My name is Gabrielle Dolly, and I approve the contents of this site.
Two: 06:30 ... Base Cyrene, the Motorway North out of the City
The Action Team had taken the entire floor of the hotel. Members of the Center's Troll Guards regiment, (Regiment Arcadia), were on guard in the hallway, making sure that the Action Team members could get their downtime in safety. The hall guards were changing shifts as Drummond and Dolly emerged from the latter's assigned room. Heads were discreetly turned so as to avoid noticing that the two appeared together from the same sleeping room first thing in the morning.
"Morning, guys," Drummond said cheerfully. "Quiet night?"
"Morning, Chief," the three-striper in charge of the detail replied. "Just the regular radio chatter."
"Good. We'll be on site in about thirty-five minutes."
Drummond stifled the urge to call out Carry on, as he and Dolly moved toward the elevator. His hand collided with hers at the call button, eliciting a quickly suppressed giggle from the doll.
As the steel doors closed on the elevator car, Drummond said, "It'll be great to turn her over to KiPro's security team on Monday, when they start shooting the next season's shows. As important as this job is, it's hard to keep it up for so long."
Dolly snuggled up to his side, knowing that all too soon they'd be in the hotel's parking garage and have to put on their game faces ... no touching, no playing with each other. They'd have to walk out of that elevator all business. "I'll sure be glad to go to a lower alert level. This Level Alpha stuff is tiring."
"Yeah," Drummond grinned. "But it does have its fringe benefits." They took the opportunity presented by the 20-floor elevator trip to enjoy one last kiss before the workday began.
#
As Drummond steered the Rover out of the hotel's parking garage and started out Prince Albert Street toward the motorway, Dolly picked up the radiophone from its cradle on the dash and hit speed dial.
"Staff One, leaving Base Cyrene and headed for Rockhouse. ETA 33 minutes." A pause as she listened, then: "Roger. Stand by." She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Drummond. "The rest of the day team are already there. Bobbo wants to know if they can do the shift change before we get there."
Drummond thought for a half-second, then nodded. "OK, but tell them to double coverage while they're doing the changeover. Remind them ... "
"I know!" Dolly spoke into the phone: "Quill Two, you have a go-ahead. Remember that changeover is a weak point. They'll be watching it to exploit it. Double the coverage. Watch your fields of fire. Don't get in each others' way. Repeat instructions verbatim to the team. OK to do changeover early. Staff One out." She hit the disconnect and replaced the phone in its cradle.
"I'm hoping that, if somebody is watching, going early will throw them off," she said with the tone of a precocious seven-year-old. Drummond struggled to keep a straight face.
"Good idea. But I can't help wondering what a captain of Troll Guards thinks of taking instruction on basic protocol from a wet-behind the ears clone-girl Agent Specialist."
Dolly pulled a fat-lip pout for perhaps ten seconds, then grinned. "Snark away, Drummond," she growled. "You can't bring me down today."
"Well, good," Drummond said, grinning sidelong at her.
As he turned the big SUV onto the motorway, Dolly checked her lady's Rolex. "Right on schedule."
"Reminds me," Drummond said. He reached his left arm over to show her his watch. "Are we in synch?"
A playful grin crossed the doll's features. "Oo! Synch me, Baby! Oh — and the watches show the same time, too."
The corner of Drummond's mouth turned down in a wry expression. "Game face, missy."
"Aww, Chief. Gimme a break! Who's there to see?"
Drummond became suddenly serious. "Well, for starters, the four crude looking gentlemen ... and I use the term 'gentlemen' advisedly ... in the dark Mercedes that's been following us since we left the hotel."
Dolly twisted in her seat and peered aft. The smoked glass rear windows hid her movements from outside observers. She spotted the tail immediately.
"Whattaya think?"
"Well, lessee. Rockhouse is buttoned up with two Action Teams on-site. The backup's at Beta Alert. If I know Carter, he's got his chopper idling and the team onboard. What say we should bring Carter and the kids to Alpha status and get them in the air. Alert the team at Rockhouse ... tell the night crew not to stand down just yet."
"Sounds like a plan."
"Fair enough. Let's make it so."
Drummond radioed the backup team and told them to get into the air while Dolly called Bobbo, the Troll Captain at the Rockhouse site.
"This is Staff One. Tell the night crew to cease stand-down and resume posts. We have reason to believe that opposition will make contact with your position momentarily. We are being shadowed by some pretty ugly dudes, origin and identity unknown. If we lose contact, Bobbo, you're the big it." She waited for an acknowledgment, then said, "Good hunting. Staff One out." She racked the phone again. "Now what?"
"We try to get these guys away from all these citizens and then we take 'em out."
Dolly nodded. "Looks like they're alone. I don't see anybody with eyes in the back of their head up in front of us."
"That's my read, too." Drummond pointed at an exit sign. It read, Burlington Road ... Exit 2km. He remembered from map study that there was a farm formerly owned by Kiwi Productions. "That looks like the perfect place."
Dolly's head swiveled to read the sign and she grinned as comprehension dawned. "Marvelous idea, Mr. D."
"Why, thank you, Ms D. Now, in the back with you and be ready in case they try something." They exchanged identical vulpine grins.
"Am I allowed to hope they do?" Dolly asked with a hopeful note in her voice.
Drummond snorted. "Bloodthirsty bint," he said without heat.
The doll clambered over the seat back to settle onto the floor in the rear of the Rover. She rummaged briefly in one of the silver Haliburton cases that filled about half of the cargo space and came up with a suppressed H&K MP5 — the Navy variant. She checked the load and, flipping a catch on the SUV's hatch with a practiced motion, she opened a gun port in the outer skin of the vehicle. It was wide enough to allow her quite a commanding field of fire, but small enough in height to barely admit the stubby barrel of the gun, which made it a harder target from a moving car. Thumbing the safety off, she assumed a prone firing position, her torso propped on one of the cases, and drew a bead on the Mercedes.
