UNDERCOVER - WHITE OUT (book 2)

Part 30 - Giant Purple Pretzel

As I swooped down, I saw Triple Oh face down on the ground. The two bandits left to guard him had their guns and hands glued to their faces by gobs of purple spaghetti foam and were vainly trying to disentangle each other.

'Jingle bells. Batman smells. Robin laid an egg . . . ,' Dunc was diving at a steep angle, singing. 

 The bandits were staggering around trying to swat him with their Kalashnikovs. I tried to snatch the guns away but they were glued to their hands. I ended up lifting them a few metres off the ground before dropping them. They went down heavily, stuck together like a giant purple pretzel. 

 I landed beside Triple Oh almost stepping on his spray bottle. He was grimly trying to crawl. 'Get . . . the suitcase . . . radioactive . . . strontium isotopes,' he gasped painfully.

I looked around. 'Where is it?'

'Murga . . . took it.'

I thought for a few seconds before grabbing Triple Oh's spray bottle and taking off after Murga. I caught up to him along the trail that wound up the side of the mountain. He was arguing with the two remaining bandits and none of them saw me until I was two metres above their heads.

I sprayed spaghetti foam at Murga, aiming at his face as he looked up. I almost missed as the recoil from the spray pushed me upward but I hit his sun glasses with my second shot.

I expected him to reach for his sun glasses but he was fast enough to pull a spray can from his pocket. He calmly sprayed himself with the antidote and the sticky foam on his face dissolved but he had dropped the strontium suitcase.

I swooped down while spraying the two bandit and quickly firing more foam at Murga's face. He was still doggedly spraying the antidote to free his sun glasses as I grabbed the suitcase and took off backdown the mountain. 

Very inconveniently, I found Triple Oh passed out, so I examined him carefully until I located two of Murga's paralyzing darts which I gingerly extracted. I picked up the suitcase. It seemed weightless but it had a lot of mass. 

 Triple Oh was considerably larger than Dad but I grabbed his belt and found I could lift his bulk with little effort. 'Guluk-oyk.' Dunc's warning made me look up to see the two remaining bandits, with gobs of spaghetti foam still stuck to their beards, running back down the trail about 200 metres away. Dunc flew off, lights blinking, to distract them. 

 They started taking pot shots at him, instead of me, but they forced me to take a diversion to avoid flying over them and I almost got lost in a moving fog bank. I must have been getting the hang of this anti gravity stuff because, even encumbered with Triple Oh and the suitcase, I eventually found the ledge leading to the crevice. There was no sign of anyone and my first thought was that they had all gone through the nexus, until I saw Miguel's shoes. 

 He was draped face down over a boulder. I dropped Triple Oh, put two fingers on Miguel's throat and gasped with relief when I found his carotid pulse.  I checked his breathing; . . . both normal.

I ran around madly looking for Mom and Dad but I saw no one except the two bandits, far below us, who were trying to untangle the purple pretzel. 

 Dunc skimmed the rock face on the updraft shaking his head. 'Nary a sign of any o' them,' he called. 'Murga and Porco have gone too.'

I was sick with rage and despair as I shook Miguel roughly. 'Wake up! What happened to Mom and Dad?' He shook his head making an effort to speak. 'Murga . . . took them.' My thoughts were swirling with dread as I wandered around kicking at stones in frustration, until I hurt my toe.

 Maybe they had gone back to Ottawa. I had no clue who was controlling the nexus but we had to get back while it was still operating. If it closed, we would be stuck on the mountain.

Miguel slowly recovered and we scrambled into the crevice towing Triple Oh and the suitcase between us. I had a momentary fear that Murga had disconnected the electric bookcase but the rock face was still flickering with a ghostly green light. 

 I pushed Triple Oh in front and we stumbled into the corridor at Silverwood School. I tripped over the suitcase and grabbed Licia to save myself hitting the floor. She misinterpreted my action and gave me a hug in return. 

 'Omigod Ziff you look terrible,' she gasped. 'What happened?'

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