Operation: Shaboom: Summertime blues

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Mark goes to check in with Amanda, and is rather horrified with what he finds.


"'You can't use the car, 'cuz you didn't work a lick,'" Mark sang softly to himself, literally dancing down the street to Joe's Garage. A pair of sixteen year-olds giggled and looked away as he passed, so he winked at them, offered them a "Yo" and continued down his path. He had to admit that this was the best undercover work they'd yet done.

"Hey, Pops," he greeted his father as he entered. The old man waved back at him and directed him to the waiting room, he'd be done soon. So Mark continued his dance, and spotting Amanda waiting, too, gracefully plopped down to her.

"Hi, Flash," she said with a smile, laying aside the magazine she'd been flipping through. Her accent held the midwestern twang she'd adopted as 'Mandy MacDonald', and the blue scarf she had tied around her neck matched her skirt and bobby socks. "Here to see your Dad?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied pleasantly. "I have an 'audition' across town in an hour and he's taking me." To the trained ear, there was some self-deprecating humor behind the word "audition." "How's your Pop?"

"Working too hard, but that's pretty much normal for him." Amanda laughed a little. "Mom sent me over to bring him home for dinner - she says he'll listen to me. And you have an audition? That's so exciting!" She gave him an eager look. "Are you nervous? I'd be terrified, making a show of myself like that."

Mark paused before replying. He didn't see anyone else in the lobby, yet she was keeping to her cover to a tee. "Well, you know. It's a bigger gig, a statewide dance show, so I guess. But everyone says I'm an ace, so we'll see. It ain't that bad, you know. I bet you dance real swell."

A blush touched her cheeks, and she giggled. "Oh, you. You always were such a flirt, even back in elementary school. Tell you what, you get this audition, and maybe I'll come see you in the show." She winked a little at him. "Maybe we could have a dance and you can see what I can do."

"You're just the bee's knees, aren't you?" Mark grinned, glancing around inconspicuously. No one was around, so he sighed and slumped in his seat. "Man, I can't wait ta get back to New York."

She frowned a little. "You were in New York? You didn't tell me that. Was it another dance show?" She shook her head. "I can't imagine going to such a big city - you must think I'm such a homebody."

"I . . . what?" Were they being watched? She'd have warned him, he thought, instead of just going on. Maybe someone had her so scared that she wouldn't slip. He bit his lip worryingly. "Um, never you mind. I was just daydreaming."

"You'd really want to leave here? For somewhere like New York, with all the crime and the traffic and everything?" She was almost pouting at the thought. "I guess if it was good for your career. But I'd miss you. You've always been so good at making me laugh." Then the door opened, and John MacDonald stepped out, limping slightly from the wound he'd received in the war. "Hi, Daddy!" she exclaimed, bouncing out of her seat in a swish of petticoats. She put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Mom sent me over to bring you home for dinner, if you want to eat with us?" She batted her eyelashes at him playfully.

"Of course, sweetheart. How could I say no to this face?" He pinched her cheek a little, and nodded at Mark. "Your pop should be out in a minute, son. He said something about an audition?"

"Uh, yeah. Just a . . . thing." Mark got up from his seat slowly, raising an eyebrow at Amanda, a silent question. "Sorry, I'm just a little nervous. I'll see you around, Mandy." Oh, snap. He needed to find Remy. Now.

"Bye, Flash! Good luck!" Mandy gave him a thumbs up. "I'll be rooting for you!"

Mark fled.

~*~

Then he runs to Remy to alert him of the bad news.

There weren't many places where a man like Remy would hide. And Mark knew him well enough that he found him at the first place he looked. It must have looked very odd for a local celebrity to burst into the local dive bar, but this was an emergency. "Rem . . . er, Mr. Ludlow! I need to, er, 'buy volcano insurance.' You were right, we are overdue for a volcano."

Remy paused with the bourbon halfway to his mouth, at the same point glad for the distraction from his own job and dreading the fact that anything Mark was likely to bring him was bad news. He knocked back what was remaining in the glass and set it down.

"I've got a whole range of geographic insurance plans available. Sit down." Remy motioned and lit a cigarette. One advantage of being back in time was that he could at least smoke in the damn bars still.

Mark sat down next to Remy and grabbed one of his cigarettes. "It's Amanda," he said quietly. "She's way too into this. Like, she's forgetting she's Amanda and just is goin' as Mandy."

"Dat's not good." Remy waved at Mabel at the bar. She came around with another round of drinks set before the displaced Cajun and Mark before speaking again. "You sure 'bout dis? 'manda has faced some big league psychics before. She's fought dem off."

"She totally didn't respond." Mark blew out a puff of smoke and tapped the cigarette over the ash tray. His eyes were locked on the falling ashes. "Like, she didn't have any idea what I was talkin' about. And we were by ourselves, no one else to keep up cover around. I said I couldn't wait ta go home, and she was totally lost."

"You been having moments?" Remy said quietly. "I blacked out yesterday. Only for a few minutes, but during it, I must have still been talking since dey signed up. I don't have de slightest clue what dese contracts mean."

"Actually, now that you mention it, I don't remember yesterday's taping at all. I remember saying hi to Ellen, and then next thing I know we've wrapped." More ashes fell. "Have you talked to anyone else?"

"No one has mentioned it yet." Remy shook his head. "Might be dey don't register it yet. I don't know. Maybe dese identities aren't just cover stories. None of de people in dis place have any memory of anything of dere past life. Dey might not have a past life. Or if dey do, dey can't remember it."

Mark sighed and stubbed his cigarette into the ash tray. He immediately went for another. "I fuckin' hated Pleasantville. We oughtta go find everyone. But if this is some kinda mind controller, what would they want to do by throwin' us into the middle of Maybury?"

"I think dat it has something to wit' de nuclear warheads in de base. Steal dem here where it is real, and no one would know dat you have de materials active." Remy shook his head. "I just don't understand de rest of de effort. If dey going to take dem, take dem. Why de fiction?"

"Would they even be useful out of here? Like, when we pass the limits that fuckin' transistor turns back to my iPod. Would the missiles still be real?" Mark needed something stronger. He ordered a gin and tonic and quickly downed half of it.

"I don't know. But what else could dis town possibly have of value? Dey not harvesting de people... dere's no motive here, other den personal. Maybe dis town pissed someone off enough to shove dem back here, or use dis to hide something?" Remy knew he was flailing about at this point.

"I wonder if a serial killer came through here fifty years ago so someone's tryin' to return this place to what it was before that." Mark paused, then finished the rest of his drink and took a large puff from his cigarette. "Wow, that was morbid. I'm spending too much time around you."

"It's a bad habit." Remy agreed. "Look, next time I'm out, I'm going to take a look. Maybe there was some kind of catastrophe dat hit dis place."

"OK. I'ma go snoop around a bit, too. Maybe my 'parents' know something. But I gotta run now." Cigarette properly drained, Mark grabbed a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and put it in his mouth. "Can't pretend ta be Justin Timberlake if I'm late."