The Collector

The bright white light had flooded the horizon and even three zones away, it had been seen from inside the diner.

"What the hell was that?" Jet Star looked up from where he was seated, hunched over his guitar.
As one Fun Ghoul and Dr Death Defying looked up as the sound of the blast - a deep, low, undulating rumble - reached them; one expression puzzled, the other concerned.

"Ghoul," the doctor, nodded toward the window. "What does the sky look like?" He asked with an earnest expression firmly fixed on his face.
"The sky?" Ghoul queried, uncertain as to why.
"Ghoul, the sky, please. If I'm right it won't last long."
Ghoul, moved quickly to the window and glanced out, staring in wonder at the horizon.
"Its green, fading up to red, the higher it goes."
Jet pushed himself to his feet as quickly as he could to see the unusual sight but it was already beginning to fade to a deep purple before disappearing altogether.
"Doc?" Ghoul queried, as he saw his expression grow ever more grim. "What is it?"
"An EM Spike Mine," he replied shaking his head slowly. "They used them in the Helium Wars, briefly. They render electronic equipment inoperable, but they had an equally violent effect on the brain. They banned them completely," he frowned deeply, his brow furrowing. "I don't want to even think about BLI using them to bomb the Zones."
"How far away did it look?" Jet asked, concerned for their safety.
"A long way," he shrugged, "maybe... Kobra!" He suddenly yelled, almost vaulting the counter to reach the satellite phone.

Jet's guitar was abandoned and forgotten as he too rushed to Ghoul's side and powered the battery pack while his friend selected the correct frequency.

"KK, acknowledge," Ghoul shouted urgently into the receiver. "KK!" He yelled again. "Come in. Kobra!"
Switching the frequency to an emergency signal, Ghoul, barely even paused to activate the scrambler to avoid detection. He glanced bleakly at Jet as he began his message.
"Killjoys for Kobra Kid, Code Gravity, acknowledge and report. Repeat, Gravity, acknowledge and report!"

Listening intently; at first all there was to hear was static. Empty, static continued to fill the diner and Ghoul found himself repeating the open message three more times before anything other than the empty fizz and pop of nothing cleared the airwaves. Snatches of words began emerge; the voice, although incoherent, sounded panicked and urgent. Ghoul repeated himself twice more before a crackling but almost complete sentence stood out from the white noise.

"Attacked... Trans Am attacked... I'm... power gone..."
"Kobra! Is that you?"
"Attacked... power gone..." part of the message was repeated. "Holed up but... ...ery low... help!"
"Kobra!" Ghoul yelled into the handset. "Where are you?"
The set returned only static thereafter and Ghoul lowered the handset, staring at Jet, tense and uncertain.
"Was that Kobra?" He asked, his brow creased with stress.
"It could have been," Jet frowned deeply. "It was too messed up, couldn't hear him clearly. He did mention the trans am though."
"He did," Ghoul nodded, as he snatched up his gun before pushing Jet's pistol into his hand. "We have to find him."
"We don't know where he is or if that was him!" Jet replied placing a hand on Ghoul's chest in an attempt to stop him racing from the diner.
"We know he was going to Dust Bowl. That's that way," he threw his arm out in the direction of where the explosion had come from. "You wanna leave him?"
"We don't know it was him!" Jet protested. "He didn't use the emergency code."
"He might have," Ghoul argued, "we didn't hear the whole message."
Jet grabbed the shorter man's arms and held him firmly, staring with pleading eyes, imploring him to listen.
"Jet, Kobra could be out there in trouble!" Ghoul complained, trying to free himself from Jet's grip.
"And it could just as easily be a BLI trap! It wouldn't be the first one."
"Either way, that explosion was real and if Kobra is out there then it's likely he's in trouble!"
Jet lowered his eyes; Ghoul was right.
"I still think it's a trap," he added quietly.
"Then I'll go on my own," Ghoul snapped.
"No you won't..."
"I'm going!" Ghoul finally managed to pull free, almost losing his balance in the process.
"You're as bad as Kobra!" Jet yelled before calming himself almost immediately. "I mean, we'll both go, but we'll go prepared."
"I'll come too," Death Defying added his voice into the mix.
"Sorry, Doc," Jet shook his head. "We need you to look after Party. We can't leave him alone, it's not safe. But we need your van... please?" He added almost as an afterthought.
"Ghoul's got the keys," the doctor nodded. "Just be careful okay!"
"We'll be fine," Jet responded confidently.
"I mean with the van," the older man smirked. "Take the bazooka. Bring him back. I'll get Pony to come over, in case I need legs. Don't worry, Party'll be fine with us."

*

Kobra Kid woke slowly. His head felt cloudy and as if his brain had been fed through a blender before being inexpertly reassembled. It was dark. Not a night time dark, it was unnaturally dark and he was struggling to breathe. The air felt old and stale, almost as if he had already breathed it more than once. His mouth was parched and as he tried to lick his lips, he felt the cloth deep across his tongue, pulling painfully at the corners of his mouth. His breathing hitched and his eyes flew wide as he tried to keep himself from panicking. Lying on his side, he quickly realised that his hands were bound behind his back. A quick shift in position signalled that his ankles were similarly bound and fastened to... another quick tug... fastened to his belt, keeping them permanently bent. Whoever had him knew of his martial arts abilities and had taken precautions. Stretching out his fingers, he silently felt for the knot fastening the rope to his belt, but it seemed to have been looped through and presumably was tied much further down, far out of reach.
Okay, he thought to himself, wrists. Again, the knot was beyond his reach and the rope wrapped so tightly that all movement seemed only to hurt.What made it worse was that he remembered very little. The last he remembered was... what was the last thing he remembered?

