Missions of the Retrieval Team - A Kilt By Any Other Name

[Arlen]

Oatmeal?!?! Someone needs to speak with Spasm, the Greathall needs to be serving a hearty full Scottish breakfast. That beats oatmeal anytime.

Hey, oatmeal may be rubbish but proper Porage is a hearty part of a good, Scottish breakfast. I have it every morning without fail!!!


Dave, this thing just gets better and better!!!

[Pleater]

You should try the porridge with special honey sauce and extra thick cream as served at the MHICE, at least once in your life.

However, there are no seconds, no matter how nicely you ask. No licking the ladle nor helping to clean the bowl.

Madam Pleater,

General Director, MHICE

[Freedomlover]

How about a nice tasty plate of haggis for breakfast? There is nothing like internal organs to spice up oatmeal. Yummmm.

[Coemgen]

Am I the only guy here that likes oatmeal?

[Freedomlover]

No. I like it. Especially if it is spiced up with entrails.

[SexyButler]

Am I the only guy here that likes oatmeal?

No, I'd love some warm oatmeal especially since I am still in that cold shower. Brrrrrrrrrrr.

[CactusJack]

wonder if Diane ever got out of that cold shower, Bet she's pretty water logged by now..

[davedove]

Scene 29

Secret Headquarters of the KLF

David and Grant had summoned everyone together. As my associates and I entered the room, I saw about twenty people, some of them I recognized and some I had never seen before.

Grant motioned for us to sit on chairs he had positioned at the front of the room.

As I glanced around the room, I noticed that most of the people were watching me closely and speaking in hushed tones to their neighbors.

“Please, everyone,” David addressed the people in the room. “Can I please have your attention?”

The room quieted as everyone turned their attention on him. He continued, “You all can see the man sitting up front with us. To a lot of you this man looks very familiar. But I am telling you this man is not the man he appears to be. That man died a year ago. I have gathered you all here to explain this situation because there have already been incidents of mistaken identity.”

“Now, what I’m about to tell you will be hard to believe,” he told them. “The man you see seated here has the same appearance and even the same name as the man who died. This man, however, was born on a different world, an alternate Earth, as were the two women with him.”

The room exploded with excited and confused murmurs. “Please, please,” David said to them. “We will try to explain this situation and answer your questions as best we can.” He turned to me. “Dave, would you please tell your story to them?”

“Of course,” I answered and stood to address the people. For the next several minutes I related the experiment, the accident, and our own passage into this world.

When I finished, David again stood. “Thank you Dave,” he said. He addressed the group again. “As I said, this may all be hard to believe, but I do believe it is the truth. And, I feel we should help them.”

“What can we do to help?” a voice asked from somewhere in the group. “We don’t even know where this other David is.”

“Ah, but we do,” David answered them. He pressed a button on a remote unit he held and a projector displayed a picture on the wall behind him. The image was that of the newspaper I had seen the night before. There on the wall was the image of the headlines and the photo of David.

“This man,” David explained to them, “was captured by the police and transferred to the FBI just two days ago. Unfortunately, we learned of it too late to organize a rescue. Now, you can see that this is clearly a picture of me, but I have not been captured. I can only assume that this is my double from the other Earth, the man Dave is looking for.”

“Where is he now?” a man asked. I noticed that it was Greg.

“He is currently being held in the high security facility, the Broad River Correctional Institution, in Columbia. I can only assume that the FBI is questioning him there.”

“You mean torturing him,” Greg said bluntly.

“Yes,” said David. “An inside source has let us know that tomorrow morning he is due to be transferred to Lee Penitentiary in Jonesville, Virginia.”

I turned to Ms. Raven. She shook her head. “I don’t even want to attempt to do a jail break from a high security facility, especially not with this short a notice. If I had time to research the facilities and make plans, maybe, but not on the spur of the moment.”

“We don’t have to do that though,” she continued. “Our best time to free him is during the transfer.”

“My thoughts exactly,” David smiled. “He will be transferred by escorted bus; one bus and two cars escorting him. Police will be stationed at points along the route so that quick assistance can be given if needed. Plus, there is another complication. There will be three identical busses with escorts, each taking a slightly different route.”

“Which one will he be on?” Mike asked.

“Unfortunately, we don’t know. Our source tells us that no one will know until he actually boards a bus. That bus will be chosen just before departure. I’m afraid we are going to have to commit enough resources to be ready and strike at any one of the busses. We will have to split our forces into three different groups so that we can cover all the routes.”

“No we won’t,” I interrupted. “We still won’t know before he boards a bus, but I have a way to determine which bus he is on.”

[davedove]

Scene 30

Secret Headquarters of the KLF

“What do you mean?” David asked me.

“We have a device,” I answered, “That will lead us right to him. On our world, each member of the League has a small transmitter on his person that sends out a continual, unique signal. This signal can be tracked anywhere on Earth through the satellite system.”

“Only one problem,” Grant said. “We don’t have access to the satellite system.”

“We’re not going to use it,” I told him. “The device we have will track his signal. It only works over a few miles, so we will need to get nearby to get a clear signal. But I figure we can get a decent signal if we position a team near the main gate at Broad River. This team can scan all the busses and pinpoint which one David is on.”

“Excellent,” said David. “That team can pinpoint the bus and then relay the information to everyone else who can then converge on that bus’s route. We hit the bus and disable their escort.”

“Right,” I told them. “I recommend that Ms. Raven, since she is familiar with the instrument, be placed in the team that scans the busses, along with two or three others for support. Ms. Hawk and I will be on the main team that will get our David out of the bus. We’ll also need other teams to disable the escorts and serve to block the bus. I leave that to you, since they will be your people.”


“Okay, we’ll have Mike and Diane go with you. They’re used to working together. And I think one more.” He looked around the room and nodded to a longhaired man. His arms were bare and covered with tattoos. “Michael, you go with them as well.”

He turned to Julie and Greg. “You two will be in the support vehicle. You job is to stop the bus and provide cover fire to the extraction team.”

He continued by assigning two people to work with Ms. Raven and formed two other teams of four people. The job of each of the other two teams was to neutralize the police escorts.

“Okay, you’ve all got your assignments,” he said. “Get your teams geared up and ready to go. We leave as soon as it gets dark. We want to be there and in position before dawn. The busses are due to pull out at eight, tomorrow morning. Since we don’t know which route will be taken, familiarize yourselves with each route and develop a plan for each. And get what rest you can; it will probably be a long night.”

[Livingston]

Hmmmm.....if I've been shot in the last two stories and things are different in this world, I might just have a chance here.

Just noticed Dave's signature line. If I lose something valuable I know who to call and other ways to contact him.