OCS: Santa Claus is Coming to Town, part 2 [K+]
Fandom:
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Title:
Santa Claus is Coming to Town, part 2
Author:
lt_indigo
Part One
Despite the objections of Ochre and Magenta, Scarlet insisted on joining them in the search for the Mysteron agents.
"After all," he had said when they had lodged their initial protests, "if they're looking for me as a target, then wherever I am is where they'll be."
However, after spending a large amount of time scouring the base for the errant Mysteron agents, it seemed likely that Magenta was correct in his assumption that the agents would wait for night to fall before striking again, and they headed for the R&D building, which would draw both agents to the same place, if indeed one was after Scarlet and the other the building itself.
The agents sat inside the research building, out of the cold, waiting for the night shift to start. In the lab itself, Ochre picked up what appeared to be a large video camera. Flipping the plasma screen open and pointing it at Magenta, he was surprised to see a skeleton appear on the screen, much as the picture of a Mysteron detector worked. Aiming the camera at Scarlet, his guess was confirmed when Scarlet himself appeared on the screen instead of the skeleton.
"Stop playing with that thing, Ochre," Scarlet reprimanded him.
"It's a Mysteron detector," Ochre said in defence, subtly flicking the 'record' button.
"All the more reason not to play around with it," Scarlet said. "In this building is the future of the War, what the Mysterons are trying to stop us from using against them. I shouldn't be surprised if they were trying to work on a miniaturised version of that for field use."
"Sure beats taking pictures of everyone," Magenta pointed out.
"Just think," Ochre said, "if we could install these all over the world, the Mysterons wouldn't stand a chance of not being detected."
And I'd never be able to travel off Cloudbase," Scarlet noted darkly.
Ochre panned down with the camera, away from Scarlet's head before smirking.
"No, you wouldn't, would you?" he noted in an amused tone.
"What do you mean?" Scarlet asked.
"Well, you're buck-nekkid," Ochre told his mortified colleague.
"What!? Turn that damned thing off!"
Ochre experimentally flipped a switch that toggled him onto a normal video view of the room.
"Hey, look. Normal. Wave for the camera now that you're dressed, Scarlet."
"You're enjoying this," Scarlet grumbled, his ears glowing bright red.
"Yep."
"Well, that answers that question, then," Magenta noted with interest. "I must admit, I always wondered what would happen if we took a picture of a Mysteron who wasn't wearing what they were reconstructed in."
Scarlet turned his back on Ochre, who appeared to be in a particularly infantile mood in order to continue a sensible conversation with Magenta.
.oOo.
Rhapsody knelt in the spot where she had seen the motion. Although there was no snow, the ground in the wooded areas was frosty enough to keep any tracks, obvious even in the dwindling winter light, and someone had definitely stood here before moving off round the back of the house at a slow pace which would prevent his being seen or heard by anyone. Rhapsody was under no such constraint, and ran in the direction of the footprints, her fear building.
She could see the man up ahead, carrying a gun and heading in the direction of the back garden, where Rose was probably still playing innocently. Rhapsody increased her speed, incensed at the thought of anyone threatening her little girl. She was making so much noise on the crispy ground, but the Mysteron agent, which was what the man logically must be, seemed to ignore her.
A bark from Humphrey, so close, made the Mysteron hesitate. Rhapsody seized her chance.
"Stop!" she shouted. "Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head."
God, how much did that sound like a cheesy cop-show line? she thought briefly as the Mysteron agent turned on her, not complying with her instructions in the slightest.
"Foolish Earthwoman," the Mysteron agent told her. "You cannot stop me with that weapon. I will succeed with my mission. The Mysterons' instructions will be carried out." He levelled his gun at her.
Rhapsody fired first, before he had even had the chance to finish his speech. "Not on my watch," she sneered as the bullet met its target and pierced the construct's chest. The Mysteron staggered and fell to the ground, bleeding severely.
"You know," Rhapsody continued, conversationally, as she approached the prone form. "You really do give yourselves away by calling people 'Earthman' or 'Earthwoman'. Congratulations on figuring out the genders, by the way. If you didn't say things like that, or 'Mysteron instructions will be carried out', you'd stand a much better chance of succeeding. Oh, and, by the way," she added, re-aiming her gun, "I might not be able to kill you with this, not permanently, but I can keep killing you until the electron gun arrives."
