Ghosts in the Night (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, The Dying Informant; Spooked)
Title: "Ghosts in the Night"
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (The Dying Informant)
Table: Do-it-Yourself
Prompt: Spooked
Rating: PG13
Summary: How much trouble can the Informant and his colleagues find while staking out Gettysburg on Halloween night to apprehend RoboCrook? A lot.
Warnings: Seriousness/angst in a generally light-hearted fandom
Will be cross-posted to 31_days, 30_hugs, and the V.I.L.E. Headquarters fanfic forum.
Author's Notes: This fic was mainly inspired by today's 31 days prompt, "Conversations with dead people," and it features my favorite character, the Dying Informant. He has developed a friendship with other ACME agents-- the Messenger, one of the techies from ACME Technet, and one of the Freshness Inspectors (these are all canonical sketch characters who have shown up in at least one episode). The Messenger is the Informant's best friend and mentor, and I do briefly explain in this fic how that came to be. This story will be quite serious at times, but, as always, I can ensure a happy ending. The characters aren't mine (except for the four sisters) and the story is! Many thanks to Lucky_Ladybug for the title and plot help, plus letting me reference on of her fics!
There wasn’t sound to be heard as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon at Gettysburg. The young Informant was beginning to lose the feelings in his fingers as the temperature dropped along with the vanishing disc.
“A little cold for you, Infy?” asked his best friend, the ACME Messengernet Messenger.
The Informant grinned.
“Yeah; I guess I forgot how cold the nights can get in the Keystone State this time of year,” he replied, pulling his trenchcoat around him more tightly as the Halloween breeze blew. He turned to another close friend of his, the ACME Technet Techie. “What’s the temperature, anyway?”
“I have it at 31 degrees Fahrenheit,” the Techie replied, checking his laptop. “And it’s supposed to hit a low of 25.”
“Excellent-there’ll be a chance of snow,” smirked the Messenger, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.
Their fourth companion, the ACME Freshnet Inspector, frowned.
“We’re supposed to be on a case,” he reminded the Messenger. “ACME Bugnet picked up the news that Carmen is sending RoboCrook here; the Chief thought it’d be a good idea if, for once, we stopped the crook before the loot was stolen.”
“The park is supposed to be empty at night,” agreed the Informant. “That’d be the perfect chance for RoboCrook to strike, since no one is supposed to be here.”
“Including us…” the Techie replied, casting a wary glance around the battlefield’s park and cemetery. “At least we can be sure of one thing: RoboCrook won’t be taking us by surprise if and when he shows up.”
“How can you be sure?” asked the Informant.
The Techie smirked, showing the others his laptop.
“Just look at this set-up,” he said, proudly. “I’ve set the entire park with traps, and to ensure that RoboCrook is the only one who’ll fall into them, I’ve set them so that the trip wires are only activated when they come into contact with metal-the metal from which RoboCrook is made of!”
“Excellent!” commented the Messenger, relaxing. “So we can just kick back and wait for the next several hours!”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” frowned the Inspector. “RoboCrook could easily find a way past the traps, and imagine how terrible it would look if RoboCrook gets away with something right out from under our noses.”
“He wouldn’t get past your nose; you’re from ACME’s Freshnet division!” the Messenger grinned. His grin turned into a smirk as a few flakes of snow began to fall. “And here comes the snow! If things go well, there just might be enough to start a snowball fight!”
“Nothing bothers you, does it?” asked the Informant, glancing at his best friend and mentor with an amused shake of his head. “Here we are on a stakeout in the middle of a Civil War cemetery on Halloween night, battling the freezing temperatures, and you’re okay with all of that!?”
“Well, I still say it’s a shame that we’re missing the ACME Halloween party,” his friend replied, without a second thought. “I hear that the disguise department had some excellent costume choices; it would have been quite the Zombie Jamboree--”
He was cut off by a frustrated cry from the Techie.
“No, no, NO!” he fumed. “My laptop just went dead!”
“I thought you still had five hours’ worth of battery on it,” recalled the Informant, glancing at the blank screen.
“It did, but it still quit!” he exclaimed, visibly annoyed. “This has never happened before… And that’s not the worst of it, either! If my laptop doesn’t work, the traps won’t be activated when RoboCrook arrives!”
“Maybe he did something,” theorized the Inspector. “If he’s on to us, we’ll have to be on our guard; I say we split up and try to comb the cemetery. I have a feeling that our renegade robot will try to set his sights on something valuable.”
“Right, then,” said the Messenger, with a slightly bored yawn. “Infy, you come with me. Do you have the Warrant?”
“Naturally,” the Informant replied, showing the stamped paper with its bright red lettering. He turned to the Inspector and the Techie. “Good luck, guys; let us know if you find anything!”
He followed the Messenger amidst the old gravestones. The autumn chill in the air seemed to increase as the Informant walked, but the Messenger didn’t seem to be bothered; on the contrary, he was whistling a sprightly tune.
“I don’t know about you, but I think I’m beginning to understand why Carmen sent RoboCrook here,” said the Informant, shuddering as the moonlight cast an eerie gleam over the headstones. “I don’t think a robot could get spooked.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared, Infy!” the Messenger chided. He couldn’t resist taunting the Informant; it was surrogate sibling banter-they had both joined ACME Crimenet at the same time, and after getting through their first (near-fatal) case chasing Eartha Brute through a maze of catacombs, they had forged a friendship. At first, the young Informant had been annoyed at being called “Infy,” but he eventually came to realize that it was the Messenger’s way of saying that he was like a younger brother to him. And the name had stuck.
But the Informant wasn’t in the mood for reminiscing now.
“I’m just saying that there’re at least a hundred other places I’d like to be other than a cemetery on Halloween night,” he said, casting a frightened glance around the area. There wasn’t another soul visible… “visible” being the key word.
“You worry too much,” the Messenger replied. “These guys have moved on long ago…” He trailed off as his flashlight batteries began to dim. He pounded the instrument against the palm of his hand, but the light still went out. “Uh-oh…”
Goosebumps rose on the Informant’s arms.
“This is no time for another one of your pranks!” he said to the Messenger, the fear evident in his voice.
“I hate to break it to you, Infy, but this is no prank; the flashlight just gave out.”
“Well, maybe I have some matches…” the Informant said, frantically searching his pockets. To his relief, he found some and lit one. “Aha! Here we…” He trailed off as the wind blew the tiny light out.
“Never mind; look,” said the Messenger, pointing ahead. A light was visible in the distance. “It looks like the others have found us; we can borrow a flashlight from them.”
“Are you sure that’s them?” asked the Informant, with a frown. “That doesn’t look like a flashlight; it’s way too bright.”
“OK, fine,” said the Messenger, pulling up the sleeve of his trenchcoat to check his wristwatch communicator. “We’ll just ask the others what their position is, and…” He trailed off, frowning.
“What is it?”
“My communicator isn’t working…” he replied, tapping the instrument with the broken flashlight. “Either we were sent out here with substandard equipment, or something strange is going on.”
“But ACME never sends agents out unprepared!” replied the Informant, dismayed to find out that his communicator wasn’t working, either. “I think… Hey… do you hear that? It sounds like an old train whistle.”
“Yeah,” the Messenger replied. “There must be a set of tracks near the cemetery. It sounds like its coming from… over there where that light is. Infy… am I going crazy, or is that light getting bigger?”
“Not unless we’re both going crazy,” the Informant replied, as the light grew to such and extent that both agents were being illuminated in what looked like a spotlight. The old train whistle sounded again, yards away, and the young Informant panicked. “LOOK OUT!”
He shoved the Messenger aside before diving out of the light’s path himself. The light zoomed past as the train whistle screeched. He felt the unseen train roar by as he hugged the ground, his trenchcoat flying wildly and his fedora being carried away by the force of it. He heard the clatter of nonexistent wheels on absent tracks, the chugging of the invisible engine, and the screeching, ghostly whistle.
The sounds and the light finally faded, but the Informant still didn’t dare to move, remaining perfectly still in the grass amidst the 19th-Century headstones, which had been untouched by the unseen train.
“Infy!?” called the Messenger, running over to him to help him to his feet. “You alright!? Say something!”
“Oh, Mama…” the Informant said at last, visibly shaken. “What was that!?”
“The weirdest wind gust I think I’ve ever seen,” his friend replied.
The Informant glanced at him with an unreadable expression.
“We were just nearly creamed by an invisible train!” he said.
“That would’ve been my next guess,” the Messenger admitted. “Something strange is going on here, Infy, and I think we’d better find the others before something happens to them.”
The Informant nodded, and followed his friend through the path of gravestones.
********************************
RoboCrook had noticed the ACME agents wandering around the cemetery, but he wasn’t worried in the slightest. They seemed to be concerned with a trivial light. Well, he thought it was trivial… until the unseen train sped past him, and his circuitry began to go haywire.
“Sound of train detected… no image seen… does not compute…” he stammered. “Communications failing… switching to auxiliary power…”
He was able to regain control of himself, unsure of what had caused the sudden loss of power in the first place. Carmen would not be pleased to see that he had lost his communications’ link.
The android thief paused to watch as two of the ACME Agents met up again with the other two.
“A light that sounded like a train?” the Techie asked. “No; we didn’t see or hear anything like that… But where’s your hat?”
The Informant felt the top of his head, feeling only his curly locks. That was when he remembered that his fedora had fallen off when the “train” had roared past him.
“It’s back there…” the Informant mumbled.
“You’d better get it back,” advised the Inspector. “If RoboCrook sees it, it’ll alert him to our presence.”
