A Matter of Trust, part 2

Written by Zelda

 

                Gretchen, Lindsay, Quacker Jax and Destiny stood over Zelda, shaking their heads.

                "Man, that's nasty...." Lindsay said.

                "I wouldn't be too hard on Duke though..." Destiny started. "I was talkin' to Olivia today. The guy just isn't himself anymore." QJ grumbled and walked off. Lindsay walked over to Diamond, who was rummaging through Zelda's chest, now moved into the infirmary.

                "Hmmm, we're running low on a bit of this stuff, I'll have to go get some more." the lion muttered into the chest.

                "Mind if I come along?" Gretchen volunteered.

                "Of course not, I can always use an extra pair of hands."

                "Coo, then I'll come too!" Lindsay said.

                "Great! The sooner we start, the better." Diamond said, leading the two out.

 

                The blinding Anaheim sun beat down on the three as they prodded around some brush, a few hundred feet from the highway.

                "Now what do you say they look like again?" Gretchen called. Diamond poked her head out of the foliage.

                "You'll know 'em when ya see 'em. Prickly pears are flat cactus leaves with little red fruits on top."

                "Hey I think I found one!" Lindsay called.

                "A cactus?" Asked Diamond.

                "NO A SQUIRREL!" she yelled. The tiny creature leapt out of the bushes a few feet away and ran. Lindsay yanked out her puck launcher and fired at it.

                "Roast you demon mammal! You were probably spying on us weren't you?! Gonna take our location back to your secret squirrel headquarters and come back with a whole army of you! You little---" Her battle cries were broken off when Gretchen came flying through, and kicked the gun away angrily. The launcher landed on a rock and exploded. Lindsay huffed and went back to her work. Gretch rummaged slowly away from the others. Her back was starting to hurt. She sat down underneath a big, scraggly old willow tree to rest, when she heard something moving up among the leaves...

 

                "This time I really got one!" Lindsay yelled over to Diamond. The lion bounded up to her and grinned.

                "Yup, that's it. Gimme a second and we can pick this fruit." Diamond pulled a thick leaf off of a nearby bush, wrapped it around a fruit, and used it to rub all of the little spines off. She did this to all five that were on the plant, and picked them off. "This should be enough to last us for a while." Diamond said, as Lindsay placed the fruit along with several other plants and roots in a basket she carried. "I think we're done here."

                "Good.. but where's Gretch?" Lindsay asked.

                "Right here!" Gretchen called, running up to them.

                "Where were you?" asked Diamond.

                "Just resting, my back was killing me!" she said.

                "Well come on, we should be getting back." Lindsay stood up.

                "We don't think you're going anywhere...." a voice hissed behind them. The three spun around to face Wraith, appearing in a puff of smoke. Diamond roared at him angrily.

                "Whadda ya mean 'we'?" Lindsay growled. Suddenly, five hunter drones appeared in a ring around them. Lindsay smacked herself on the side of her bill.

                "Let's rock Ducks!" Gretchen yelled. She flew forward and kicked one of the drones under the chin. The machine toppled over, Gretchen landing on top of it. She looked back to see Lindsay and Diamond fighting, while Wraith watched in amusement. Suddenly, Gretchen was thrown off balance and rolled on the ground. The drone got up and drew its laser gun.

 

                Lindsay ducked and rolled to avoid the heat and debris from the explosion. That was one down. Another one was coming towards her. Lindsay looked over to see Diamond tearing into a third drone, that one would be down soon as well. Lindsay fumbled around in her pouch for a puck. Catching hold of one, she drew it out, pressed the activation button, and quickly hurled it away. Dirt flew up in a powdery cloud as the puck exploded. Lindsay looked up to see the drone had lost a leg. Lindsay yelped and ran, laser blasts landing inches behind her, the drone firing constantly as it lay on its side. She handsprung cleverly up off the ground, landing close behind the downed drone and kicking its head off. The robot collapsed. Linds stood, dusted off her hands, and looked around. Diamond ran up to her.

