fax a copy of the greenbacks to me in twenties, huh?” the mayor jested as if that were even possible, and Crush slapped him on the back as he laughed along with him.
“Don’t forget we work for the Secret Service. Counterfeit twenties are the easiest illegal tender to catch,” Crush answered. “I’ll fax it back in fifties.”
“How about you just turn in the receipts yourself and pay me back when you return,” the mayor said as he gave the receipt to Crush.
“Don’t forget about the refugees, Mayor,” Pound added.
“I won’t if you won’t,” Mayor Hunter responded. “They’re hungry now as it is. If they don’t get some help fast, they’ll find their own way back into this world. I can’t say that would be the worst thing to happen, but it would be less of a shock on society if we could place them back home one at a time. The most difficult part will be the handling of the princess, her bodyguard, the alien monkey, and that magical item that came back from the other world. None of those things belong in this world, and I have a feeling that trouble is going to come from that child of stone in particular. Foreign magic may have some unruly effects on this planet before it’s all over. Let’s hope no dragons come of it because that would be a shock that society would not absorb readily.”
“Nice speech. I can see how you got elected mayor,” Crush replied. “Don’t worry so much. We will be back,” he said with a guilty nod, and they drove off in the compact car with their identification and enough money to buy dinner and gas on the road. They drove for a little while, and when they reached I-85 in Greensboro, Crush looked over at Pound and turned down the radio. “Do you want to go to the DAM office in Baltimore first before we crash the director’s party?”
“Yeah, we might as well see if Seth is hanging around,” Pound replied.
“And Dr. Tatum?” Crush said to him, knowing that was a sore subject.
“Sure,” he replied, and there was the hoped-for sarcasm in his voice. He was still holding his grudge against her for what had happened to Sherry Lance, even though he realized that nothing short of a miracle would have changed the outcome against Drakthos. Still he was angry with Dr. Tatum, and as far as he was concerned, she would have to learn to live with his resentment towards her. In his mind, that was the baggage she signed up for by becoming the manager. “Well, anyways, I’m looking forward to beating Seth in poker and punching him in the arm when he can’t pay up.”
“You avoid talking about her as if the Doc isn’t a real person, but an object,” Crush added. Pound stuck his lower lip out; he always did that when he was thinking. His brow wrinkled as he thought about Crush’s comment in profound concentration before answering. Crush could almost see the steam boiling out of his ears.
“That sums it up quite well,” Pound replied. “A real pinch-me-and-I-am-awake person would have given a crap whether Sherry was ready for an assignment before actually placing her on one. An object, like Dr. Tatum for instance, would have scrolled down the list to the next available agent and sent them to their doom. With a company credit card to pay for the ticket to Hades, of course.”
&n
bsp; “Of course,” Crush said, letting his friend vent for a while. He knew he would be all right if he let the high pressure steam that had built up over time escape through his mouth. It was cathartic. Also, it would keep his head from exploding.
“If Dr. Tatum were any kind of a real person, she would have taken into account that Sherry was as green as an agent could be.”
“Amen to that.”
“She had no right sending her on that suicide mission,” Pound said with a scowl.
“Preach it,” Crush nodded.
“If I had been there with no other agents to pick from except Sherry, who was still in training, I would have taken the assignment myself,” Pound said with the last bit of his frustration deflating like an empty balloon.
“I know it, but isn’t that what Dr. Tatum did? Didn’t she take the assignment, and Sherry tagged along as part of her training?” Crush carefully probed. Pound rested his right elbow on the interior of the passenger door and laid his hand across his forehead in exasperation.
“Yeah,” Pound acknowledged with a calm voice. Apparently, his head would not explode in the front seat of the rental car. “It just isn’t fair.” There was quiet in the car for a few awkward moments, and Crush leaned back in the seat with one hand on the steering wheel as he drove.
“I miss her, too. You know, she was tougher than I suspected. The way Sherry handled the Staff of Helios, it was as if she was meant to defeat Drakthos, and all of the rest of us were just along for the show,” Crush reminded his friend. Pound turned his gaze to Crush for a second, and he saw that Crush was not the enemy. He understood what his friend was telling him without the words: maybe, possibly, hopefully . . . Dr. Tatum was not the enemy either. Sherry’s disappearance was honestly not Dr. Tatum’s fault. It was a simple matter of fate that the young agent had been swept up into, and if history repeated itself over and over again, the outcome could not have been changed. All of their travels through time and space had taught him one very important truth: history does not appreciate being messed with. “Dr. Tatum and Seth are all we have left at the DAM, and I think of all of you as family,” he added as he turned on the radio to the local ‘70’s classic rock station. Crush hoped that he had given his friend a little morsel to chew on before they reached the office. The last thing they needed now was to turn on each other when so many people needed help at Faraway Mountain.
After cooling down to a couple of songs, Pound turned the radio down a couple of notches.
“Didn’t you say that you tried the Baltimore office number several times, and no one answered?” Pound asked, and Crush nodded.
“That’s right, just the answering machine. I’m a little worried to say the least,” Crush said, and the doubt came through in his voice. “Maybe they went looking for us.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that. If the director wouldn’t answer his phone either, then Roosevelt has sent them on a case himself. Or fired them,” Pound suggested aloud.
“We’re going to Baltimore first then. Technically, we are required to check in from the last assignment, and it would be wise to follow the rules,” Crush replied. “Besides, we need to turn in the receipts so we can get Mayor Hunter’s money back.”