“Ha. Ha,” RoboCrook laughed to himself, as the Informant ran back to retrieve his hat. It confirmed what the robot always thought-that humans were hopelessly inefficient (and he had to wonder sometimes why on Earth he was working for one). But RoboCrook knew that if one of them was wandering off alone, it would allow him to deal with the troublesome detective. And it was the accident-prone one, too-the one who always was caught tailing someone from VILE. If the Informant was dealt with, Carmen would be pleased. And RoboCrook knew that humans were at their best when they were pleased.
Meanwhile, the Informant, oblivious to the android on his tail, was searching for his lost hat, slightly worried that he might end up seeing the strange light again.
A sudden sound made him jump slightly. Looking around, he noticed four young women dressed in odd gowns convening beside one of the monuments. But he was more interested in what they were inspecting; the girls were passing around his fedora, trying (and failing) to suppress giggles.
“Uh… excuse me!” he said, running over to the girls. “Girls? Can I have that hat back?”
All four girls glanced at him, and immediately started giggling again. One of them started waving coquettishly at him as they began to play monkey-in-the-middle with the fedora.
“Hey! Hey!” protested the Informant, making a grab for the hat. “Aw, come on, Girls! Fun is fun, but enough is enough! I’m supposed to be on duty right now!”
“Oh, all right,” sighed the girl who had waved to him. She tossed the fedora to him, and he placed it back on his head.
“How’d you girls get in here?” he asked. “I don’t think this park is on list of Halloween party spots.”
“We got a little lost,” said a second girl, sadly. “We usually do.”
“Oh… that’s too bad…” the Informant sighed. He folded his arms, glancing at the girls, wondering what to do. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers as an idea came to him. “I’ve got it! Hey, Girls-I have three friends waiting for me back there; we’re on a case right now, but maybe after we’ve cleared things up, we can escort you home! …Or we can all quadruple-date! I’m sure my friends would love to meet you!”
“Which one of us gets to go with you?” asked a third girl.
“Oh, let me!” said the fourth girl.
“No-me!” insisted the first girl.
The four girls immediately began to argue, all of them seizing the Informant’s arms.
“Girls, Girls! Please!” he said, clearly flattered to be at the center of admiration. “You haven’t even seen my friends yet!”
“They can’t be half as good-looking as you,” said the third girl.
“Well…” the Informant grinned. “When you’re right, you’re right…”
The girls all exchanged glances, giggling again.
“Come on, then!” he said.
He led the giggling girls through the headstones, not even noticing RoboCrook watching him. The metal man had been ready to attack, but had paused in confusion as the Informant had, apparently, started conversing with thin air.
“Human talking to self…” the robot observed. “Most irrational and strange…”
But RoboCrook wasn’t going to be the only one thinking along those lines.
“Hey, Guys!” the Informant exclaimed, as he ran back to his fellow agents. “Look who I found!”
“Glad to see you found your hat,” said the Techie, glancing in his direction.
“Well, yes,” the younger man replied. “But the girls found it.”
“What girls?” asked the Inspector.
“These girls,” the Informant replied. “Girls, I’d like you to meet…” He trailed off as he turned around to see nothing at all. “Where’d they go…? Girls, are you teasing me again!?”
“Infy, there’s no one there,” said the Messenger. “Why don’t you leave the practical jokes to me?”
“But they were right behind me!” the perplexed young man insisted. “There were four of them, and they tried playing Keep-Away with my hat. They said that they were lost, and so I offered that we could help them find their way back! I’m telling you that they were right there a second before I called out to you guys!”
“You know, you have been working overtime lately,” said the Techie. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“Of course I have!”
“Maybe it’s stress,” said the Inspector. “It doesn’t have to be just a lack of sleep…”
“But I’m telling you that they were there!” he said. He turned to the Messenger; surely his best friend would believe him, especially after experiencing the ghost train, too! “You believe me, don’t you, Bro?” he asked, practically pleading.
The Messenger tried to give an understanding smile.
“You know, Infy, maybe you should take some time off,” he said.
“Not you, too!” the younger man said, disheartened. “Alright then; I’ll just find the girls and prove it!”
“Infy!” the Messenger called as the Informant ran back the way he came, calling for the girls.
“I’m worried about him,” said the Techie. “Seeing things in a place like this doesn’t bode well.”
“Yeah…” the Messenger replied, as worried by the Informant’s devastated expression as by the prospect of his seeing things.
Meanwhile, the Informant kept on searching for the girls, and he finally found them a few yards away, hiding behind a large tree.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, and he called back to the others. “Hey, Guys! I found them!” He turned back to the girls. “Now why did you run off like that? You’re making me look bad in front of them!”
“Oh, we’re sorry,” said one of the girls. “We’re just a little shy around strangers.”
“You don’t seem to mind me too much…” the Informant commented.
“Well, you look very familiar,” said another one of the girls. “It feels as though we know you from somewhere…”
“Well, I’ve met a lot of people on my travels,” the young man boasted. “I’ve wandered the world on an endless quest to stop the plots of thieves!”
“Ooooh, how brave!” they gushed.
“Well, you know…” he replied, with a casual shrug. “Some of us have tasks that we just have to complete in life, and this is one of them!”
The Informant’s friends, however, were a bit concerned by what they were seeing… or, rather, what they weren’t seeing.
“He’s… talking to thin air…” said the Inspector, scratching his head.
The Messenger merely bit his lip in worry; half of him was wondering if something had happened when the Informant had leaped aside at the light. Had he hit the ground too hard or knocked his head against a gravestone? Was that why he was seeing things now?
“What’s that!?” the Techie suddenly cried out, pointing to a gleam of metal a few yards away from the Informant.
“Infy!” the Messenger cried out. “RoboCrook at 2:00!”
He, the Techie, and the Inspector were already storming past as the Informant finally looked up to see RoboCrook fleeing.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “Sorry, Girls, but duty calls! It’s time we picked up The Chase! Come on!”
He led the girls as he ran after the other three. A furious RoboCrook ran ahead, upset that he had been spotted; that Informant would never have seen him coming-he had been far too preoccupied conversing with (apparently) nothing. However, the android had enough of a headstart to vanish amongst the monuments that stood ahead.
“Lost him!” fumed the Messenger, as he came to a halt. The Inspector and the Techie, however, kept on pursuing RoboCrook.
“Hey, wait up!” called the Informant. “The girls can’t run that fast in those shoes and gowns!”
“Infy, come on already!” said the Messenger. “Snap out of it; there are no girls!”
“What is wrong with you, Man!?” asked the Informant, visibly upset. He gestured to the girls, upon making sure that they were there. “They’re standing right over there, trying to catch their breath after running after us!”
“Look, you’ve got to wake up,” said the Messenger. “Now come on; we have to find the others.”
“You go find them!” said the Informant, frowning. “I need to make sure that the girls are okay.”
“Infy, wake up!” his friend said. “You’re hallucinating out here!”
“I’m not!” the younger man insisted. “Are you trying to be funny by making me think I’m going crazy? Or can you not see what’s three yards in front of you? But you can believe what you want to; I need to help these girls like I promised, and I can do it without any help from you!”
“It’s happened,” the Messenger thought, frowning. “One near miss too many, and he’s lost it… Maybe he’d be better off sitting this one out; I’ll go find the others and let him rest.”
He wandered off in search of the others, deciding to walk eggshells around the Informant for the time being. The Informant, in the meantime, was considerably upset as he headed back to the girls.
“Is something wrong?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I know you’re shy and all, but can you do me a favor and talk to them? They think I’m going crazy!”
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” said one of the girls. “You know the truth. You can spend more time with us; you know that we’ll believe you.”
A second girl cast a warning glance at her, but the Informant didn’t catch it.
“It isn’t wise to let your friends wander around here,” she said, after turning back to him.
“Some friends they are; they didn’t even believe me…” he muttered, but he went off in the direction that the Messenger had gone, the girls following behind him.
“But this place isn’t safe at night, especially on Halloween night,” said the third girl. “Tonight is when the renegade spirits come out. If they see your friends wandering about, they might try to possess them; I can already sense that two of the spirits are close to succeeding…”
“Possess…?” the Informant stammered, coming to a halt. “But… they’d be free once the sun rises, right?”
“Not if they board the ghost train.”
“Then that must’ve been the thing I felt roar past!” he exclaimed. “What is that thing!?”
“The ghost train travels the world, picking up spirits to take to the next plane. The evil spirits are forbidden from boarding the train, unless they possess a mortal, whose spirit is pure enough to grant them passage. Then they travel through the mortal to the other world.”
What happens to the mortal?” asked the Informant, dreading the answer.
“They don’t reach the other plane; they are banished to a place between this plane and the spirit plane, neither here nor there, where lost souls roam, never to be found again. Having lost their identities to the evil ones, they become faceless spirits, condemned to an afterlife of misery.”
“I…” the Informant glanced ahead into the empty cemetery. He had to find the others, even if they didn’t believe him! He couldn’t allow such a fate to befall them!
But as his best friend’s frantic cry reached his ears, he realized that he was too late.
“No!” he cried. But he was slightly relieved to see the Messenger running towards him. His joy was short-lived, though, as he saw the look on his face.
“Infy!” he gasped. “The others… something’s happened to them. I caught up with them, and they attacked me! They were asking me where I saw that weird light we both saw--”
“I know!” replied the Informant. “The girls just told me; we can’t let them board the ghost train, or we’ll lose them forever!”
“Infy, this isn’t the time to bring up those girls!” said the Messenger.
“But, I told you that they’re real--”
“We can argue about this later!” said the Messenger. “We need to free them and get them out of here. And you don’t look too good, either; you’re looking a little pale. Are you sure that--”
“I’m fine!” the Informant insisted. “Come on! We’ve got to find the others!” He turned back, causing the messenger to grow more concerned. “Come on, Girls!”
The Messenger glanced at the empty air, growing more and more confused and worried by the second. But he and the Informant were temporarily in agreement as they saw the cold, darkened expressions of the Techie and the Inspector as they turned on them.