                "Where's Wraith?" she asked.

                "I dunno... looks like the slimeball chickened out." Lindsay snorted.

                "There's still one drone left, over there!" Diamond suddenly pointed.

                "Well then let's not keep it waiting." Lindsay growled, and took off. She found another puck and threw it, this time having better aim and destroying it on the shot. Diamond stepped on something soft, and withdrew with a gasp when she heard it yelp.

                "Gretchen?" she asked incredulously. Gretchen was curled up into a little ball, hidden underneath a bush. Lindsay kneeled down beside Diamond.

                "Gretch, you okay?" she asked, alarmed.

                "Is..... is it gone?" she whimpered.

                "Yeah we trashed it. What's wrong Gretch?" Lindsay pressed. Gretchen uncoiled herself and stood up, eyes wide with fear. She walked beside the smoldering wreckage, leaving Lindsay and Diamond standing by the bush. She looked over the scrap heap.

                "Gretchen what is it?" Diamond asked. Gretchen continued to look, until there it was! She gasped and suddenly collapsed. Lindsay ran forward and caught her just before she hit the ground.

                "What the monkeys is wrong?!" she yelled at her.

                "The gun! G...get it away!" Gretchen sobbed in sheer terror, trying to crawl away. Lindsay grabbed her shoulders and stood her up, holding her firmly.

                "Gretchen RELAX!" Lindsay yelled, shaking her. Gretchen stopped, still trying to hold down her sobs.

                "It's okay Gretch.... we're gonna go back now." Diamond eased. They walked her carefully back to the Duckcycle they had brought, and sat her down. Diamond sniffed the air suspiciously.

                "Something's very wrong here..." she said.

 

                Wildwing held Gretchen's hand, trying to comfort her as she sat on the Medicom table, still whimpering.

                "I was soooo scared Wing... I couldn't think and I couldn't move and I...."

                "Shhhh, it's okay Gretch, just ease up..." Wing pleaded. The team was milling around as Lindsay and Diamond told of the incident. Tanya shook her head.

                "What I see is a link here." Grin said. "Zelda suddenly becomes terrified of Duke, Gretchen who simply destroyed guns now is flat out horrified of them." Tanya went over to the Medicom and started running some tests.

                "What is it Tanya?" asked Quacker Jax.

                "I'm just doing a test." she said. "I have a hunch." She tore the data feedout paper from the Medicom console, and scanned it over. She took in a sharp breath, scratched her head, and read over again.

                "Anything?" Wildwing asked.

                "A lot of something." Tanya replied. "I did a brain wave scan.... there's something really weird going on with Zelda." Diamond hopped up onto her shoulder to read. "There's are two special sections of the brain devoted especially to fear." She leaned down and pressed a few buttons on the console. A color scan of Zelda's brain came out. Diamond frowned.

                "So what does all this mean?"

                "See that red area there? Normally it's supposed to be concentrated to these two little areas, but the influence those spots have has spread out, affecting her rational thinking and perception."

                "So she's not quite right in the head, basically?" Nosedive asked.

                "I think so..." Tanya said.

                "Well then why is she afraid of only me and nobody else?" Duke asked, a little frustrated. At that moment, Zelda sniffed and raised her head, fading back into consciousness. Northstar reared up beside her as she opened her eyes and whined.

                "Shhh, it's okay Zel." he said, drawing a wing over her warmly. She wheezed and clicked her jaws, obviously not liking the leather restraint. Wildwing reached down carefully and unbound the strap around her jaws gently. Zelda snorted dully and licked her teeth, yawning. Diamond smiled. Zelda leaned up and sniffed the air. Suddenly she broke off and whined.

                "It's okay, easy Zel..." Grin insisted. Zelda snapped her jaws closed and tried to get up. Finding the leather straps in her way, she leaned over and started gnawing weakly at one of them.

