He couldn't tell what time it was, but from the amount of light coming in the windows he guessed it was either early in the morning, or shortly before sundown.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself.
Some time later, the door opened and an unusually muscular guy with tattooed arms and a red shirt came in. A couple seconds later, Seth came in to the room as well.
"Hello Tommy," Seth said. "How are you feeling?"
"Fuck you, Seth," Tommy said in response. The red shirt smacked the back of Tommy's head. "Ow, dammit!" Tommy exclaimed.
"Now Tommy, we can be more civil than that, can't we?" Seth asked. "Oh, who am I kidding? It's more fun this way. Hit him again, please." Seth smiled as his goon punched Tommy in the gut. Tommy groaned.
"What do you want, Seth?" Tommy asked when he got his breath back.
"Complete chaos, as usual. Catching you is a perk, because now chaos is going to come to me, instead of me having to go find it," Seth said. "I'm a little worn out and bored with chasing things after following you and Hep around the country." Seth moved to stand directly in front of Tommy, though well out of reach. He crouched down to be at the same level as Tommy.
"Now, all I have to do is keep you here until the shit, so to speak, hits the fan. And, of course, Hep and his posse of idiots are going to try and find you. If they come here, well, that'll just be more fun for me. I do love a good warm up." Seth said, and smiled at Tommy. He stood up.
"Enjoy your time here, you won't have much left." Seth said. He walked out of the room. The beefy goon followed, shut the door, and Tommy heard him lock it.
The light coming in the windows started to get darker, so Tommy was able to guess at the time. He hoped he'd be able to find Hep or Scroat, or even Elvis, as he dreamed that night.
***
Hep, Scroat, Charlie, Jim and now Frank were busy picking enough weapons from Charlie's stash to arm themselves, Minerva, Athena, Dave and the UTMC crew, any extra UTMCers Dave was able to round up, and a few dozen spares. Just in case.They stood in front of a pile of revolvers, rifles, explosives (lovingly made by Charlie himself), clubs and other blunt instruments, blades, ammunition, and a first aid kit.
"Think it's enough?" Charlie asked them. Frank slowly turned and looked at him in amazement.
"Who the hell are you guys up against?" Frank asked.
"A wicked witch and her army of flying monkeys," Scroat said sarcastically.
"Frank, apart from carrying this stuff to Denver, you're going to be better off not knowing anything and not getting involved," Hep said.
"And staying out of the way," Jim added.
"Well, we've got that sorted, I guess. Let's load up the car and your sidecar and get back to Denver," Charlie said. They spent a good half hour trying to cram everything into the vehicles. Frank refused to have Charlie's bombs in the car with him, so those went into Hep's sidecar. Once everything was in, they covered the stuff in the sidecar with a tarp, and the weaponry in Frank's Corvette with blankets that had puppies on them.
"No one will think you're transporting a small army's worth of guns and blades in a Corvette under puppy blankets," Charlie said, and laughed. "Good thinking, Frank."
Frank was near panic, and he was itching to dig out the cell phone and call his boss and ask what the hell she had gotten him involved in.
"Let's get moving," Hep said. They mounted up, Charlie grinning as he fired up is Ducati.
"I thought you were gone for good, baby," he said to the bike.
***
The UTMC crew and Minerva and Athena were a couple hours outside of Denver, and riding fast.***
While Hep and the rest were going to Aspen, Dave had started rounding up everyone he could find to come and help out. Soon there were twenty more UTMCers waiting for Hep and the rest in a coffee shop in Denver."So, what are we up against here?" one of them asked Dave.
"A whole world of shit," Dave said. "Once again, we've got to help Hep save the world."
"You know, one of these days I'm probably going to stop being glad to see Hep," another UTMCer quipped.
They went back to waiting, drinking coffee, and swapping lies about how fast their lap times were at the track.
***
Hep, Scroat, Charlie and Jim rode fast back to Denver. They would have gone faster, but they were limited by Frank's ability to drive the Corvette. His vehicle, sadly, was entirely standard, and not nearly as capable as their bikes.But then, they were gods, and Frank was a goofball kid from east bumfuck, as Scroat would say.