“Guys, snap out of it!” yelped the Informant.
But they seemed to be ignoring him; they seemed to be turning on the Messenger.
“You need to be ready to board,” the Inspector said to him, in a voice quite unlike his own. “Dawn is coming in less than an hour; you know what’ll happen if you’re not on the train.”
The Messenger shook his head fervently, snapping his fingers in the Inspector’s face as a last-ditch attempt to bring him to his senses, but to no avail.
The Informant was also trying to bring the Techie around, but he seemed to be more intent on looking around for someone else. And somehow, the Informant knew that he wasn’t looking for RoboCrook.
“It’s frightening,” whispered one of the girls. “They do look perfectly similar to those three. But look at the Messenger; he doesn’t seem to be like that horrible man at all…”
“What?” asked the Informant. “These guys are my friends, but something’s happened to these two; are you sure they’re possessed?”
“Infy, this isn’t the time…” the Messenger glanced at him, and his eyes widened. “INFY!”
“What!?” he asked, looking around frantically. “What is it!?”
“You! Look at yourself!” the Messenger cried.
The Informant glanced at his outstretched hand. To his horror, he saw that his arm, along with the rest of him, was transparent and ghost-like.
“What…!? What’s happening to me!?” he cried, turning back to the girls with fear-filled eyes. “Girls--?!”
“I told you this would happen!” one of the girls chided to the others. “I told you that he can’t spend too much time with us, and now look at what’s happening!”
The Messenger cried out in surprise as, finally, the four girls appeared before him.
“They’re real!” he said. But he was more concerned with the fact that the Informant was as transparent as the girls were. “What are you doing to Infy!?”
“We were trying to protect him from you!” one of the girls said, frowning back at the Messenger.
“How!?” retorted the Messenger, shocked at how he was able to drive his hand through the Informant’s transparent shoulder as though he wasn’t even there. “I’m his friend; I’m not the one turning him into a ghost!”
“That wasn’t our intent!” the third girl protested. “We thought you’d kill him just like your renegade counterpart did before, so we tried to protect him from you! How were we supposed to know that you weren’t evil, and that spending time with us would make him one of us!?”
“You’re ghosts, too!?” the Informant cried. No wonder the others had thought he was crazy!
“Whoa, back up!” ordered the Messenger. “Infy is like a brother to me; I’d never hurt him, let alone kill him-you can blame V.I.L.E. for that!”
“And you can blame me,” said a new voice that sounded eerily like the Messenger.
“He’s here!” the possessed Techie exclaimed.
The Informant and the Messenger stared in horror as a new spirit appeared. He looked very similar to the Messenger, but his expression was cold and sadistic, making him seem very different from the normally bright and cheery Messenger.
“It’s been a long time, Ladies,” he sneered. “I see that you still haven’t found your gentleman friend, so you decided on charming this… look-alike,” he added, glancing at the Informant.
“You leave Infy out of this!” fumed the Messenger, glaring at the spirit that resembled him.
“I am so sorry,” said one of the girls. “But your friend is a part of this.”
“Yes; you see, these little ladies were in love with a Union soldier who resembled your Informant friend here. He was stationed here before he had a chance to figure out which of these four sisters was going to be his bride. But before he could decide, the soldier died here in battle,” the cruel spirit explained.
“You killed him!” shrieked another girl. “You and them!” She pointed to the possessed Techie and Inspector.
“Heh,” he laughed. “We didn’t intend for it to turn out that way. He was trying to stop us from deserting; if he had minded his own business, nothing would’ve happened to him. And the same goes for you!”
“What is he talking about!?” cried the Informant, trying to figure out how to become flesh and blood again, instead of just an apparition.
“We came here to Gettysburg, looking for our gentleman friend,” one of the girls explained. “Those three, after killing him, mistook us for soldiers… and here we are.”
“Every Halloween, we come here via the ghost train to look for our beloved,” said another. “It has been 145 years, and we still haven’t found him. That was what we meant when we told you that we were lost. And when we saw you, we thought that you were our lost beloved. But when we saw your friends, and how they resembled the renegades who killed us…”
“That’s why you didn’t want them to see you,” the Informant realized.
“Interesting…” mused the cruel spirit, hovering over the Messenger. “You and the other two resemble us so much, and yet you are best friends with this Informant boy? Do you not know that history repeats itself? Friend or no friend, just as I delivered the final blow which took that boy’s life, so shall you be the death of this boy!”
“Never!” the Messenger vowed.
“Yeah!” agreed the Informant. “Now go away and tell your fellow evil spirits to leave my friends alone!”
“Go away?” the spirit asked. “Do you not realize that is what we’re trying to do!? Because of our actions, we were forbidden from boarding the ghost train.”
“And you want to use my friends to gain access, and banish their spirits to that dimension of misery!” the Informant realized, recalling what the girls had told him earlier. “No! I won’t let you do that to them!”
“What can you do, Boy? You’re halfway to being a ghost yourself!”
With a mad laugh, the spirit turned into an ectoplasmic form and struck the Messenger in the chest before he had a chance to escape.
“NO!” cried the Informant. “Come on, Bro! I know you can stay in control--”
“Infy…” the Messenger gasped, sweat pouring from his face. “You… you’d better get out of here; I can’t hold him back…” He trailed off, his expression changing to that of the spirit’s.
“We must retreat,” instructed one of the girls, as the rest of them led the devastated Informant away.
“What am I supposed to do now!? And what about me!?” the young man cried glancing at his spectral form. “I know I’m supposed to be the Dying Informant, but--”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said another girl. “You haven’t died, so it should be easy for you to will yourself back to this plane if you concentrate hard enough.”
“What do you mean by ‘should’…?” he asked, warily.
“She’s right; it should work,” said the third girl. “I’m sorry that it came to this, though. Honestly, if I had realized that your friends weren’t evil, I would’ve warned them to leave this place.”
“Do you think I’d have evil friends!?”
“Our gentleman friend was close friends with the three deserters who turned on him,” said the fourth girl. “How do you know that your friends weren’t going to turn on you? They already didn’t believe you when you told them about us.”
“Showing up would’ve helped my argument,” the Informant retorted, but he paused as he heard the familiar, eerie train whistle. “Look, I don’t have time for this; it’ll be dawn soon, and I have to stop that train!”
Ignoring the girls’ protests, he ran back to where he had left the others. To his shock, he could actually see the ghost train now (perhaps because he was, as the spirit had said, halfway to becoming a ghost himself), but he was more horrified to see this three possessed friends boarding the first coach.
“Guys!” he frantically cried. But they didn’t look back, and he followed them aboard the train, the four girls following right behind him. “Guys, please, snap out of it!”
“It’s no use,” said one of the girls. “You can’t help them now; you must will yourself back to your plane, or you’ll be carried along to our plane if you remain on this train. And if you’re not back in your plane and you leave the train, you’ll be banished to between the planes and be forced to exist as a faceless spirit come sunrise!”
“I can’t let them become faceless spirits trapped between the planes, either!” he said, trying to seize the Messenger’s arm, but instead going through him.
But the Messenger must have felt something, as he and the others turned to face him.
“Bro, come on!” the Informant pleaded. “You’re stronger than these spirits; you’ve always succeeded in bringing me back whenever VILE tried to take me out for good! Don’t you remember our first assignment!? Eartha had me trapped in a rock slide. I thought I was a goner, but you were able to save me!”
It was strange; even though he was transparent, the tears that were falling from his eyes were very real. And while the possessed Messenger didn’t move, the Inspector and the Techie began to show some signs of coming around, and started forcing themselves to go out the coach doors.
“Yes, that’s it!” said the Informant. “Get off the train! When the sun rises, the spirits possessing you will be destroyed!”
The girls shoved them out of the door and onto the ground, which had a small coating of snow upon it. The Messenger still did not move; the spirit (who, based on the way he had talked earlier, had seemed like the ringleader of the renegade trio) seemed to be doing all he could to maintain his hold on him.
“Look!” said the Informant, taking out the Warrant for RoboCrook’s arrest out of his pocket. “It’s the Warrant-the reason why we came here! we came to capture RoboCrook, remember!?”
The train whistle screeched again, and a loud voice shouted, “All aboard!”
“NO!” cried the Informant.
“You must leave!” cried one of the girls. “Unless you want to come with us…”
“And we certainly wouldn’t say no to that--” added a second girl. She was cut off as the Informant leaped from the train.
But he didn’t run away; he stooped to collect a couple handfuls of snow and ran back to the train. Praying that this idea would work, he lobbed the snow at the Messenger. The young detective re-boarded the carriage of the ghost train, praying that the snowball would have been enough to free his friend from the spirit possessing him.
The Messenger merely brushed off the traces of snow into his hands, forming a new sphere, which he aimed at the young detective.
The younger youth grinned; it had worked. He leaped off of the ghost train, and his friend followed suit, the spirit within him undoubtedly screaming in protest. But the spirit was no match for his will… especially when challenged to a snowball fight.
“Infy, what on Earth--!?” he asked, as he departed the train after him, his senses coming back as the snowball slipped from his grasp. The other two agents were also coming to their senses as the spirits possessing them sensed defeat.
“Oh, well done!” exclaimed one of the ghost girls, waving from the coach of the train. “It’s too close to dawn for the evil spirits to maintain their hold!”
“Well, I guess I should be lucky that this time I wasn’t possessed by a spirit who wanted to take over the world…” the Messenger mused.
The Informant laughed, relieved.
“Now you must will yourself back to your plane, otherwise you will join the evil spirits and become trapped between the planes!” added a second girl, getting the Informant’s attention. “You don’t have much time; the doors of the train will close just before the sun rises, and if that happens, you won’t be able to come with us, and you won’t be able to remain in your plane, either!”