                "She can smell me..." Duke sighed from the corner of the room. Hearing Duke's voice, Zelda whined and chewed harder. Wildwing gently took her head and tried to wrap it again. She snarled and bit down on his hand. She squeezed her jaws hard, but Wildwing barely felt the pain of her teeth. He wrapped the strap around and let her head go. The dragon sighed in defeat and fell back, whining and struggling. Gretchen, who looked on, sighed and lay down on her bed.

                "So what are you saying about this brainwave thing Tanya? Is that what's causing all this trouble?" Silver asked.

                "It's possible..." Tanya started, digging back into the data feedout. "But I'll need to do a few more scans.... I don't know what could cause something like this." Gretchen sighed and lay her head down. Wildwing turned on her with a sudden concern.

                "You okay?" he asked, sitting on her bed.

                "I dunno.... I feel so tired..." she sighed. Tanya sat back down at the Medicom, printing out another sheet of paper. She tore it out and looked.

                "She's got the same thing!" she said, alarmed. The team stared at her. "It's the exact same thing... with those two spots.... it's the exact same picture." she said, still amazed.

                "Which means Grin is right, these things are linked." Northstar said.

                "But how?" Lindsay asked.

                "Yeah, we were with Gretch the whole time. Except...." Diamond began.

                "Except when she said she went to sit under that willow tree!" Diamond started.

 

                Silver could sense it even has he landed among the scraggly old branches of the dried out willow. He could smell it. The whole place reeked.

                "Ugh. We should have seen it coming." Diamond sighed, digging in the soil a bit under the tree. Northstar landed on Duke's shoulder and patted him reassuringly, as the team looked at the three leaders, confused.

                "Saurians." Silver mouthed. Duke frowned.

                "But how?" Tanya wondered.

                "That doesn't matter now." Wing said. "What matters is how we get this mess undone."

 

                The Aerowing circled high over Anaheim, the gray city stretched widely below. Tanya sat at the computer console, tapping away, while Wildwing was scanning the skyline for any signs of the Raptor. Suddenly, he pointed.

                "Look! Down there!" Shockingly enough, there was Dragaunus, in broad daylight, standing in the middle of a local baseball field and waving his arms around.

                "This is most definately a trap." Tanya said.

                "There's nothing else Saurian in the area for miles. Unless he teleports something in, Big Red's alone." Wildwing reported.

                "Well I'm takin' her down." Duke said, and started to land.

 

                Grin looked cautiously with a wisdom beyond his years at Dragaunus. Something was up and he knew it. Something that made him very uncomfortable. Grin didn't like being in situations that were unpredictable. He liked to see everything, know his options, and base his actions upon that. Traps were no great favorite of his. He stayed on the flank of the team as they stood in front of the Aerowing, about 20 feet away from Dragaunus.

                "What, think you could have set up a beacon Draggy?" Mallory asked. "We would have found you a few seconds faster." Dragaunus waved his hand.

                "Enough with the small talk. You and I both know the reason why you're here, so go ahead, on with the interrogation."

                "Very well, what have you done to Zelda and Gretchen?" Wildwing demanded in a usual tone.

                "Oh well you see, it was such a wonderfully devised plan." Dragaunus smiled. "Here was this dragon. I intended to strike you, Wildwing, down first, but when the incident with her and Duke developed, well I couldn't resist." Duke growled. "You see I had it all planned out, it would work so nicely until you tried to detect her brain patterns, and who knows how long it would take you to figure that out!?" He pressed a button on his teleporter, and the Ducks immediately whipped out their launchers. However, nothing appeared but a small gray satellite dish, a few feet in front of Dragaunus. "This device is right now controlling the brain wave patterns of your two dear friends. All it took was a simple harmless injection of magnetite solution that went strait to the brain." he laughed. Wildwing frowned.

                "Magnets can be used to sway brain activities when used properly..." Tanya started.