She fired again, at point blank range, and the bullet found the heart.
Looking up, Rhapsody realised that she was right at the edge of the wooded area, and whilst Rose was playing in another area of the garden and could not have seen the events, there was a window in the house that would give a grandstand view. And had. In the kitchen, Mary's white face stared out of the window towards her daughter-in-law, before withdrawing.
Moments later, General Metcalfe appeared from the back door of the house. He was carrying Rhapsody's coat, which she gratefully donned, and a gun of his own. He also had a pair of camping stools that didn't appear to have been used for some time. Handing one stool to Rhapsody, he unfolded the other and sat down beside the body as he heard Mary calling Rose into the house.
"What now?"
"We wait," Rhapsody said dispassionately. "If he wakes up, we shoot him again."
Metcalfe nodded as Rhapsody fished around in her coat pocket and withdrew her radio.
.oOo.
Scarlet sagged slightly as a wave of nausea hit him. The night shift had started ten minutes ago, not that any of the day officers had gone off-duty, and it appeared that their suspicions had been founded.
"Mysterons?" Magenta asked, noticing.
Scarlet nodded tersely. "It only feels like one, though," he said, puzzled. "Coming this way." Scarlet had become more in tune with his in-built Mysteron detector in recent times, learning to trust and interpret what it told him much more accurately.
"One?" Ochre whispered. "Where's the other?"
"How should I know?" Scarlet hissed through gritted teeth. "Let's just deal with this one for now."
The whole team of officers tensed as Magenta passed on Scarlet's information through his RadioCap. The building was totally surrounded by officers. The Mysteron had no chance of success.
"Captain Magenta?" a nervous voice said over the radio. "He's here on the north side."
"North side," Magenta shouted to the others stationed with him on the west side, who moved out to cover their colleagues.
As Magenta emerged from the side of the building, he could see what had made the agent who had contacted him so nervous. The Mysteron agent was laden with explosives that, if a stray bullet were to hit them, would send them all to Kingdom Come.
"What are you going to do, Earthmen?" Entwistle taunted them. "You might have the building surrounded, but you cannot fire at me without detonating these explosives."
A movement at Magenta's side tore his attention away from the Mysteron Agent. Scarlet had moved away from the group, unnoticed, and was moving to a position behind the agent.
"Scarlet, what are you doing?" Magenta whispered into his microphone.
"We can shoot him from behind, as long as I'm far enough away," Scarlet replied. "Keep him talking."
"SIG, Scarlet," Magenta acknowledged.
"Where's the other agent?" Magenta called out. "We know that you killed Davis too. We found the body."
Entwistle laughed, and the explosives in his arms wobbled precariously, jogged by the motion in his rotund belly.
"Davis is far enough away not to be any of your concern," he said mockingly. "He is fulfilling his purpose."
"Which is…?" Magenta prompted, keeping an eye on Scarlet, who was now directly behind Entwistle.
"The humans must never discover the secrets of the Mysterons," Entwistle said cryptically. "Surely even you humans can work…"
He cut off suddenly with a strangling sound and toppled forwards. A dark stain was spreading across his charcoal grey uniform in a circular fashion.
"Dammit, Scarlet!" Magenta shouted. "He was just about to tell us where Davis was!"
"Sorry," Scarlet said, approaching. "I couldn't hear him. I had to be far enough away to ensure that the bullet didn't go straight through him."
"Too late now," Magenta said. "Where's Ochre with that Mysteron gun?"
"Here," his compatriot announced, appearing to Magenta's left through the crowd of charcoal-clad agents. Ochre took aim and discharged the weapon into the dead Mysteron.
As he was pondering the whereabouts of the second agent, Scarlet's epaulettes flashed white and his microphone dropped into place.
"Captain Scarlet?" White's voice announced over the speakers in the cap. "We have received a message from Rhapsody Angel."
"Yes, sir?" Scarlet said, immediately panicking.
"You are to return to Winchester immediately, and take a Mysteron gun with you."