The young detective glanced at his spectral form, and his three colleagues looked on in horror as they saw how ghostly he looked.
“How do I come back to my plane!?” he cried, as his friends gathered around him.
“It is simple,” the third girl replied. “You just have to want to come back. But your heart has to be fully into it. If it isn’t… you won’t return.”
“Come on, Infy; you don’t have much time,” said his best friend.
The young detective closed his eyes.
“I want to come back… I want to return to my plane…” he thought. But when he opened his eyes again, he was still ghost-like. “Why isn’t it working!?”
“Something in your heart must be troubling you, making you not want to return,” suggested the fourth girl. “Perhaps you truly want to remain with us in the spirit world?”
“Well, I…” he began. “Well, Girls… you’ve all got wonderful personalities for Civil War-era ghosts, and as much as I want to be with you, I want to go home!”
“Then come on, already!” said the Inspector.
“Yeah; what’s stopping you?” cried the Techie, glancing worriedly at the pink horizon. None of this made any logical sense, but he knew that something terrible would happen if the Informant wasn’t back by sunrise.
The young man didn’t reply; he was recalling what one of the girls had said earlier.
“How do you know that your friends weren’t going to turn on you? They already didn’t believe you when you told them about us.”
It hurt, he realized. It hurt that they hadn’t believed him. Was that the doubt in his heart that was keeping him from coming back? Well, he could understand the Techie and the wary Inspector not believing him; their lives revolved around facts and logic. But his best friend not believing him had been too much, especially after he had seen the light of the ghost train go by earlier.
“Come back to us, Infy!” said the Messenger.
The younger man cast a helpless glance at his best friend, shaking his head in despair.
“I… I can’t…”
“What do you mean you can’t!?” the Messenger cried back. “You have to!”
“The doubt in his heart must be strong,” said one of the girls. “I wonder what could have caused it.”
The Informant glanced at his best friend again, and that was when the Messenger realized that he was the one responsible for the current situation.
“Infy…” he said, horrified at what was happening. “Infy, I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to discredit your word or anything…” He trailed off as his younger colleague averted his gaze to hide his hurt expression. “Infy, I’m sorry… Please… you’ve gotta come back…”
The young detective closed his eyes and concentrated again, willing himself to return, but the doubt and resentment wasn’t allowing him to do so.
The ghost train’s whistles screeched again as the coach doors began to close.
“The train is leaving!” cried one of the ghost sisters. “Quickly, you must board, or your spirit will be lost!”
The youth cast one more glance at his horrified colleagues, his best friend’s expression particularly unreadable. Unable to say a word, he ran to the girls’ coach, but the door closed before he could go through.
“No!” he cried, trying to open it. It was locked, and even though he was ghost-like himself, he couldn’t pass through it.
“Infy!” cried the Messenger. “You have to come back to our plane!”
He tried one more time to will himself back, but the negative feelings had grasped too tightly. He couldn’t return.
The solar disc began to emerge from the horizon, and he cried out in agony as the first rays struck him. He heard the ghost girls screaming from inside the train and his colleagues calling out to him. And then he knew no more.
The others could do nothing; they could only watched as he vanished, undoubtedly trapped between the planes, with no identity or mind anymore. He had gone out of his way to save them from the spirits possessing them-at the price of losing his own spirit.
The Techie glanced around, trying to blink away the tears. That was when he noticed a motionless form laying beneath one of the monuments. Both the Messenger and the Inspector turned as they heard the Techie cry out, and soon the air was filled with the Messenger’s frantic cry.
“INFY!” he yelled, running over to the snow-covered body.
“I thought he just vanished…” said the Inspector he and the Techie following him, glancing back at the ghost train, which was beginning to start up its engines.
“He was turning into a ghost before he vanished,” said the Messenger, checking the youth’s pulse and finding nothing. “He must’ve left his body behind at some point. Infy? Infy!?”
The Inspector swallowed hard, placing a hand on the Messenger’s shoulder.
“I… I don’t think he can hear you…” he said, his voice choking. “If… if what those girls said is true…”
The Messenger glanced around helplessly, as though a personification of a miracle was standing in the cemetery somewhere. That was when his eyes fell upon the inscription on the monument that was towering over them: “Friend to Friend.”
The Messenger let the Informant’s arm fall as he recalled what the cruel spirit had told him.
“Do you not know that history repeats itself? Friend or no friend, just as I delivered the final blow which took that boy’s life, so shall you be the death of this boy!”
“This is all my fault…” he realized, horrified. “He wasn’t able to come back because of the doubt he felt after I refused to believe him about the girls. I’m the reason why he’s trapped between the planes now…”
“No,” said the Techie, placing his hand on the Messenger’s other shoulder. “You were his best friend; you would never have intentionally refused to believe him.”
“Some best friend I was…” he replied, derisively. He, too, began to blink back the tears as he frantically shook the young man by the shoulders in a last-ditch attempt to revive him, though he knew it would be useless. “Infy, I’m so sorry. I know you can’t hear me, but you have to know that you were always like a younger brother to me. I’ve lost family here tonight. And I’ve only got myself to blame for it…” He trembled with suppressed sobs.
“He really did care for him…” one of the girls said, crying as well as she watched from the compartment window. “We should never have interfered…”
“Infy, if there was any way I could trade places with you, you know I would,” the Messenger went on, ignoring the girls. It was as much his fault as it was theirs. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this…”
And that was when he heard a familiar pleading whisper, sounding as though it was coming from far away.
“…Home…”
The Messenger froze. He recognized the voice, but it couldn’t be…
“I… I want… to go home…”
“…Infy…?” he asked. Was he able to think from where he was trapped!? “Infy!? I know it’s you! Infy, we want you to come back, too!” He shook him again as the Techie and the Inspector kneeled beside them, apparently having heard the young detective’s plea, too.
But the youth remained motionless, and his devastated best friend could only lower his head in despair. He sobbed once, letting him fall back to the snow-covered ground.
“Ow!”
“Sorry…” the Messenger replied. But then the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. “Infy!?”
The young detective flinched as the emerging sunlight struck his face, and he suddenly became aware of his surroundings. He glanced at the ghost sisters, who were gawking at him in amazement from their coach on the departing train, and he then glanced at his colleagues.
“Something wrong, Guys?” he asked.
The Messenger looked about ready to clobber him and hug him at the same time. After glancing at everyone’s expressions again, the Informant realized what had happened.
“I… um…” He glanced at the train as it vanished to the spirit world. He glanced back to his colleagues, still averting the gaze of his best friend. “Sorry to worry you.”
“Worried, us?” the Messenger asked, acting as though nothing had happened. “You were just knocked out for a little while, right? Nothing to worry about…”
“I wasn’t knocked out…” the younger man replied. “I wasn’t supposed to be aware of my surroundings in that place… or was it even a place? I don’t know… But I could still think, and I still knew who I was. And I also knew that my identity was something that I wasn’t supposed to have. That was when I thought I heard…” He trailed off, finally glancing at his honorary brother. “That was when I wanted to come back. I just kept trying to will myself back, and it was though I had help this time.” He glanced around at his friends.
He didn’t need to voice what he was thinking. They knew that they had helped to bring him back. And that was some consolation to the Messenger, who realized that he words had been heard after all.
The Informant sighed.
“Well, I’m glad to be back,” he said. “And I think the girls will be pleased, too. They were so busy watching me wake up that they didn’t notice that guy who entered their coach. He kinda resembled me, but he was wearing a Union soldier’s uniform…”
“Well, that’s lucky that the girls got to be reunited with him,” said the Inspector. “And thanks for keeping us from going on that train with them.”
“It was the least I could do…”
He trailed off as the Techie’s computer, which had mysteriously rebooted itself after the ghost train had left, began to emit an alarm.
“The traps!” the Techie exclaimed. “Is it possible…?”
He and the Inspector rushed off in the direction of the signal with the Informant and the Messenger some distance behind.
“Infy, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he said, still furious with himself.
“It’s OK…”
“No, it isn’t!” the Messenger fumed. “We nearly lost you because of that, and it was entirely my fault.”
“Maybe, but if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have still been trapped there now,” the younger man reminded him. “I wouldn’t have been able to escape on my own. I’d say you’ve evened things out, and then some.”
The Messenger managed a smile. He had his honorary younger brother back. Things would be alright. But he stopped short upon seeing a most unusual sight.
All four ACME agents stood before a very upset RoboCrook. The android was tangled in a mass of wire that was draining him of his auxiliary power.
“System error… system error…” he stammered, as his metal body began to shut down. He was soon immobilized, only able to move his eyes, and nothing else.
“Looks like he got a charge out of that,” the Messenger grinned. He turned to the Informant. “Infy, do you still have it?”
“Sure do!” the younger man replied, with a grin. He drew out the stamped document.
“The Warrant!”
“Then that takes care of everything,” said the Messenger. “Well… all except for one thing…”
“What’s that?” asked the Inspector, placing the handcuffs on RoboCrook, even though he knew that the android wasn’t about to go anywhere.
The Messenger glanced at the Informant.
“I understand that your memory might be a little foggy after traversing through and between different planes,” he said to his best friend. “But the fact still remains that you did hit me with a snowball.” He cracked his knuckles again.
“I, uh… don’t suppose you’d let that slide?” the Informant ventured, with a guilty shrug.
The Messenger smirked.
“Not a chance.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so…” the Informant admitted. With that, he turned and ran at top speed.
The Messenger quickly crafted a snowball and took off in pursuit, with the Inspector and the Techie following him, dragging the immobile RoboCrook along with them.
In a matter of minutes, snow was being hurtled through the air. Even RoboCrook ended up getting a facefull of the wintry flakes.
“Humans…” he muttered furiously, as the snowball fight continued to escalate.