                "That's correct." Dragaunus praised. "Just the right amount of solution and the right fluctuation in the earth's magnetic waves could send anyone affected into sheer paranoia, based on the the fears that were in their mind at the time that they were affected with the magnetite solution." Duke sighed. That explained a lot of things. Northstar frowned. He didn't like the Saurian messing around with his friend's head. He didn't like it at all. "But you see the solution couldn't hold stable forever. When it decomposes in a few days or so, the victim will become hopelessly lost in paranoia, and eventually die of their fears." Dragaunus went on. "You see, all that you really have to do the cure your friends is to destroy this dish here." Duke immediatly cocked his launcher, when Silver yanked his arms down.

                "You're trusting that Saurian!?" he asked. Tanya was thinking.

                "No! If that dish is controlling the brain patterns of Zelda and Gretch, we can't destroy it! We'll have to reprogram it." Tanya yelled.

                "But you'll find that's impossible my friends. I invite you to try, but your quest is hopeless." Dragaunus said. He stepped several yards away from the dish, allowing the Ducks to advance. Wildwing and Mallory stood in front of the rest of the team, launchers raised for protection, while Tanya kneeled down and started to fiddle with the dish.

                "We can't destroy it, or Gretchen and Zel might go braindead!" she muttered, fiddling around with the wires. She yanked and pulled frantically, trying to detangle the mess. Suddenly she screamed and leapt back, white hot sparks flying from the machine, stinging her eyes. She landed on the ground and rolled back, Quacker Jax quickly beside her. She rubbed her eyes and looked up to see Dragaunus howling with laughter.

                "You idiots, you shouldn't have touched THAT wire." he laughed. "Like I said, there's no way to reprogram it."

                "We'll see about that." Lindsay huffed.

                "Yeah." Wildwing caught on. "Team, take that dish and put it in the Migrator! We're getting out of here!"

                "Oh but I'm so sorry Ducks." Draganus said, raising his wrist and clicking on his teleporter. Suddenly, about 15 drones surrounded the team. "I thought you learned as little babies that it's not nice to steal anybody else's toys!" he roared. "Get them!" The drones wheeled around and fired. Wildwing gasped and ducked as he felt about three lasers go ricocheting off of his back. He rolled up and fired, knocking a drone to pieces. He heard someone yelling his name, and spun quickly back again. The drones were trying to destroy the dish! The Ducks had encircled it in a wall about two deep, but weren't about to take a laser to the head. Wildwing was to turn and help, when he felt a sharp blow the the back of his legs. He crumpled and fell, Dragaunus whipping his tail away behind him.

 

                Northstar backed closer against the dish. He never knew the hunter drones to be so quick! Dragaunus had excellent technology on his side. Northstar advanced from the dish. He had to give the others room. As he bounded out among the running, firing, clicking machines, he realized he had been underestimating Dragaunus for a long time. It was a bad mistake. He'd correct it here and now. He caught his claws on a drone and pulled himself onto it's leg, dragging the machine to the ground.

 

                Grin hoisted up the dish. The Ducks were getting tangled in the battle. There wasn't any time to waste, he had to get this into the Migrator. He felt lasers slitting the ground near him and ran. Tanya was covering for him as he ran up the Migrator's ramp and plunked the dish down carefully.

                "Wildwing, uh.. we're in the Migrator and we've got the dish! Let's get outta here!" Tanya yelled into her com, as Silver flew up into the vehicle behind her. There was no response. Silver looked out of the hatch again. Something was wrong.

 

                Quacker Jax crouched behind the thickly-treaded back right tire of the Migrator, ducking as debris from a hunter drone flew past him. He came out of cover and dusted his hands off.

                "One down..." he started. Suddenly, he gasped as Wildwing was thrown past him, landing on his stomach a few feet away from the mage. Jax looked up to see Dragaunus charging, two hunter drones on his flanks. Wildwing groaned and reached up to rub his head behind him. QJ took a few steps back until his leader was at his side. By now, he had raised his hands and was already activating his plan. Dragaunus was still about fifteen yards away, flying at him with the two drones just behind. Suddenly, the three disappeared as a huge wall of flames, about ten feet tall, raced up out of the ground just inches before them. The two drones came howling through, the flames eating at their wires. Dragaunus had not advanced. The drones still charged like demons possessed, skewed with fire and sparks. The mage yelped and raised his hands again quickly, but a duo of explosions brought him a sigh of relief before he could act. Mallory, blowing the smoke from her launcher, ran over to QJ's side.

