8

Thieves and Other Problems

"What's the deal?" Larry asked.

"Come with me. I want to show you something," Rita replied.

Earlier, Rita had phoned Larry and asked him to come over to her apartment as soon as he could. Thinking it might be a super-hero-type-thing, he was dressed in his red and white costume. He was puzzled therefore to be met at her door by Rita wearing a black-and-white striped dressing gown and fluffy slippers.

"You want me to come into your bedroom?" Larry asked as he followed Rita. "What sort of emergency are we talking about here?"

Rita stopped, turned and faced Larry. Her expression was stern. "Larry, someone is stealing my dresses," she snarled.

"We've had this conversation before!" Larry complained. "It wasn't me! Have you spoken to your cleaner?"

"I don't have a cleaner."

"Rita, it wasn't me!"

Rita snapped back: "Well, it's hardly the work of the Brotherhood of Evil, is it?" She led the way into a largish room off her bedroom. It was entirely taken over to Rita's large collection of clothes. She then pointed to a space on the clothes rail. "Here, right here, should be a champagne-coloured Coco Chanel cocktail-dress. It's a one-off! There's no other like it anywhere! It was made for me in 1961! Where is it?"

"Okay…" Larry played for time. "Is it at the dry-cleaners?"

"No."

"Have you loaned it to someone?"

"No."

Larry slowly turned to look at every side of the room. "Have you taken it out and put it back someplace else?"

"No!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure!"

"Then I guess, someone's taken it."

"Yes! Exactly! And it's not the first time that my dresses have disappeared! We need to fix up cameras to see who's doing it. That's where you come in."

"You want me to fix up a camera? Can't you get in an expert? I'm no expert and I think you need an expert!"

"I'm not letting anyone in here, Larry. No-one!"

"Well, it's not easy doing things with screwdrivers and the like, when your hands are bandaged. That's all I'm saying."

"I know that, but, will you do it … for me?"

Larry capitulated. "Yeah, yeah."

"Larry, you're a darling!"

Rita was smiling for the first time since Larry had arrived. He realized then that she sure was taking this 'missing dress' thing seriously.

xxx

That same day, at precisely 11.30 in the evening, a strange thing was happening at the Peter Glengetty Museum on the outskirts of the city. In the central foyer – just by the ticket office, a large, silver bubble simply appeared out of nowhere. The silver sphere hung motionless in the air, a few inches off the ground. Moments later, a door opened on the otherwise featureless sphere and an orange-skinned stranger with green hair stepped out and looked around. He was followed by a young woman with pale-green skin and an untidy mop of dark-green hair. A third figure then appeared but this last one, dwarfed the other two – a reptilian bipedal creature standing about nine-feet tall with the bulk and muscles to match its size.

"I can see plants outside, I'm going to see what they are!" the green-skinned woman announced enthusiastically.

"Pollen!" the orange-skinned young man complained. "You are supposed to help me look for the thing while Bronto keeps watch!"

"You can do that by yourself, Gangsta. You don't need my help." And so saying she headed outside, and as she opened the front-door to the museum she set off an alarm.

"What's that awful noise?" Gangsta complained.

"An alarm," Bronto sniggered. "You'd better hurry, Gangsta!"

The being called Gangsta, swore at Pollen's bloody-mindedness, and then used his ability after which he was named and created multiple versions of himself. The gang then sped off in different directions to search for the thing they were after. One Gangsta stayed behind for a moment to warn his saurian colleague: "Guard the flickership, Bronto. If Pollen gets lost in this dimension then that's her look-out!"

xxx

Larry was just finishing off the setting-up of the concealed camera in Rita's dressing-room when Rita's cell-phone rang.

"It's the police," Rita said answering the call. She listened for a moment and then informed Larry: "There's a break-in at the Glengetty Museum and the police want to know if we can get there quickly!"

Larry sighed. "Don't they have security people who can do that?"

"Not for this type of criminal – they're super-powered," Rita replied.

"Well, okay … Negative Man can get there in no time at all!"

"I'll let the police know," Rita replied enthusiastically.

Larry slumped supine onto Rita's bed as the Negative Man left his body and zipped across the city towards the museum. In virtually no time at all, the black energy creature called the Negative Man arrived at the museum only to find an army of identical young men searching through the exhibits. As Negative Man attempted to sweep up the intruders, each of the raiders disappeared like the pop of a bubble as he passed along one of the corridors. This seemed to be a consequence of the Negative Man's touching them and he continued to sweep through the museum – until he came across Bronto.

