The Fire Triangle -- Part II, Oxidizer

The Fire Triangle: Book II - Prologue

Entr'Acte:

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Alexander Pope

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Knowledge is power

Roger Bacon

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Prologue:

Sometime you hit the lottery...and sometimes the lottery hits you.

There is no way...no WAY that rusty bucket of bolts should still be able to move; the odds must be something like a gajillion-to-one. And yet there she goes, rolling down the track with his assistants in hot pursuit.

A sickly-bittersweet odor fills the air; spilled creosote and the ozone tang of an overheating transformer. The screech of the wheels, steel moving against steel for maybe the first time in decades, is like feedback from an amplifier as big as a Stonehedge slab. Before the rogue sheep can cover his ears, the noise lowers to a deep, moaning rumble, and fades away into the dim red lights of a tunnel. Swirling dust and motes of rust sting his eyes like a thousand miniscule pinpricks. He forces them to stay open, trying to see what's happening at the far end of the abandoned Metro station. Jesse just might make it on board the train-car before it gets away; Woolter's chances are a bit more uncertain.

As for Doug, he knows that he's too far away to catch it...and so he just stands there, listening as the sound becomes a stillborn silence. He tries to reassure himself. Not to worry; this is only a minor setback. His enforcers will stop the train and get his laboratory back.

And when they do, the bunny who tried to jack it is going to have a very unpleasant encounter with a third rail.

But...who was she? In the brief glimpse he'd caught of her, she'd looked vaguely familiar. And had there been someone else on board with her? Doug could have sworn he's seen a...

"Never mind," he tells himself, at last wiping his eyes, "If there was someone with her, he'll be in for shock of his own when Jess and Woolter bring him back."

It's the sheep's own fault, of course; he should have made sure and disconnected that motor instead of merely assuming it wouldn't work after sitting idle for so long.

Or...maybe he's not quite that much to blame. The only practical way he could have disabled the train-car would have been to pull the plug altogether—and that had never been an option. The process by which he transformed Nighthowler blossoms into Nighthowler serum required a stink-load of electricity. (It was the reason he'd set up his lab down here in the first place.)

Doug's thoughts drift back to that bunny again. Wai-i-i-t a minute, now he remembers where he's seen her before; Judy Hopps, could that have been Judy Hopps? Maybe, but...didn't she quit the ZPD? And how the heck did she find out...?

"Weaselton!"

The answer comes to him like flash of lightning—and makes him want to ram his head into somebody's midsection, Yes, of course, the weasel; that was how she'd known where to find his lab, "Sniveling little two-faced jerk, getting himself busted for trying to steal those Nighthowler bulbs, instead of buying them like I said. I should have darted him the minute he hit the streets again."