                "I owe ya one." the duck said, wiping his brow.

                "I'll remember that." Mallory grinned and shouldered her gun. Wildwing slowly rose from his crouching position and breathed heavily. "You okay?" Mal asked.

                "I'll be fine." He assured, already moving off. "Let's get out of here while we still can."

 

                The rubber gloves were almost as thick as tire rubber, or so it seemed to Tanya. The gloves made her hands clammy and itchy as she reached into the mess of wires again.

                "So you think you got this thing figured out, huh?" Lindsay asked, standing with the rest of the team in the infirmary behind her.

                "Yeah... that one wire that shocked me should lead to the control panel of this thing. I just have to find the wire and figure out the controls." Tanya said, talking into the satellite. She had never worked with gloves this thick. She needed the agility of her hands, the ability to maneuver as deftly as she could with the mess before her. But these gloves would prove a challenge. QJ had a hand on her shoulder, watching intently. Tanya cocked her head. She had touched a white wire and felt a little jolt, even with all that rubber. "Found it." she grinned, and pulled it out of the mess. At the end of it was a small green CPU chip, about the size of Tanya's hand. She sighed. "Now the hard part starts. There's no "on" or "off" switch to this thing.... I'll have to figure out which connection in this thing is responsible for the amount of magnet waves this thing puts out."

                "How long is that going to take?" Wildwing asked, concerned. Tanya shook her head.

 

                Lindsay rapped her hands impatiently on the control panel of the Medicom, looking back and forth at the real-time brain monitors on the screen. The two pictures seemed like big ovular lava lamps. The two brains were colored like an oil stain on pavement. But slowly, as she watched, the red color concentrated in the center of the brains was slowly spreading out. Lindsay was no rocket scientist, that was Tanya's specialty. But she did know the two were getting worse by the second. She looked behind her at poor Gretchen, lying on the bed and looking as pale as a sheet. Wildwing held her hand, stroking it gently. He didn't care if she could feel it or not at this point. His hopes were with Tanya now.

 

                Duke sat uncomfortably on a padded swivel chair, staring at Tanya as she worked with her back to him. He watched her with a distant kind of helplessness, having nothing to do and knowing of the situation at hand. Tanya worked silently, diligently, and quickly. She had the chip under and microscope, focusing with one hand and flipping through the pages of a computer manual with another hand.

                "How's it going 'eh?" he asked, almost afraid for a moment to break the silence.

                "Actually pretty good." Tanya replied confidently. "The chip itself is Saurian technology, but it's pretty similar to the stuff in my book." she picked the chip up and inserted it into her Omnitool. "I've got the programming blocker off. That's what shocked me at first. Now all I have to do is get into the software itself and reverse the chip's programming."

                "Man Tanya, you're a genius at this." Duke sighed. "None of this mess would have happened if it weren't for me."

                "Don't kid yourself Duke, Draggy had this planned out all along." Tanya shook her head, tapping at her wrist. "If it wasn't you, it woulda been someone else." Duke shook his head and slowly walked out of the lab. Tanya looked after him as he went, and then went back to her work.

 

                Inside her head, she was thinking about Duke. Tanya knew that she had to concentrate on the task at hand, had to keep thinking about all those wires and circuits. But she kept wandering. She hated it. Tanya squinted her eyes down the lens of her microscope as she was again prodding at the chip. Although it was a moderately sized piece of technology, the wiring was incredibly intricate. She had never worked with a piece of Saurian technology this complex before. Perhaps Draggy had gotten it from Viper. Tanya wouldn't have been surprised. As she lowered a small laser to the chip, her mind began to wander again. Tanya was hoping that Duke didn't think this was all his fault. He had never been one for feeling guilty...

 

To be continued....