The saurian giant took a swipe with his massive arm at Negative Man as he passed by. He missed but it was enough to divert the energy-man's attention from ridding the museum of the army of Gangsta-duplicates.

"What do you think it is?" Bronto asked watching the energy-man zipping through the building.

"I don't know," Gangsta replied. "But I don't like it!"

Negative Man had seen enough to know that this wasn't just a run-of-the-mill break-in at the museum, it was going to require the special talents that only the Doom Patrol could bring to the situation if they were to prevent a serious crime taking place.

Shortly after Negative Man had re-joined Larry, he sat up and told Rita what he had seen at the Museum. He added: "We'd better get over there and fast!"

Negative Man carried Rita, dropping her off in the gardens outside the museum before returning to fetch Larry. As Rita waited for her partner to appear she was spotted by Gangsta who was standing next to Pollen.

"I thought I saw that energy-man again! And now that woman is here! Be on your guard!" Gangsta warned.

"I think I can take care of one woman!" Pollen replied haughtily.

"Just keep her away from the building, if necessary!"

"I will." Pollen sighed. She was fed up with Gangsta telling her what to do so out of spite she decided to unleash a small part of her power on the woman not minding whether she was a threat to their mission or not. She caused the nearby plan-life to grow at enormous speed and to a gigantic size and directed it to grow towards Rita. Almost at once, ivy began to wind itself around Rita's legs and body as it and other plants threatened to smother her. Rita expanded her size becoming a giant that burst the clinging creepers.

"Look!" Pollen shouted to Gangsta. "That prehistoric woman has super-powers!"

Negative Man arrived back with Larry and placed him on the ground while he zoomed to help Rita shake off the plants which were still trying to grow around her.

"It's that energy-man again. They must be working together!" Gangsta added indicating Rita. "Pollen, we're relying on you to keep them out of the way until we find the artefact. Can you do that?"

"Watch and learn, Gangsta. Let's see how they cope with the seedpods of the greenmouth from Naadald 7!" Pollen laughed as she released a handful of dust that quickly grew into a swarm of flying seed pods that hungrily headed towards Rita and Larry.

"Heads up, Larry!" Rita shouted. "There's a crowd of hungry mouths flying our way!"

The seedpods possessed wings that flapped like a bat and a gaping maw that had evolved to latch on to any animal to form sustenance for the growing parasitic alien plant. Rita, in her giant form, was able to batter them away and those that latched on to her she was able to pull off. However, they formed a capable hindrance to her advance on the museum raiders.

The Negative Man meanwhile, had zoomed into the museum and as in their earlier encounter, was busy swatting and 'popping' the multitude of Gangstas that seemed to be everywhere within the building. The growing chaos attracted the attention of the patient reptilian raider known as Bronto. As Negative Man passed by, he reached out and grabbed hold of the energy-man's arm and holding on firmly he pulled N-Man into a bear-hug.

"Got you!" Bronto exclaimed.

But before he could do any damage to the energy-man, a giant gloved hand smashed through the window and pulled Bronto outside.

"And I've got you!" Rita announced. "So let go of Negative Man before I throw you into the middle of next week!"

Bronto reluctantly complied with Rita's demand allowing Negative Man to return to Larry's body. The reptilian man then bit Rita's hand. The sudden pain was sufficient to force Rita to relax her hold on Bronto allowing him to drop to the ground.

Three Gangstas then rushed into the hall. One of them announced: "I have the artefact! Get back to the ship!"

Pollen and Bronto returned to the hovering silver bubble and disappeared inside as more and more duplicates of Gangsta filled the room. Rita and Larry were overwhelmed by the myriad of Gangstas and were unable to stop the Gangsta who had announced that he had found the 'artefact'. He followed his two colleagues into the sphere with the stolen treasure and the sphere blinked out of existence. Immediately after that had happened, all the Gangstas that had remained behind in the museum also disappeared.

Larry and Rita stood side-by-side gazing in wonderment at the wrecked and now silent museum.

"They got away," Rita said.

"But what did they steal? Did you see what it was?" Larry asked.

"No. But it was small enough to be easily carried by that multi-man," Rita replied.

xxx

The following day, Rita and Larry met with the Museum's Chief Curator. "We know what was taken," he said. "It was a first edition copy of Paradise Regained by John Milton."

"A book?"

"Yes. There is a black-market for such things. But it would be difficult to sell without attracting attention. It was probably stolen to order."

"That's what we thought," Rita replied. "The raiders were definitely looking for what they called the 'artefact'. They did not seem to be interested in anything else."