"Oh, my God!" Scarlet immediately picked up the Mysteron gun that he had temporarily propped up against the wall of the R&D building and ran towards the exit, and his car. Paying absolutely no attention to Colonel White, he steered the car onto the M25 and raced against the fortunately light traffic.
His fear for his family growing by the second, Scarlet reached Winchester in record time to be greeted by his mother in the driveway, who looked shaken.
"Round the back," she told him.
Apprehension building, Scarlet picked up the Mysteron gun and ran as fast as he could around the house to where he could see Rhapsody's white coat standing out in the darkness. She was sitting calmly on an old camping stool opposite his father, with a dead body between them.
"You're… you're all right?" Scarlet stammered in shock.
Rhapsody rolled her eyes. "Yes, Paul, we're all right."
"When Colonel White said that I needed to come back, I thought…" He couldn't finish the sentence. The idea of anything happening to his family, to those closest to him, was too much to bear.
"We're not completely inept, you know," Rhapsody chastised him, before taking pity on her husband and standing to embrace him.
Scarlet returned the hug fiercely, reassuring himself that all was fine. "I was so worried," he said softly. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the Mysteron agent began to stir. General Metcalfe, however, calmly cocked his handgun and fired one bullet into the man's back. The agent grew still again.
"Come on, son," he said, "we need that gun of yours to finish off the job."
Scarlet broke away from the embrace and shouldered the rifle-type weapon.
"You'll have to move away, Dad," he said. Metcalfe stood and moved behind his son. Scarlet took careful aim and fired at the body, which arched under the electrical onslaught before growing still again.
Metcalfe wrinkled his nostrils at the acrid smell of burning flesh. "Let's go in, dear," he said to Rhapsody. "The cold is beginning to penetrate my coat."
Rhapsody smiled. "Mine too," she admitted. "We'll leave the hero to deal with Spectrum."
Scarlet turned, hurt. He saw the teasing look on Rhapsody's and his father's faces and submitted. "I'll contact London, get them to pick the body up."
.oOo.
Captain Blue stretched out in his bed. Confined to sickbay with Captain Grey for the duration of their illness, both were bored. They had watched a movie, but that had finished some time ago. Grey was sat reading a book at the moment, and so missed Captain Ochre approaching the Plexiglas of their quarantine room.
"Hey, guys," he greeted them cheerfully over the intercom system. "I've got some entertainment for you." He brandished a small rectangular object.
"What's that?" Blue asked as Grey marked his page and put his book down.
"A memory card," Ochre announced. "You've got to see this." He placed the card into a reader that was connected to the television in the room. The TV flickered to life, and an image of Scarlet appeared.
"What is this, Rick?" Grey asked curiously.
"I found a camera on the surface," Ochre explained gleefully, pausing the playback right at the beginning. "It was a Mysteron detector and a regular camera. I've got playback from both."
Blue frowned. "Whilst that sounds interesting from a work perspective, I'm not sure what's so funny about it."
"Watch and learn, my friend," Ochre said, "watch and learn."
The playback resumed.
"All the more reason not to play around with it," Scarlet said, obviously continuing on from a time before the recording had begun. "In this building is the future of the War, what the Mysterons are trying to stop us from using against them. I shouldn't be surprised if they were trying to work on a miniaturised version of that for field use."
"Sure beats taking pictures of everyone," Magenta pointed out, off camera.
"Just think," Ochre said, "if we could install these all over the world, the Mysterons wouldn't stand a chance of not being detected." Ochre's voice was muffled slightly, evidently behind the microphone.
"And I'd never be able to travel off Cloudbase," Scarlet noted darkly.
The image panned down with the camera, away from Scarlet's head to his body.
Blue and Grey gasped simultaneously.
"Ochre, this is watchable, right?" Blue asked, preparing to avert his eyes if the worst should happen.
"Yeah, yeah," Ochre said. "I'm not that bad, you know. It's the next bit you want. The end is for the girls."
"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Ochre noted in an amused tone.
"What do you mean?" Scarlet asked.
"Well, you're buck-nekkid," Ochre told his mortified colleague.
"What!? Turn that damned thing off!" Scarlet snapped on screen, his ears turning red before their eyes.
The view switched to a normal picture suddenly.