Things were once again as they should be. And the ACME agents wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (The Dying Informant)
Table: Do-it-Yourself
Prompt: Spooked
Rating: PG13
Summary: How much trouble can the Informant and his colleagues find while staking out Gettysburg on Halloween night to apprehend RoboCrook? A lot.
Warnings: Seriousness/angst in a generally light-hearted fandom
Will be cross-posted to 31_days, 30_hugs, and the V.I.L.E. Headquarters fanfic forum.
Author's Notes: This fic was mainly inspired by today's 31 days prompt, "Conversations with dead people," and it features my favorite character, the Dying Informant. He has developed a friendship with other ACME agents-- the Messenger, one of the techies from ACME Technet, and one of the Freshness Inspectors (these are all canonical sketch characters who have shown up in at least one episode). The Messenger is the Informant's best friend and mentor, and I do briefly explain in this fic how that came to be. This story will be quite serious at times, but, as always, I can ensure a happy ending. The characters aren't mine (except for the four sisters) and the story is! Many thanks to Lucky_Ladybug for the title and plot help, plus letting me reference on of her fics!
There wasn’t sound to be heard as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon at Gettysburg. The young Informant was beginning to lose the feelings in his fingers as the temperature dropped along with the vanishing disc.
“A little cold for you, Infy?” asked his best friend, the ACME Messengernet Messenger.
The Informant grinned.
“Yeah; I guess I forgot how cold the nights can get in the Keystone State this time of year,” he replied, pulling his trenchcoat around him more tightly as the Halloween breeze blew. He turned to another close friend of his, the ACME Technet Techie. “What’s the temperature, anyway?”
“I have it at 31 degrees Fahrenheit,” the Techie replied, checking his laptop. “And it’s supposed to hit a low of 25.”
“Excellent-there’ll be a chance of snow,” smirked the Messenger, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.
Their fourth companion, the ACME Freshnet Inspector, frowned.
“We’re supposed to be on a case,” he reminded the Messenger. “ACME Bugnet picked up the news that Carmen is sending RoboCrook here; the Chief thought it’d be a good idea if, for once, we stopped the crook before the loot was stolen.”
“The park is supposed to be empty at night,” agreed the Informant. “That’d be the perfect chance for RoboCrook to strike, since no one is supposed to be here.”
“Including us…” the Techie replied, casting a wary glance around the battlefield’s park and cemetery. “At least we can be sure of one thing: RoboCrook won’t be taking us by surprise if and when he shows up.”
“How can you be sure?” asked the Informant.
The Techie smirked, showing the others his laptop.
“Just look at this set-up,” he said, proudly. “I’ve set the entire park with traps, and to ensure that RoboCrook is the only one who’ll fall into them, I’ve set them so that the trip wires are only activated when they come into contact with metal-the metal from which RoboCrook is made of!”
“Excellent!” commented the Messenger, relaxing. “So we can just kick back and wait for the next several hours!”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” frowned the Inspector. “RoboCrook could easily find a way past the traps, and imagine how terrible it would look if RoboCrook gets away with something right out from under our noses.”
“He wouldn’t get past your nose; you’re from ACME’s Freshnet division!” the Messenger grinned. His grin turned into a smirk as a few flakes of snow began to fall. “And here comes the snow! If things go well, there just might be enough to start a snowball fight!”
“Nothing bothers you, does it?” asked the Informant, glancing at his best friend and mentor with an amused shake of his head. “Here we are on a stakeout in the middle of a Civil War cemetery on Halloween night, battling the freezing temperatures, and you’re okay with all of that!?”
“Well, I still say it’s a shame that we’re missing the ACME Halloween party,” his friend replied, without a second thought. “I hear that the disguise department had some excellent costume choices; it would have been quite the Zombie Jamboree--”
He was cut off by a frustrated cry from the Techie.
“No, no, NO!” he fumed. “My laptop just went dead!”
“I thought you still had five hours’ worth of battery on it,” recalled the Informant, glancing at the blank screen.
“It did, but it still quit!” he exclaimed, visibly annoyed. “This has never happened before… And that’s not the worst of it, either! If my laptop doesn’t work, the traps won’t be activated when RoboCrook arrives!”
“Maybe he did something,” theorized the Inspector. “If he’s on to us, we’ll have to be on our guard; I say we split up and try to comb the cemetery. I have a feeling that our renegade robot will try to set his sights on something valuable.”
“Right, then,” said the Messenger, with a slightly bored yawn. “Infy, you come with me. Do you have the Warrant?”
“Naturally,” the Informant replied, showing the stamped paper with its bright red lettering. He turned to the Inspector and the Techie. “Good luck, guys; let us know if you find anything!”
He followed the Messenger amidst the old gravestones. The autumn chill in the air seemed to increase as the Informant walked, but the Messenger didn’t seem to be bothered; on the contrary, he was whistling a sprightly tune.
“I don’t know about you, but I think I’m beginning to understand why Carmen sent RoboCrook here,” said the Informant, shuddering as the moonlight cast an eerie gleam over the headstones. “I don’t think a robot could get spooked.”
“Don’t tell me you’re scared, Infy!” the Messenger chided. He couldn’t resist taunting the Informant; it was surrogate sibling banter-they had both joined ACME Crimenet at the same time, and after getting through their first (near-fatal) case chasing Eartha Brute through a maze of catacombs, they had forged a friendship. At first, the young Informant had been annoyed at being called “Infy,” but he eventually came to realize that it was the Messenger’s way of saying that he was like a younger brother to him. And the name had stuck.
But the Informant wasn’t in the mood for reminiscing now.
“I’m just saying that there’re at least a hundred other places I’d like to be other than a cemetery on Halloween night,” he said, casting a frightened glance around the area. There wasn’t another soul visible… “visible” being the key word.
“You worry too much,” the Messenger replied. “These guys have moved on long ago…” He trailed off as his flashlight batteries began to dim. He pounded the instrument against the palm of his hand, but the light still went out. “Uh-oh…”
Goosebumps rose on the Informant’s arms.
“This is no time for another one of your pranks!” he said to the Messenger, the fear evident in his voice.
“I hate to break it to you, Infy, but this is no prank; the flashlight just gave out.”
“Well, maybe I have some matches…” the Informant said, frantically searching his pockets. To his relief, he found some and lit one. “Aha! Here we…” He trailed off as the wind blew the tiny light out.
“Never mind; look,” said the Messenger, pointing ahead. A light was visible in the distance. “It looks like the others have found us; we can borrow a flashlight from them.”
“Are you sure that’s them?” asked the Informant, with a frown. “That doesn’t look like a flashlight; it’s way too bright.”
“OK, fine,” said the Messenger, pulling up the sleeve of his trenchcoat to check his wristwatch communicator. “We’ll just ask the others what their position is, and…” He trailed off, frowning.
“What is it?”
“My communicator isn’t working…” he replied, tapping the instrument with the broken flashlight. “Either we were sent out here with substandard equipment, or something strange is going on.”
“But ACME never sends agents out unprepared!” replied the Informant, dismayed to find out that his communicator wasn’t working, either. “I think… Hey… do you hear that? It sounds like an old train whistle.”
“Yeah,” the Messenger replied. “There must be a set of tracks near the cemetery. It sounds like its coming from… over there where that light is. Infy… am I going crazy, or is that light getting bigger?”
“Not unless we’re both going crazy,” the Informant replied, as the light grew to such and extent that both agents were being illuminated in what looked like a spotlight. The old train whistle sounded again, yards away, and the young Informant panicked. “LOOK OUT!”
He shoved the Messenger aside before diving out of the light’s path himself. The light zoomed past as the train whistle screeched. He felt the unseen train roar by as he hugged the ground, his trenchcoat flying wildly and his fedora being carried away by the force of it. He heard the clatter of nonexistent wheels on absent tracks, the chugging of the invisible engine, and the screeching, ghostly whistle.
The sounds and the light finally faded, but the Informant still didn’t dare to move, remaining perfectly still in the grass amidst the 19th-Century headstones, which had been untouched by the unseen train.
“Infy!?” called the Messenger, running over to him to help him to his feet. “You alright!? Say something!”
“Oh, Mama…” the Informant said at last, visibly shaken. “What was that!?”
“The weirdest wind gust I think I’ve ever seen,” his friend replied.
The Informant glanced at him with an unreadable expression.
“We were just nearly creamed by an invisible train!” he said.
“That would’ve been my next guess,” the Messenger admitted. “Something strange is going on here, Infy, and I think we’d better find the others before something happens to them.”
The Informant nodded, and followed his friend through the path of gravestones.
********************************
RoboCrook had noticed the ACME agents wandering around the cemetery, but he wasn’t worried in the slightest. They seemed to be concerned with a trivial light. Well, he thought it was trivial… until the unseen train sped past him, and his circuitry began to go haywire.
“Sound of train detected… no image seen… does not compute…” he stammered. “Communications failing… switching to auxiliary power…”
He was able to regain control of himself, unsure of what had caused the sudden loss of power in the first place. Carmen would not be pleased to see that he had lost his communications’ link.
The android thief paused to watch as two of the ACME Agents met up again with the other two.
“A light that sounded like a train?” the Techie asked. “No; we didn’t see or hear anything like that… But where’s your hat?”
The Informant felt the top of his head, feeling only his curly locks. That was when he remembered that his fedora had fallen off when the “train” had roared past him.
“It’s back there…” the Informant mumbled.
“You’d better get it back,” advised the Inspector. “If RoboCrook sees it, it’ll alert him to our presence.”
“Ha. Ha,” RoboCrook laughed to himself, as the Informant ran back to retrieve his hat. It confirmed what the robot always thought-that humans were hopelessly inefficient (and he had to wonder sometimes why on Earth he was working for one). But RoboCrook knew that if one of them was wandering off alone, it would allow him to deal with the troublesome detective. And it was the accident-prone one, too-the one who always was caught tailing someone from VILE. If the Informant was dealt with, Carmen would be pleased. And RoboCrook knew that humans were at their best when they were pleased.
