Fictionarium 10. Episode 2- Eluding the Agent Trap

A large bag of potatoes-- or maybe cantaloups, was what Mel thought she was looking at laying in her front lawn. As she pulled into her driveway, big Chuck came strutting over to her car, smiling proudly. "We GOT him!"

CH10 E2- Eluding the Agent Trap

 

image source @therealpaul

The Plan

  
When Mel and Arlo had left Lakeland that morning for the drive to Hill Valley, they had made a loose plan. Arlo needed to go by his apartment to find his ID card, and then Mel would take him on to the police station to claim his car, while she went to check in at work and see Sue for a bit at the cafe.  

image source Pixabay

Mel was driving fast that morning-- she was anxious to get back to Hill Valley to share her epiphany from the day before, and she was excited to share the entire Lakeland experience with anybody who could handle it. Arlo was less anxious to get back, and while he was impressed with Mel's professional-quality driving skills, he had glanced at her speedometer with some concern more than a few times as they had screamed down the old highway towards the town, especially when they passed the gloomy "Welcome to Hill Valley" sign, where some ancient hoodlum's spray-paint still made the 'i' look like an 'E' after many years of fading, and the sign's neglect had become it's strongest message.

The town looked the same as it had looked when they left, the streets busy with anxious people, powering some unseen engine.

Hill Valley

Hill Valley; where dreams are made. Who's dreams? The psychopathic dreams of some old guy that most people have never even heard of, but the citizenry of the town toil along, believing that those dreams-- and the products of their work-- are suited just for them. Bound by tradition and superstition, they believe that they have chosen experts to imagine their future for them, and they are right. Except that such a future isn't really for them, they manifest it just the same-- with one eye shut and their hands tied behind their backs, like the little creators that they are.

There were, however, some noticeable improvements to the town. Having no functioning traffic light system anymore, the average driver in Hill Valley had now merged with the organic flow of things, and they pulsed around town getting human things done with greater ease than ever. Mel's car blended in with the flow now, and Arlo pointed her towards the street next to his apartment, so that he could have a look at his place from a distance, and so that Mel and her car wouldn't be so easily connected to him.  

Arlo was trying to keep her away from his problems, and it was troubling enough already for Arlo to think that Mel's house might be owned by his boss Don Felger, and that Felger may actually be in Hill Valley right now, looking for his machine gun. And his gold.

"What the hell?" Looking down the street from the corner as they passed, there in front of Arlo's apartment sat his gleaming watermelon car. It was now backed into it's space instead of facing forward as he'd parked it originally, but there it sat. 

Arlo laughed. "They brought it back! I bet they were getting a lot of questions about that car… did you see it?"

Arlo tried to explain his reasoning. "They must have tried to lure me down to the police station to get the car… but then they had this bright watermelon car sitting there in their impound lot, right in the middle of town… nobody's ever seen paint like that… and I never showed up to get the thing!"

It turned out that Arlo wouldn't have to go to the police station after all. Police problems don't normally just go away though, and he now wondered what problems had replaced that one as he hopped out of Mel's car-- and as it growled away he wondered, with a quick shock, if his car was here because it was just another trap, to lure him back to his apartment.

After leaving Arlo with his melon car and presumed troubles, Mel flowed back across town to the Bean House, and immediately remembered the little gravity bike in the storage room in back. Probably nobody had seen it, the room was rarely used, and she walked past it's door without looking.

Pixabay

Sue was Mel's best friend, and she was also officially the assistant manager at the cafe. Sue had things under control at the Bean House, but dropped what she was doing when she saw Mel.  
"THERE you are! I'm going to cry… and then I'm going to kick your ass! Do you know how worried we've been?"

Sue was mostly serious. When they didn't hear from Mel when they'd expected, Sue had driven by Mel's house to check on her, but had seen a strange car in the driveway, and there had been a police car lurking around the corner, so she kept going. Later she and her boyfriend Chuck had gone back by, but Mel's car hadn't been there, the strange car was gone, and they had started to worry.  
Sue was diligently running the Bean House today, but she had asked Chuck to go back over to Mel's house to look around for anything he could find.

As Mel listened to Sue's scolding, she thought about her house and all of it's unlocked doors-- the secret room and it's contents-- the visit from the police, and her mysterious landlord that she'd never met. Soon she was immersed in customer's orders at the cafe, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she should go to her house. 

 

The coffee flowed, and the old steamy espresso machine roared through the morning. After Sue had taken a nice break, Mel told her as much as she could about Lakeland as they worked, but the constant interruptions of a fairly busy morning at the Bean House were making it hard to convey the experience properly. The enlightenment of Hill Valley may have to wait until after the lunch rush.

The house wouldn't get out of her head. Another minute went by as lunch slowed down, and Mel finally told Sue, with great apology, that she needed to go home for a bit, since she hadn't been there since she got back from Lakeland. She hugged Sue, and thanked her for being concerned, and then started the anxious drive home.

With a suspicious absence of police presence, she made the drive. Pulling up, her house looked the same as ever, except that Chuck's truck was in her front yard. When Mel saw it, she was relieved that she'd be able to tell him that she was ok. She could now see him and one of his friends standing in the front yard as she pulled in.

Pixabay

"We GOT him!"  

Chuck was an immense guy. With the look of an alligator wrestler, Chuck had always lived in a peaceful world. Anyone who knew him knew him to be the nicest person that one could meet-- and strangers tended to see him as the guy they wanted on their team. Even his eyebrows were muscular. Surrounding bright intelligent eyes, his great skull was cornered and angular like a chunk of iron-- his neck and shoulders were a single triangular unit-- he was an organic crushing device, but also gentle and sentient, and human as he could be.

Mel got out of her car slowly, staring at the bag on the ground next to Chuck's truck, as Chuck described their heroics in his low booming voice. "We pulled in, and here's this dude… he sees us and starts running into the woods. He wouldn't tell us anything though, he hasn't said a single word." Chuck pointed. "He's in there!"

Mel kicked the bag a little harder than she meant to. She was still thinking cantaloups and potatoes-- the influence of Lakeland, no doubt. There was a muffled grunt, and then finally a voice.

"I'm looking for Edgar Greengarden!"

Mel made a face and leaned down, untied the duffel bag's cord, and yanked it open. In the bag, squinting through one blackened eye and smiling past a bloody lip, was Arlo.  

"Hey Mel."

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thanks for reading this episode of Fictionarium 

FICTIONARIUM- Where they're not just playing with you-- it's for science.

images by me unless otherwise noted above

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