On straight sections of road, they drove at 120 miles per hour. In curvy parts, they slowed it down to 80.
At one point, they blew past a cop. He immediately turned on his lights and gave chase to Frank. Frank pulled over, and the others pulled over with him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the cop asked Frank. Charlie walked back to where the cop and Frank were. "Get out of the car please, sir," the cop said to Frank.
Charlie walked up to the cop. "Sir, we've got a dire emergency and need to keep moving."
"Who the fuck are you?" the cop asked, his hand instinctively reaching for his side-arm.
"Just your friendly neighborhood god of war," Charlie said. "This man is with me, and we need to go. Now."
"You're not going anywhere pal, until..."the cop began, then stopped. Fire was dancing in Charlie's eyes, and the cop could swear Charlie had just exhaled smoke. He could smell coal burning.
"Until what?" Charlie asked calmly.
"Until I've told you to have a nice day. Drive carefully now," the cop said, and hurried back to his own car.
Frank stared at Charlie. "What the hell?" he asked.
"You don't want to know. Just get in the car and drive," Charlie said. He walked back to his bike, and Frank got back in the car. They all sped off, rocketing towards Denver.
An hour later, they arrived at the coffee shop.
***
"Wow, you managed to find a lot of people," Hep said to Dave."I do what I can, Dave said. "So what now?"
"So now we go back to someone's house, figure out our next step, and try to get some sleep," Hep said. They decided to head back to Dave's house. Hep and Frank followed immediately behind Dave. The rest rode behind Frank.
At Dave's house, Frank and Hep parked in the garage and they shut the door. As the rest of the group arrived, they parked on the street, on Dave's driveway, and in his yard. They all filed inside.
Inside, Hep, Charlie, Scroat and Dave were unloading the Corvette and sidecar. Frank stood in a corner watching with mounting horror as the UTMCers bickered over which weapons they were best suited to carry. He was pretty sure that he'd never seen a TV detective getting wrapped up in this kind of heavy shit before, and he had no idea what he should do.
Luckily, cowering in the corner was exactly where Hep preferred Frank to be. Best to leave the world-saving to those who are up to the task.
Once everyone was well and truly armed to the teeth, they gathered in Dave's living room and Hep filled them in on what was going on. He told them they were going to have to kick a lot of asses in order to get Tommy back.
He also told them that he currently had absolutely no idea where Tommy actually was, so the first order of business would be to find that crucial bit of information.
After that, they agreed to meet back at Dave's house the next morning and plan their next move. Most of the UTMC crew left to go sleep in their own homes.
Shortly after the crowd left, Too Tall and the rest arrived at Dave's house.
"Hey guys, what did we miss?" Athena asked.
***
That night, Hep dreamt he was on a boat, fishing. He thought he must be in Minnesota. In the boat with him was Tommy."Hep, you gotta help me out," Tommy said.
"You gotta tell me where you are," Hep replied. "Are you ok?"
"As ok as I can be when I'm a prisoner of Seth's. I don't know exactly where I am. In a fancy house somewhere..." Tommy said. He was interrupted by a voice coming from the left. They looked, and saw Seth standing on the water.
"Tommy, you're not trying to go behind my back now, are you?" Seth asked. "That's hardly playing fair at all. Hello Hep. Are the fish biting?" Seth gave Hep a large, shit-eating grin.
"Fuck you, Seth," Tommy said.
"Now, now, that's just not nice at all. I think it's time for you to wake up." Seth said, and vanished.
'What the hell does that mean?" Tommy asked Hep, then disappeared as well.
***
Tommy woke up gasping for breath, hunched over. The big red-shirted guy was standing over him with his fists clenched. Tommy realized he'd been punched in the gut again.Seth stood nearby. "Oh Tommy, I can't have you playing games like that if you're going to be my guest here," he said mournfully. Then he laughed. "I guess I'm going to have to be a little more strict with you. Hit him again, please."
The red-shirted ogre back-handed Tommy across the face.
"No more silliness, now, or I'll have to start being outright unpleasant." Seth said, and left the room.
The red shirt went over to the door and closed it, then locked it from the inside. Evidentally he was going to stay in the room and keep and eye on Tommy.
"Great," Tommy muttered.
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