Meanwhile, the Informant, oblivious to the android on his tail, was searching for his lost hat, slightly worried that he might end up seeing the strange light again.
A sudden sound made him jump slightly. Looking around, he noticed four young women dressed in odd gowns convening beside one of the monuments. But he was more interested in what they were inspecting; the girls were passing around his fedora, trying (and failing) to suppress giggles.
“Uh… excuse me!” he said, running over to the girls. “Girls? Can I have that hat back?”
All four girls glanced at him, and immediately started giggling again. One of them started waving coquettishly at him as they began to play monkey-in-the-middle with the fedora.
“Hey! Hey!” protested the Informant, making a grab for the hat. “Aw, come on, Girls! Fun is fun, but enough is enough! I’m supposed to be on duty right now!”
“Oh, all right,” sighed the girl who had waved to him. She tossed the fedora to him, and he placed it back on his head.
“How’d you girls get in here?” he asked. “I don’t think this park is on list of Halloween party spots.”
“We got a little lost,” said a second girl, sadly. “We usually do.”
“Oh… that’s too bad…” the Informant sighed. He folded his arms, glancing at the girls, wondering what to do. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers as an idea came to him. “I’ve got it! Hey, Girls-I have three friends waiting for me back there; we’re on a case right now, but maybe after we’ve cleared things up, we can escort you home! …Or we can all quadruple-date! I’m sure my friends would love to meet you!”
“Which one of us gets to go with you?” asked a third girl.
“Oh, let me!” said the fourth girl.
“No-me!” insisted the first girl.
The four girls immediately began to argue, all of them seizing the Informant’s arms.
“Girls, Girls! Please!” he said, clearly flattered to be at the center of admiration. “You haven’t even seen my friends yet!”
“They can’t be half as good-looking as you,” said the third girl.
“Well…” the Informant grinned. “When you’re right, you’re right…”
The girls all exchanged glances, giggling again.
“Come on, then!” he said.
He led the giggling girls through the headstones, not even noticing RoboCrook watching him. The metal man had been ready to attack, but had paused in confusion as the Informant had, apparently, started conversing with thin air.
“Human talking to self…” the robot observed. “Most irrational and strange…”
But RoboCrook wasn’t going to be the only one thinking along those lines.
“Hey, Guys!” the Informant exclaimed, as he ran back to his fellow agents. “Look who I found!”
“Glad to see you found your hat,” said the Techie, glancing in his direction.
“Well, yes,” the younger man replied. “But the girls found it.”
“What girls?” asked the Inspector.
“These girls,” the Informant replied. “Girls, I’d like you to meet…” He trailed off as he turned around to see nothing at all. “Where’d they go…? Girls, are you teasing me again!?”
“Infy, there’s no one there,” said the Messenger. “Why don’t you leave the practical jokes to me?”
“But they were right behind me!” the perplexed young man insisted. “There were four of them, and they tried playing Keep-Away with my hat. They said that they were lost, and so I offered that we could help them find their way back! I’m telling you that they were right there a second before I called out to you guys!”
“You know, you have been working overtime lately,” said the Techie. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“Of course I have!”
“Maybe it’s stress,” said the Inspector. “It doesn’t have to be just a lack of sleep…”
“But I’m telling you that they were there!” he said. He turned to the Messenger; surely his best friend would believe him, especially after experiencing the ghost train, too! “You believe me, don’t you, Bro?” he asked, practically pleading.
The Messenger tried to give an understanding smile.
“You know, Infy, maybe you should take some time off,” he said.
“Not you, too!” the younger man said, disheartened. “Alright then; I’ll just find the girls and prove it!”
“Infy!” the Messenger called as the Informant ran back the way he came, calling for the girls.
“I’m worried about him,” said the Techie. “Seeing things in a place like this doesn’t bode well.”
“Yeah…” the Messenger replied, as worried by the Informant’s devastated expression as by the prospect of his seeing things.
Meanwhile, the Informant kept on searching for the girls, and he finally found them a few yards away, hiding behind a large tree.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, and he called back to the others. “Hey, Guys! I found them!” He turned back to the girls. “Now why did you run off like that? You’re making me look bad in front of them!”
“Oh, we’re sorry,” said one of the girls. “We’re just a little shy around strangers.”
“You don’t seem to mind me too much…” the Informant commented.
“Well, you look very familiar,” said another one of the girls. “It feels as though we know you from somewhere…”
“Well, I’ve met a lot of people on my travels,” the young man boasted. “I’ve wandered the world on an endless quest to stop the plots of thieves!”
“Ooooh, how brave!” they gushed.
“Well, you know…” he replied, with a casual shrug. “Some of us have tasks that we just have to complete in life, and this is one of them!”
The Informant’s friends, however, were a bit concerned by what they were seeing… or, rather, what they weren’t seeing.
“He’s… talking to thin air…” said the Inspector, scratching his head.
The Messenger merely bit his lip in worry; half of him was wondering if something had happened when the Informant had leaped aside at the light. Had he hit the ground too hard or knocked his head against a gravestone? Was that why he was seeing things now?
“What’s that!?” the Techie suddenly cried out, pointing to a gleam of metal a few yards away from the Informant.
“Infy!” the Messenger cried out. “RoboCrook at 2:00!”
He, the Techie, and the Inspector were already storming past as the Informant finally looked up to see RoboCrook fleeing.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “Sorry, Girls, but duty calls! It’s time we picked up The Chase! Come on!”
He led the girls as he ran after the other three. A furious RoboCrook ran ahead, upset that he had been spotted; that Informant would never have seen him coming-he had been far too preoccupied conversing with (apparently) nothing. However, the android had enough of a headstart to vanish amongst the monuments that stood ahead.
“Lost him!” fumed the Messenger, as he came to a halt. The Inspector and the Techie, however, kept on pursuing RoboCrook.
“Hey, wait up!” called the Informant. “The girls can’t run that fast in those shoes and gowns!”
“Infy, come on already!” said the Messenger. “Snap out of it; there are no girls!”
“What is wrong with you, Man!?” asked the Informant, visibly upset. He gestured to the girls, upon making sure that they were there. “They’re standing right over there, trying to catch their breath after running after us!”
“Look, you’ve got to wake up,” said the Messenger. “Now come on; we have to find the others.”
“You go find them!” said the Informant, frowning. “I need to make sure that the girls are okay.”
“Infy, wake up!” his friend said. “You’re hallucinating out here!”
“I’m not!” the younger man insisted. “Are you trying to be funny by making me think I’m going crazy? Or can you not see what’s three yards in front of you? But you can believe what you want to; I need to help these girls like I promised, and I can do it without any help from you!”
“It’s happened,” the Messenger thought, frowning. “One near miss too many, and he’s lost it… Maybe he’d be better off sitting this one out; I’ll go find the others and let him rest.”
He wandered off in search of the others, deciding to walk eggshells around the Informant for the time being. The Informant, in the meantime, was considerably upset as he headed back to the girls.
“Is something wrong?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I know you’re shy and all, but can you do me a favor and talk to them? They think I’m going crazy!”
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” said one of the girls. “You know the truth. You can spend more time with us; you know that we’ll believe you.”
A second girl cast a warning glance at her, but the Informant didn’t catch it.
“It isn’t wise to let your friends wander around here,” she said, after turning back to him.
“Some friends they are; they didn’t even believe me…” he muttered, but he went off in the direction that the Messenger had gone, the girls following behind him.
“But this place isn’t safe at night, especially on Halloween night,” said the third girl. “Tonight is when the renegade spirits come out. If they see your friends wandering about, they might try to possess them; I can already sense that two of the spirits are close to succeeding…”
“Possess…?” the Informant stammered, coming to a halt. “But… they’d be free once the sun rises, right?”
“Not if they board the ghost train.”
“Then that must’ve been the thing I felt roar past!” he exclaimed. “What is that thing!?”
“The ghost train travels the world, picking up spirits to take to the next plane. The evil spirits are forbidden from boarding the train, unless they possess a mortal, whose spirit is pure enough to grant them passage. Then they travel through the mortal to the other world.”
What happens to the mortal?” asked the Informant, dreading the answer.
“They don’t reach the other plane; they are banished to a place between this plane and the spirit plane, neither here nor there, where lost souls roam, never to be found again. Having lost their identities to the evil ones, they become faceless spirits, condemned to an afterlife of misery.”
“I…” the Informant glanced ahead into the empty cemetery. He had to find the others, even if they didn’t believe him! He couldn’t allow such a fate to befall them!
But as his best friend’s frantic cry reached his ears, he realized that he was too late.
“No!” he cried. But he was slightly relieved to see the Messenger running towards him. His joy was short-lived, though, as he saw the look on his face.
“Infy!” he gasped. “The others… something’s happened to them. I caught up with them, and they attacked me! They were asking me where I saw that weird light we both saw--”
“I know!” replied the Informant. “The girls just told me; we can’t let them board the ghost train, or we’ll lose them forever!”
“Infy, this isn’t the time to bring up those girls!” said the Messenger.
“But, I told you that they’re real--”
“We can argue about this later!” said the Messenger. “We need to free them and get them out of here. And you don’t look too good, either; you’re looking a little pale. Are you sure that--”
“I’m fine!” the Informant insisted. “Come on! We’ve got to find the others!” He turned back, causing the messenger to grow more concerned. “Come on, Girls!”
The Messenger glanced at the empty air, growing more and more confused and worried by the second. But he and the Informant were temporarily in agreement as they saw the cold, darkened expressions of the Techie and the Inspector as they turned on them.