"Hey, look. Normal. Wave for the camera now that you're dressed, Scarlet." The image panned back to reveal Scarlet's attire.
"What is he wearing?" Blue asked, choking on a mouthful of water.
Grey laughed loudly. "This is the best thing I've seen all week!"
"You're enjoying this," Scarlet grumbled, his ears still bright red.
"Yep."
"Well, that answers that question, then," Magenta noted, still off-screen. "I must admit, I always wondered what would happen if we took a picture of a Mysteron who wasn't wearing what they were reconstructed in."
Scarlet turned his back on Ochre, and the image turned back to the Mysteron detector image, showing Scarlet's bare back. The camera had panned back since last time that had been used, revealing…
"Ochre!"
"That's the bit for the girls," Ochre told his friends. "I thought they'd enjoy it."
"I'll bet," Grey agreed. "Make sure the colonel doesn't see that though."
"Hey, Ochre?" Blue called out. "Get a still of him in that Santa outfit, will ya?"
"Sure thing," Ochre said, ejecting the card from the reader. "See you around."
.oOo.
Scarlet sighed as the Spectrum helijet finally took off carrying the body of Corporal Davis to Cloudbase to be submitted for Dr. Fawn's tests. What he actually did with the bodies that he received, no-one quite liked to ask, but it kept him out of mischief for a day or so.
Turning back towards the house, he could see Rose's eager face pressed against the kitchen window, and he suddenly remembered that the poor child hadn't had a chance to open her presents. She was in a better situation than the kids at London, admittedly, but even so, the suspense must have been nearly killing her.
As he opened the back door leading into the kitchen, Rose turned to face him expectantly. Scarlet lifted her from the worktop, groaning slightly under her weight as he twirled her around, realising just how big she was actually getting these days.
Setting Rose down on the floor, he said to her "Let's go and open those presents, shall we?"
"Yay!" Rose cried, racing off towards the living room.
.oOo.
Colonel White paused outside the Amber Room as he heard peals of laughter from within.
"Play it again," he heard Melody say.
"Knew you'd like it," Ochre said.
"Who'd have thought that Scarlet had such a shapely ass?" Symphony said, elicting more giggles from the women.
Right, White decided. Something is going on in there. He strode purposely towards the Amber Room door, which obligingly opened for him to reveal Ochre standing by the data player, and an image of Captain Scarlet on the screen, wearing his Spectrum uniform, plus an addition.
"What the Hell is that?!" White roared.
.oOo.
Scarlet threw his cap onto the pristine bed, and fingered the white fur trimming around his uniform thoughtfully.
"Dianne? Why did you sew this on?"
He was answered by a piece of material flying into his face. He grabbed it before it fell to the floor and inspected it. It was a Father Christmas hat. He smiled and shook his head, before donning the item.
"I couldn't resist," Rhapsody replied, once he had done so. Scarlet noticed that she had placed a gold tinsel 'halo' on her own head, and a pair of adult-sized fairy wings were fastened to her back. He smiled and walked quickly around the bed.
"Well," he murmured, taking her in his arms. "Since you put it like that…" He kissed her passionately, before pinching her halo.
"You don't deserve this," he said, brandishing the object. "You've been a bad girl this year, and I should know."
Rhapsody lunged for the halo, but Scarlet held it above his head, out of her reach, laughing. She pushed him towards the bed and he fell onto it, still laughing. The halo dropped out of his hand, and Rhapsody reached over him to grab it. He let her do so, but grabbed hold of her and pulled her off her feet as she returned the tinsel ring to its rightful place. He kissed her again.
"Merry Christmas, my Angel," he murmured into her hair as they made themselves more comfortable.
.oOo.
In the woods behind the Metcalfes' house, Captain Black watched as the last lights went out in the house, then gathered some dry twigs and small branches, and lit them. Whilst it was cold outside, this fire was not for warmth. He drew a small book out of his pocket.
The Earthmen must never discover the secrets of the Mysterons. This information cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of Spectrum again. It must be destroyed.
Captain Black dispassionately dropped the book into the flames.
They didn't know, the human part of him cried. He had given up hope of reasoning with the Mysterons, but he still needed to feel grief and despair at the actions that they forced him to commit. They didn't even know what they had found, and you killed them all!