"I have them in my sights," she reported.
"Good. Hang in there. Here comes the exit."
#
"They're two cars behind us now. I'm pulling back." Dolly withdrew the muzzle of the gun back inside the Rover. No point in freaking out a harmless citizen. The position of the gun port, hidden under the spare tire mounting bar, hid it from casual view, but the following car would be right on their bumper at the top of the ramp and the driver would have to be blind not to see a gun barrel aimed at him.
"OK," Drummond said, "The car following us signaling left. We're going right." Dolly peeked through the gun port to confirm her Chief's analysis.
"A-a-a-a-nd the Mercedes has just put on his left turn signal. Hmm. Think that's gonna throw us off, guy?"
"Watch it, Chief. He may be doing a drive-by."
"Nah. He's still behind us. I think he'll turn with us." Drummond hesitated at the stop at the top of the ramp, then moved onto the cross road, heading up toward the world famous farm where Kiwi Productions had used to produce their shows.
"Weapon out," he instructed. The doll pushed the snout of her gun through the gun port again.
"He's staying with us."
"I see him."
"Any sign of Ares?"
Drummond scanned what he could see of the sky. "Nope." He fished his cell phone out again and punched a different speed dial combination. "Team Ares, this is Staff One. What's your twenty? ... Roger. Have just turned off onto Burlington Road and am proceeding toward the old ranch. Unidentified bogy is still with us. We have them covered, but don't want to take them out in public. I hope to get them off the road at the farm. Stay with us and come in when you see me stop my vehicle. Roger. Staff One out."
Drummond spotted the turnoff to the farm at the last instant. The entrance—a rutted, muddy gravel road that ran up a long slope to an inclined parking lot. He threw the Rover around the corner and gunned the engine, sending the 4-wheeler up the rutted, muddy road at 40 kph, jouncing himself, the doll, and their equipment mercilessly. The Mercedes followed them onto the track and accelerated up the incline after them. When the Rover reached the large gravel parking lot, Drummond slewed the vehicle around to face back toward Burlington Road and slammed it into Park, leaving the engine running. The Mercedes skidded to a halt at the entrance to the lot. All four doors flew open and a swarthy looking individual hopped out of the back seat and stepped clear of the car while aiming a tube weapon at the Rover.
"Oh, schist!" Drummond exclaimed. "He's got a Stinger." He pulled the door handle and leaned against it, making ready to bail out.
Dolly popped the rear hatch and dropped to the ground, rolling sideways to the passenger side to bring her gun to bear on the German car. "Ms. Wilson," she heard Drummond say, "What are you ...?"
She heard a short hiss of released gas pressure and her nostrils stung to the peppery tang of tear gas. A strained retching came from the driver's seat. The little doll weighed her chances of living to fight another day. She started to roll across the width of the car when she was struck in the head from behind. Her world exploded in light, then went away.
Team Ares' chopper stooped on the parking lot like a hawk. The gunner belted into the open door peppered the Mercedes with lead. They saw, but did not have time to react to the Stinger missile that hit on the Plexiglas canopy of their plane and exploded in the cockpit, killing all aboard and causing the chopper to crash in a field near the parking lot, where it began to burn, ammunition and fuel cooking off in a flurry of small reports. The column of black smoke marking the spot was visible for miles around.
Ordinarily, authors don't publish their "trunk" stories — those stories they cannot or will not sell. But these stories of the Dolly Apocrypha were effectively written in public. They were composed in 1500-word chunks, as posts on a mailing list. They have been on the Web almost since they were first written. Withholding them now would be kind of churlish. And... I hope that they can bring a few people some joy.
Recent developments in the publishing arena make it feasible for me to publish these stories without having to face the gatekeepers of the publishing industry in New York. Leaving aside the question of whether this is wise, I am pleased to let it be known that I am preparing to publish a heavily revised version of the Apocrypha — call it Apocrypha 2.0 — in ebook formats (Kindle, Nook, et al) sometime before the end of 2012. Thus it is then that one may come to think of the stories as they have been published on the Web these last 12 years as the first draft of what someday will be the final version of the Dolly Apocrypha. Sometime also in 2012, I hope to have paper edition(s) available as well. Watch this space and at BabyTrollBlog
Also sometime in the future (I hope in the NEAR future), Dolly and I will seek professional publication of The Dolly Canon — stories purpose-written for publication, at (one hopes) a higher level of quality and professionalism. Friends have read the stories as they stand: Geppetto's Log, Genesis, Armed Citizen, The Omega Trilogy (Deicide in Irian Jaya, You Could Spend Years, The Next Story). All have much work to be done on them to bring them to an acceptable level of quality. I offer this here in the hopes that these will expand beyond the mere 15 pastiches here into an admirable body of work. Additionally, all of the thought I have put into this whole ball of wax has persuaded me that there may be yet a THIRD story arc — call it the Continuing Adventures of Gabrielle Dolly — and a FOURTH — call those The Adventures of Gabrielle Godslayer. As I say, watch this space and the blog.
Content: Being as this is created by and for fans of a violent television show that had a notorious following of people who are interested in sex, (as if there is anybody who is not interested in sex), it's a pretty safe bet that, even though this story is not about the characters in the show, there's plenty of both. There is also some language that some may find offensive and will tut-tut about. Too bad. That's what the off-button is for. Nobody is forcing you to read this. Exercise your freedom of choice. Everybody else: enjoy!
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© 1999-2011 Mark Philip Alger. All rights reserved.
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There is none of that wishy-washy open-source crap here. This stuff is mine. I made it. I intend to defend it vigorously. Infringe on my copyrights at your own moral peril.
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