“Guys, snap out of it!” yelped the Informant.
But they seemed to be ignoring him; they seemed to be turning on the Messenger.
“You need to be ready to board,” the Inspector said to him, in a voice quite unlike his own. “Dawn is coming in less than an hour; you know what’ll happen if you’re not on the train.”
The Messenger shook his head fervently, snapping his fingers in the Inspector’s face as a last-ditch attempt to bring him to his senses, but to no avail.
The Informant was also trying to bring the Techie around, but he seemed to be more intent on looking around for someone else. And somehow, the Informant knew that he wasn’t looking for RoboCrook.
“It’s frightening,” whispered one of the girls. “They do look perfectly similar to those three. But look at the Messenger; he doesn’t seem to be like that horrible man at all…”
“What?” asked the Informant. “These guys are my friends, but something’s happened to these two; are you sure they’re possessed?”
“Infy, this isn’t the time…” the Messenger glanced at him, and his eyes widened. “INFY!”
“What!?” he asked, looking around frantically. “What is it!?”
“You! Look at yourself!” the Messenger cried.
The Informant glanced at his outstretched hand. To his horror, he saw that his arm, along with the rest of him, was transparent and ghost-like.
“What…!? What’s happening to me!?” he cried, turning back to the girls with fear-filled eyes. “Girls--?!”
“I told you this would happen!” one of the girls chided to the others. “I told you that he can’t spend too much time with us, and now look at what’s happening!”
The Messenger cried out in surprise as, finally, the four girls appeared before him.
“They’re real!” he said. But he was more concerned with the fact that the Informant was as transparent as the girls were. “What are you doing to Infy!?”
“We were trying to protect him from you!” one of the girls said, frowning back at the Messenger.
“How!?” retorted the Messenger, shocked at how he was able to drive his hand through the Informant’s transparent shoulder as though he wasn’t even there. “I’m his friend; I’m not the one turning him into a ghost!”
“That wasn’t our intent!” the third girl protested. “We thought you’d kill him just like your renegade counterpart did before, so we tried to protect him from you! How were we supposed to know that you weren’t evil, and that spending time with us would make him one of us!?”
“You’re ghosts, too!?” the Informant cried. No wonder the others had thought he was crazy!
“Whoa, back up!” ordered the Messenger. “Infy is like a brother to me; I’d never hurt him, let alone kill him-you can blame V.I.L.E. for that!”
“And you can blame me,” said a new voice that sounded eerily like the Messenger.
“He’s here!” the possessed Techie exclaimed.
The Informant and the Messenger stared in horror as a new spirit appeared. He looked very similar to the Messenger, but his expression was cold and sadistic, making him seem very different from the normally bright and cheery Messenger.
“It’s been a long time, Ladies,” he sneered. “I see that you still haven’t found your gentleman friend, so you decided on charming this… look-alike,” he added, glancing at the Informant.
“You leave Infy out of this!” fumed the Messenger, glaring at the spirit that resembled him.
“I am so sorry,” said one of the girls. “But your friend is a part of this.”
“Yes; you see, these little ladies were in love with a Union soldier who resembled your Informant friend here. He was stationed here before he had a chance to figure out which of these four sisters was going to be his bride. But before he could decide, the soldier died here in battle,” the cruel spirit explained.
“You killed him!” shrieked another girl. “You and them!” She pointed to the possessed Techie and Inspector.
“Heh,” he laughed. “We didn’t intend for it to turn out that way. He was trying to stop us from deserting; if he had minded his own business, nothing would’ve happened to him. And the same goes for you!”
“What is he talking about!?” cried the Informant, trying to figure out how to become flesh and blood again, instead of just an apparition.
“We came here to Gettysburg, looking for our gentleman friend,” one of the girls explained. “Those three, after killing him, mistook us for soldiers… and here we are.”
“Every Halloween, we come here via the ghost train to look for our beloved,” said another. “It has been 145 years, and we still haven’t found him. That was what we meant when we told you that we were lost. And when we saw you, we thought that you were our lost beloved. But when we saw your friends, and how they resembled the renegades who killed us…”
“That’s why you didn’t want them to see you,” the Informant realized.
“Interesting…” mused the cruel spirit, hovering over the Messenger. “You and the other two resemble us so much, and yet you are best friends with this Informant boy? Do you not know that history repeats itself? Friend or no friend, just as I delivered the final blow which took that boy’s life, so shall you be the death of this boy!”
“Never!” the Messenger vowed.
“Yeah!” agreed the Informant. “Now go away and tell your fellow evil spirits to leave my friends alone!”
“Go away?” the spirit asked. “Do you not realize that is what we’re trying to do!? Because of our actions, we were forbidden from boarding the ghost train.”
“And you want to use my friends to gain access, and banish their spirits to that dimension of misery!” the Informant realized, recalling what the girls had told him earlier. “No! I won’t let you do that to them!”
“What can you do, Boy? You’re halfway to being a ghost yourself!”
With a mad laugh, the spirit turned into an ectoplasmic form and struck the Messenger in the chest before he had a chance to escape.
“NO!” cried the Informant. “Come on, Bro! I know you can stay in control--”
“Infy…” the Messenger gasped, sweat pouring from his face. “You… you’d better get out of here; I can’t hold him back…” He trailed off, his expression changing to that of the spirit’s.
“We must retreat,” instructed one of the girls, as the rest of them led the devastated Informant away.
“What am I supposed to do now!? And what about me!?” the young man cried glancing at his spectral form. “I know I’m supposed to be the Dying Informant, but--”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said another girl. “You haven’t died, so it should be easy for you to will yourself back to this plane if you concentrate hard enough.”
“What do you mean by ‘should’…?” he asked, warily.
“She’s right; it should work,” said the third girl. “I’m sorry that it came to this, though. Honestly, if I had realized that your friends weren’t evil, I would’ve warned them to leave this place.”
“Do you think I’d have evil friends!?”
“Our gentleman friend was close friends with the three deserters who turned on him,” said the fourth girl. “How do you know that your friends weren’t going to turn on you? They already didn’t believe you when you told them about us.”
“Showing up would’ve helped my argument,” the Informant retorted, but he paused as he heard the familiar, eerie train whistle. “Look, I don’t have time for this; it’ll be dawn soon, and I have to stop that train!”
Ignoring the girls’ protests, he ran back to where he had left the others. To his shock, he could actually see the ghost train now (perhaps because he was, as the spirit had said, halfway to becoming a ghost himself), but he was more horrified to see this three possessed friends boarding the first coach.
“Guys!” he frantically cried. But they didn’t look back, and he followed them aboard the train, the four girls following right behind him. “Guys, please, snap out of it!”
“It’s no use,” said one of the girls. “You can’t help them now; you must will yourself back to your plane, or you’ll be carried along to our plane if you remain on this train. And if you’re not back in your plane and you leave the train, you’ll be banished to between the planes and be forced to exist as a faceless spirit come sunrise!”
“I can’t let them become faceless spirits trapped between the planes, either!” he said, trying to seize the Messenger’s arm, but instead going through him.
But the Messenger must have felt something, as he and the others turned to face him.
“Bro, come on!” the Informant pleaded. “You’re stronger than these spirits; you’ve always succeeded in bringing me back whenever VILE tried to take me out for good! Don’t you remember our first assignment!? Eartha had me trapped in a rock slide. I thought I was a goner, but you were able to save me!”
It was strange; even though he was transparent, the tears that were falling from his eyes were very real. And while the possessed Messenger didn’t move, the Inspector and the Techie began to show some signs of coming around, and started forcing themselves to go out the coach doors.
“Yes, that’s it!” said the Informant. “Get off the train! When the sun rises, the spirits possessing you will be destroyed!”
The girls shoved them out of the door and onto the ground, which had a small coating of snow upon it. The Messenger still did not move; the spirit (who, based on the way he had talked earlier, had seemed like the ringleader of the renegade trio) seemed to be doing all he could to maintain his hold on him.
“Look!” said the Informant, taking out the Warrant for RoboCrook’s arrest out of his pocket. “It’s the Warrant-the reason why we came here! we came to capture RoboCrook, remember!?”
The train whistle screeched again, and a loud voice shouted, “All aboard!”
“NO!” cried the Informant.
“You must leave!” cried one of the girls. “Unless you want to come with us…”
“And we certainly wouldn’t say no to that--” added a second girl. She was cut off as the Informant leaped from the train.
But he didn’t run away; he stooped to collect a couple handfuls of snow and ran back to the train. Praying that this idea would work, he lobbed the snow at the Messenger. The young detective re-boarded the carriage of the ghost train, praying that the snowball would have been enough to free his friend from the spirit possessing him.
The Messenger merely brushed off the traces of snow into his hands, forming a new sphere, which he aimed at the young detective.
The younger youth grinned; it had worked. He leaped off of the ghost train, and his friend followed suit, the spirit within him undoubtedly screaming in protest. But the spirit was no match for his will… especially when challenged to a snowball fight.
“Infy, what on Earth--!?” he asked, as he departed the train after him, his senses coming back as the snowball slipped from his grasp. The other two agents were also coming to their senses as the spirits possessing them sensed defeat.
“Oh, well done!” exclaimed one of the ghost girls, waving from the coach of the train. “It’s too close to dawn for the evil spirits to maintain their hold!”
“Well, I guess I should be lucky that this time I wasn’t possessed by a spirit who wanted to take over the world…” the Messenger mused.
The Informant laughed, relieved.
“Now you must will yourself back to your plane, otherwise you will join the evil spirits and become trapped between the planes!” added a second girl, getting the Informant’s attention. “You don’t have much time; the doors of the train will close just before the sun rises, and if that happens, you won’t be able to come with us, and you won’t be able to remain in your plane, either!”