His head tilted back as he tried to look around. He knew it was useless, but the sensation that the horizon had just tilted meant wherever he was, he had been lifted up in some way. Yes, some sort of box and he was being carried. He felt the uneven shake of people of different heights inexpertly struggling with a heavy box. He hoped that whatever was happening to him would be explained very soon as he heard the sounds of metal scraping close to his head and realised that it was the distinct sound of bolts being shoved back.
Kobra squinted painfully as a bright white light flooded his world and acted as a trigger for his memory. The bright white light, the explosion, losing control, the pain! His racked body filled with pain as, against his better judgement, he wasted precious energy struggling against his bonds as he raged with anger at his situation.

Who was it? BLI? Korse? Did those bastards have him? They had tried time and time again to capture them all. The Fabulous Four were a beacon of hope to all occupants of the Zones and hundreds, possibly thousands, in Battery City. How did they know where to find him and what the hell was that explosion? He'd never seen anything like it.
Slowly as he grew accustomed to the light, he saw a face peering down at him.
"You'll only hurt yourself, you know." The voice promised.
There was a slight hint of amusement in the tone that infuriated him all the more and he responded by thrashing harder within the box. Breaking sweat and expending far too much energy, Kobra gave up with a sigh. All he was doing was playing into her hands. Yes, her. He'd never seen her before, and from what she was wearing, he had to assume she was not part of BLI's S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W unit.

"Let him out," she ordered, standing back to allow two men to approach.

Kobra let them. They had to untie him to do that and when they did, they'd be sorry. Untying the rope fastening his ankles to his belt, Kobra was finally able to extend his legs. From the feel of the ache around his knees at the movement, he had been bound like that for some hours.

"You may be disoriented," she spoke again. "And, you may think you can escape. You can't."

Kobra turned a harsh expression toward the woman as he was lifted from the box and made to stand, his ankles now untied too. He looked directly at her, eyes blazing, as the cloth was pulled surprisingly gently from his mouth.

"Who are you?" He asked, irritated that his voice sounded raspy and weak.
"I am The Collector," she replied evenly earning a puzzled stare in response.

Slight and standing a few inches shorter than him, she was dressed in a long, glamorous red beaded dress, her auburn hair and make up perfect and flawless. Beautiful, he thought, she barely seemed remotely threatening to look at, but there was something about her voice that was ice cold.Somehow, it gave him pause and he continued to stare.

"Do you want to see my collection?" She asked with a smile.
"Where am I?"
"In my museum, of course."

There was something very wrong with the ease and disconnection of her replies. Kobra's eyes darted quickly around the entirely white room and spying an open door only a few feet away, began a roundhouse kick to strike at the men still standing nearby.

His leg was barely off the floor when a sharp, searing and debilitating pain seemed to seize every nerve in his body. Collapsing breathlessly to the floor, Kobra struggled to regain his senses. Looking up he saw that neither man had moved.

"Wh...what did...?" Kobra tried to ask, as he slowly recovered.
"I've fitted you with a governor," she explained simply. "You'll do what I want, when I want, no more, no less."

She watched quietly as the two men pulled him back to his feet.

"Now, do you want to see my collection?" She asked again.
"Fuck you!" Kobra yelled angrily.

She merely smiled in reply, frustrating her volatile prisoner all the more.

"Come," she beckoned as she headed toward the far wall where another door stood.

With his hands bound behind him and still feeling the after affects of the governor, Kobra had little choice but to follow. Perhaps there would be other chances to escape?

The first hall - another white room - was filled with impressionist paintings and stunning scenery and portraits, some quite darkly painted in heavy oils.

"This is the artwork I managed to salvage. You can see there are many famous pieces here by great masters such as Monet and Renoir, DaVinci and Vermeer."

Kobra barely glanced at it.

"This is the Ancient Egyptian section," she announced as they walked through another room filled with artefacts, costumes, jewellery and sarcophagi. "And through there, Ancient Greece and Rome."

He didn't even look.

"I can see you're not interested in history," she chuckled. "Well, perhaps you'll be interested in this?"

As they walked into the next room, Kobra's widening eyes took in the terrifying scene. Across one wall was a mock up of the exterior of the diner, every detail perfect, even down to the magazines and BLI vending machine. Another wall displayed eighteen foot tall full-length photos of him, Party, Ghoul and Jet. A sign, made from neon, with the words, "The Fabulous Killjoys" took up the whole of the wall above the shell of the diner. Worse still, at the far end stood four large Perspex cells, each with one of their names etched into it colourfully.

Once again in the grip of the two men, Kobra struggled violently, as they dragged him toward the cell with his name on it. Each time he looked as though he might pull free from one, the pain returned and he sagged in their grip. By the time the cell loomed and the door slid open, Kobra was barely standing. Releasing him from the rope around his wrists, the two men pushed him to the floor inside the cell and stood back as the door closed.

Kobra pushed himself to his feet and slammed his hands on the Perspex door, staring with wild, terrified eyes at the woman.

"Welcome to my museum, Kobra Kid."

Notes

Sorry this got deleted yesterday - something went wrong in an edit and I couldn't get it back. S xo