Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to deliver you chapter twenty-one of my story Power Grid Failure. As you know I am planning to conclude this story in the next week or two and begin penning my new tale in April. One of the most difficult parts about writing a story is finding a subject which is of interest to me such as Particle Romance, Paleomagnetism, and air popped popcorn. One can never think too much about air popped popcorn. In fact, I’m thinking about it right now. The question is does air popped popcorn warrant a story? Possibly. Especially if the story had depth, merit and says something profound about the world. Alas, my next story is about none of these things…as far as I know. But who knows what will happen when I delve deeper into my tale. Perhaps a kernel of popcorn will have a particle romance with a rock millions of miles away and the paleomagnetism of the earth will play a part in bringing them together. And on that note, here is chapter twenty-one of Power Grid Failure.

Power Grid Failure

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Twenty-One

Crystal is concerned. Adams hasn’t shown up yet, and Unicorn is getting antsy. She noticed earlier Unicorn was wearing a No Fun Stun Gun in a holster on his hip like he thought he was a sheriff or something.

“Alright, ladies,” he says. “It looks like we’re getting ready to shut down for the night.”

“What do you mean?” Crystal asks.

“Dragontail’s finishing up his job.”

“And then what?”

“And then I take Tiffany home.”

“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Tiffany says.

What Unicorn fails to notice is that Tiffany has picked up a remote mouse off one of the tables. She advances towards him and slams it down on top of the inside of his right wrist. Now, this would have been an effective move had Unicorn been right-handed. But an abnormally large section of the criminal population is left-handed, and Unicorn is no exception. Although the blow to his right wrist is agonizing, he can pivot and shoot Tiffany in the face with his No Fun Stun Gun which is exactly what he does. She drops to the ground instantly.

He grabs her by the arm and drags her in the general direction of his office. “I guess you thought I came to the party unprepared,” Unicorn tells Crystal as he flips his cape over his shoulder with his free hand, grins at her wickedly, and points his weapon at her.  

She studies him carefully. “Your undersized pecker doesn’t impress me,” she says.

Unicorn fires but Crystal ducks in time and the shot strikes a monitor knocking it backwards off the table. “Good luck stopping me, wench.”

Crystal grabs a coffee cup with the company’s logo emblazoned across it and hucks it at him. He fires, hits the cup, and shatters it. This allows Crystal enough time to gain ground. She grabs another coffee cup and hurls it his direction. He fires and strikes the cup as she creeps closer to him.

“You’re a lousy shot, Uniputz,” she says.

“No one asked you to come here,” he says firing again and striking a Star Trek figurine. “You’re too plain and you’re crashing my beautiful person’s party.”

Crystal grabs two wireless mice. She hurls one at him which he shoots, before she aims the second at his forehead and…bullseye.

“Ow!” he screeches and grabs his head.

To be fair, when Reynolds showed Crystal how to strike her opponent in the side of the knee with the flat of her foot the whole move made her queasy. But upon finding herself in the middle of a one-sided stun gun shootout, queasiness does not come into play. She rushes up to him, grabs his ear and slams her foot towards his knee. Unicorn twists enough for her to miss. This ticks Crystal off, and she pivots and palm heels him in the face.

Unicorn screams as blood trickles out his nose. Frazzled, he fires again sending a pencil cup full of company pens up into the air before it plunges to the carpet scattering pens everywhere.

The elevator doors open and Reynolds and Adams shove Dragontail into the office area.

“You think you’re smart, Reynolds?” Dragontail growls. “You think I haven’t thought through every possible way something could go wrong?”

“Keep moving,” Reynolds says shoving him along. “I’m not interested in what you think.”

“What about you, Adams?” Dragontail asks. “You think you’re going to be prince charming and rescue the ladies? Because if you do, you’re a sadly mistaken simp.”

Reynolds gives Dragontail another shove and the three of them head towards the entrance to the skybridge. Adams puts Dragontail’s card up to the keypad. Just as the door unlocks the elevator doors open behind them and Craggy burst through. He begins tromping towards them.

“Craggy!” Dragontail yells.

“Move!” Reynolds says and pushes Dragontail through the door. Adams skitters inside behind them as it closes. Craggy marches up to the keypad and holds up a keycard. The door clicks open again and Craggy enters. It’s now clear to Reynolds and Adams that Craggy also has access to the blocked areas of the Redoubt and Mesahchie building.

“Adams!” Reynolds says. “Run ahead and open the door.”

Adams nods and hurries towards the end of the skybridge as Craggy tromps after them. Adams holds Dragontail’s keycard up to the pad and the door unlocks.

“Help!” Reynolds calls out to him.

Adams spins around to find Craggy advancing on Dragontail and Reynolds. He’s not sure what to do. If he leaves the door, it will shut, and he’ll have to go back to open it again which will eat up time.

Suddenly, Reynolds shoves Dragontail towards Adams. Adams realizes what he needs to do. He hurries towards Reynolds; lunges forwards and catches Dragontail by the arm. He whirls him around, rushes towards the door, reopens it, and pulls him through the entrance to the Mesahchie building.

Adams isn’t a big guy, but he’s bigger than Dragontail and strong enough to maneuver him down the hall to the Security room. He drags him kicking and screaming down the hall until they reach the door. He puts the keycard up to the keypad and the door clicks open. He pulls Dragontail inside. The place is empty.

“Tiffany!” Adams yells. “Crystal!”

No answer.

Dragontail chuckles. “Looks like your too late, punk,” he says triumphantly.

“Too late for what?”

“How should I know? The only agreement I made with Unicorn was to deliver Tiffany.”

“Get in here!”

Dragontail and Adams quickly turn their focus to the back of the room where Crystal is holding the door to the nerve center open.

Dragontail sees an opportunity and breaks away from Adams. But as he does, Adams reaches for Dragontail’s No Fun Stun Gun, aims and fires. Dragontail screams and hits the ground. Crystal comes running down the ramp holding computer cables.

“Hurry,” she tells Adams. “Get up there and work your magic.”

Crystal starts binding Dragontail’s wrists and hands as Adam’s rushes to the back.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: RUBY SPARKS (2012)-HULU

This week’s pick is a quirky little romantic fantasy about willing things into being. A young novelist Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Danno) had a very popular and well received first novel at the tender age of nineteen and has been trying ever since to write his second book. Tired of living on the fumes of his success and embittered by his last relationship he seeks help from his psychiatrist Dr. Rosenthal (Elliott Gould). Rosenthal gives him an exercise to write one page about someone who likes his little dog, Scotty. Calvin goes home to his manual typewriter which he writes everything on and completes the project. But something goes awry. The person he has chosen to write about is the girl of his dreams who literally appears out of thin air. Her name is Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan who also penned the script) and she appears in the flesh in his kitchen. At first Calvin is terrified of having brought a character to life and questions his grasp on reality. But when his brother Harry (Chris Messina) and others admit to seeing her and that she is indeed real, Calvin finds himself on an odyssey of ups and downs like he has never experienced before.