The young detective glanced at his spectral form, and his three colleagues looked on in horror as they saw how ghostly he looked.
“How do I come back to my plane!?” he cried, as his friends gathered around him.
“It is simple,” the third girl replied. “You just have to want to come back. But your heart has to be fully into it. If it isn’t… you won’t return.”
“Come on, Infy; you don’t have much time,” said his best friend.
The young detective closed his eyes.
“I want to come back… I want to return to my plane…” he thought. But when he opened his eyes again, he was still ghost-like. “Why isn’t it working!?”
“Something in your heart must be troubling you, making you not want to return,” suggested the fourth girl. “Perhaps you truly want to remain with us in the spirit world?”
“Well, I…” he began. “Well, Girls… you’ve all got wonderful personalities for Civil War-era ghosts, and as much as I want to be with you, I want to go home!”
“Then come on, already!” said the Inspector.
“Yeah; what’s stopping you?” cried the Techie, glancing worriedly at the pink horizon. None of this made any logical sense, but he knew that something terrible would happen if the Informant wasn’t back by sunrise.
The young man didn’t reply; he was recalling what one of the girls had said earlier.
“How do you know that your friends weren’t going to turn on you? They already didn’t believe you when you told them about us.”
It hurt, he realized. It hurt that they hadn’t believed him. Was that the doubt in his heart that was keeping him from coming back? Well, he could understand the Techie and the wary Inspector not believing him; their lives revolved around facts and logic. But his best friend not believing him had been too much, especially after he had seen the light of the ghost train go by earlier.
“Come back to us, Infy!” said the Messenger.
The younger man cast a helpless glance at his best friend, shaking his head in despair.
“I… I can’t…”
“What do you mean you can’t!?” the Messenger cried back. “You have to!”
“The doubt in his heart must be strong,” said one of the girls. “I wonder what could have caused it.”
The Informant glanced at his best friend again, and that was when the Messenger realized that he was the one responsible for the current situation.
“Infy…” he said, horrified at what was happening. “Infy, I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to discredit your word or anything…” He trailed off as his younger colleague averted his gaze to hide his hurt expression. “Infy, I’m sorry… Please… you’ve gotta come back…”
The young detective closed his eyes and concentrated again, willing himself to return, but the doubt and resentment wasn’t allowing him to do so.
The ghost train’s whistles screeched again as the coach doors began to close.
“The train is leaving!” cried one of the ghost sisters. “Quickly, you must board, or your spirit will be lost!”
The youth cast one more glance at his horrified colleagues, his best friend’s expression particularly unreadable. Unable to say a word, he ran to the girls’ coach, but the door closed before he could go through.
“No!” he cried, trying to open it. It was locked, and even though he was ghost-like himself, he couldn’t pass through it.
“Infy!” cried the Messenger. “You have to come back to our plane!”
He tried one more time to will himself back, but the negative feelings had grasped too tightly. He couldn’t return.
The solar disc began to emerge from the horizon, and he cried out in agony as the first rays struck him. He heard the ghost girls screaming from inside the train and his colleagues calling out to him. And then he knew no more.
The others could do nothing; they could only watched as he vanished, undoubtedly trapped between the planes, with no identity or mind anymore. He had gone out of his way to save them from the spirits possessing them-at the price of losing his own spirit.
The Techie glanced around, trying to blink away the tears. That was when he noticed a motionless form laying beneath one of the monuments. Both the Messenger and the Inspector turned as they heard the Techie cry out, and soon the air was filled with the Messenger’s frantic cry.
“INFY!” he yelled, running over to the snow-covered body.
“I thought he just vanished…” said the Inspector he and the Techie following him, glancing back at the ghost train, which was beginning to start up its engines.
“He was turning into a ghost before he vanished,” said the Messenger, checking the youth’s pulse and finding nothing. “He must’ve left his body behind at some point. Infy? Infy!?”
The Inspector swallowed hard, placing a hand on the Messenger’s shoulder.
“I… I don’t think he can hear you…” he said, his voice choking. “If… if what those girls said is true…”
The Messenger glanced around helplessly, as though a personification of a miracle was standing in the cemetery somewhere. That was when his eyes fell upon the inscription on the monument that was towering over them: “Friend to Friend.”
The Messenger let the Informant’s arm fall as he recalled what the cruel spirit had told him.
“Do you not know that history repeats itself? Friend or no friend, just as I delivered the final blow which took that boy’s life, so shall you be the death of this boy!”
“This is all my fault…” he realized, horrified. “He wasn’t able to come back because of the doubt he felt after I refused to believe him about the girls. I’m the reason why he’s trapped between the planes now…”
“No,” said the Techie, placing his hand on the Messenger’s other shoulder. “You were his best friend; you would never have intentionally refused to believe him.”
“Some best friend I was…” he replied, derisively. He, too, began to blink back the tears as he frantically shook the young man by the shoulders in a last-ditch attempt to revive him, though he knew it would be useless. “Infy, I’m so sorry. I know you can’t hear me, but you have to know that you were always like a younger brother to me. I’ve lost family here tonight. And I’ve only got myself to blame for it…” He trembled with suppressed sobs.
“He really did care for him…” one of the girls said, crying as well as she watched from the compartment window. “We should never have interfered…”
“Infy, if there was any way I could trade places with you, you know I would,” the Messenger went on, ignoring the girls. It was as much his fault as it was theirs. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this…”
And that was when he heard a familiar pleading whisper, sounding as though it was coming from far away.
“…Home…”
The Messenger froze. He recognized the voice, but it couldn’t be…
“I… I want… to go home…”
“…Infy…?” he asked. Was he able to think from where he was trapped!? “Infy!? I know it’s you! Infy, we want you to come back, too!” He shook him again as the Techie and the Inspector kneeled beside them, apparently having heard the young detective’s plea, too.
But the youth remained motionless, and his devastated best friend could only lower his head in despair. He sobbed once, letting him fall back to the snow-covered ground.
“Ow!”
“Sorry…” the Messenger replied. But then the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. “Infy!?”
The young detective flinched as the emerging sunlight struck his face, and he suddenly became aware of his surroundings. He glanced at the ghost sisters, who were gawking at him in amazement from their coach on the departing train, and he then glanced at his colleagues.
“Something wrong, Guys?” he asked.
The Messenger looked about ready to clobber him and hug him at the same time. After glancing at everyone’s expressions again, the Informant realized what had happened.
“I… um…” He glanced at the train as it vanished to the spirit world. He glanced back to his colleagues, still averting the gaze of his best friend. “Sorry to worry you.”
“Worried, us?” the Messenger asked, acting as though nothing had happened. “You were just knocked out for a little while, right? Nothing to worry about…”
“I wasn’t knocked out…” the younger man replied. “I wasn’t supposed to be aware of my surroundings in that place… or was it even a place? I don’t know… But I could still think, and I still knew who I was. And I also knew that my identity was something that I wasn’t supposed to have. That was when I thought I heard…” He trailed off, finally glancing at his honorary brother. “That was when I wanted to come back. I just kept trying to will myself back, and it was though I had help this time.” He glanced around at his friends.
He didn’t need to voice what he was thinking. They knew that they had helped to bring him back. And that was some consolation to the Messenger, who realized that he words had been heard after all.
The Informant sighed.
“Well, I’m glad to be back,” he said. “And I think the girls will be pleased, too. They were so busy watching me wake up that they didn’t notice that guy who entered their coach. He kinda resembled me, but he was wearing a Union soldier’s uniform…”
“Well, that’s lucky that the girls got to be reunited with him,” said the Inspector. “And thanks for keeping us from going on that train with them.”
“It was the least I could do…”
He trailed off as the Techie’s computer, which had mysteriously rebooted itself after the ghost train had left, began to emit an alarm.
“The traps!” the Techie exclaimed. “Is it possible…?”
He and the Inspector rushed off in the direction of the signal with the Informant and the Messenger some distance behind.
“Infy, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he said, still furious with himself.
“It’s OK…”
“No, it isn’t!” the Messenger fumed. “We nearly lost you because of that, and it was entirely my fault.”
“Maybe, but if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have still been trapped there now,” the younger man reminded him. “I wouldn’t have been able to escape on my own. I’d say you’ve evened things out, and then some.”
The Messenger managed a smile. He had his honorary younger brother back. Things would be alright. But he stopped short upon seeing a most unusual sight.
All four ACME agents stood before a very upset RoboCrook. The android was tangled in a mass of wire that was draining him of his auxiliary power.
“System error… system error…” he stammered, as his metal body began to shut down. He was soon immobilized, only able to move his eyes, and nothing else.
“Looks like he got a charge out of that,” the Messenger grinned. He turned to the Informant. “Infy, do you still have it?”
“Sure do!” the younger man replied, with a grin. He drew out the stamped document.
“The Warrant!”
“Then that takes care of everything,” said the Messenger. “Well… all except for one thing…”
“What’s that?” asked the Inspector, placing the handcuffs on RoboCrook, even though he knew that the android wasn’t about to go anywhere.
The Messenger glanced at the Informant.
“I understand that your memory might be a little foggy after traversing through and between different planes,” he said to his best friend. “But the fact still remains that you did hit me with a snowball.” He cracked his knuckles again.
“I, uh… don’t suppose you’d let that slide?” the Informant ventured, with a guilty shrug.
The Messenger smirked.
“Not a chance.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so…” the Informant admitted. With that, he turned and ran at top speed.
The Messenger quickly crafted a snowball and took off in pursuit, with the Inspector and the Techie following him, dragging the immobile RoboCrook along with them.
In a matter of minutes, snow was being hurtled through the air. Even RoboCrook ended up getting a facefull of the wintry flakes.
“Humans…” he muttered furiously, as the snowball fight continued to escalate.
Things were once again as they should be. And the ACME agents wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.