"If someone tries to sell it, hopefully, we'll hear about it," the Curator said without any enthusiasm.

"Well we haven't given up hope of retrieving your stolen book," Larry said.

Rita was surprised by Larry's optimism. Later, when they were alone she said to him: "So, do you have something to tell me? Do you have a lead on who those people were who took the Museum's book?"

"In a way, I do," Larry admitted. "When those raiders disappeared they left an energy trail and the Negative Man can follow it to wherever they've gone. He's going to need to travel faster than he's ever gone before so he can't carry both of us. So he'll need to carry me and you'll have to shrink down to a tiny size so you'll fit inside my pocket. That way, he will be able to carry both of us and reach the expected speed he thinks he'll need."

"Alright. I can do that!" Rita replied.

xxx

The Negative Man picked up the limp body of Larry and Rita in her tiny form and sped off in pursuit of the energy trail that only he could see and follow. Faster and faster he went until he was approaching the speed of light but then he went even faster, exceeding light-speed and breaking through the time-barrier. He sped into the thirty-first century and appeared, not to see some futuristic city but instead, a beach-front cabin that was near a deserted sandy bay overlooking a sub-tropical sea.

"That's not quite what I expected," Rita said as she gazed over the tranquil vista.

The Negative Man had now re-merged with Larry. "I agree … But this is where the energy trail ends. Those raiders must be down there."

"So what's our plan?" Rita asked.

"Find the book. Steal it back. The Negative Man takes us back to our own time."

Rita nodded. "Good plan but let's be cautious as we approach that cabin. Although it looks peaceful, I expect the people of this future age to have some sort of advanced scientific security system that is able to detect any unwanted intruders."

"Yeah. Let's be careful. Shall I send the N-Man to investigate?"

"No. Not this time. I'll go and have a look around. If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, send N-Man in to my rescue."

"Okay, but be careful," Larry warned.

"I will be." Rita then shrunk her size until she was about one foot in height. She then sped through the sparse undergrowth until she was as close to the cabin as she could get. She avoided the open door of the cabin and climbed up onto a window sill where she could look in. As she did so, she reduced her size even more until she was only two inches tall.

Rita looked through the window into the cabin and could see that it looked just like any ordinary holiday cabin from the twenty-first century. There were several comfortable-looking chairs and low tables but with a large screen floating unsupported in the middle of the room. A dark-haired young woman was visible. She was relaxed and sitting in one of the chairs. She appeared to be operating a small hand-held device – much like a contemporary i-phone.

As Rita watched, the reptilian-being known as Bronto appeared and began to prowl around outside the cabin. He appeared to be looking for something and Rita feared that she had been spotted. She shrank to about one-tenth of an inch and continued watching. The orange-haired Gangsta then also appeared – following Bronto.

"What is it?" Gangsta asked.

"I can smell humans," Bronto replied.

"We should tell Cortex." Gangsta said.

The dark-haired woman overheard Bronto and rising from her seat, paused on the threshold of the cabin. "What is it?"

"It may be nothing …" Gangsta said.

"I can smell a human, here, somewhere close. It's very faint." Bronto followed the source of the smell until he came to the window. "It's very faint but here by this window," he said.

"You can still smell it?" the dark-haired woman asked as she studied the sill of the window.

"Yes," Bronto replied. "It's very faint but constant."

"Then it's very small." The dark-haired woman then shrank at amazing speed until she too was standing on the window-sill. She became smaller and smaller until she came across Rita who was now almost microscopic in size.

"And who might you be?" the dark-haired woman demanded. "I'm called Shrinking Violet!"

Rita watched warily as the self-named Shrinking Violet adopted a poise that was ready for a fight.

Violet continued: "Do you want to tell me what you are doing here?"

Rita raised an eyebrow in reply and expanded quickly in size, not stopping at her usual height but progressing in her size expansion until she was a veritable giant.

"Larry!" Rita announced. "They know we're here!"

"You think?" Larry replied as Rita's expanding body turned the log-cabin into matchwood. He immediately sent the Negative Man to Rita's assistance.

The Negative Man took on the self-replicating Gangsta, popping every one that he came across.

Rita, meanwhile, picked up the saurian humanoid, Bronto and threw him into the sea. She then shrank down until she was twelve feet in height – more than a match for the now normal-sized Shrinking Violet. As they were about to start trading blows, a blue-skinned humanoid appeared in their midst. He was standing on a small disc-shaped platform that flew into the middle of the melee.

"What is going on, here?" he demanded.

"Who are you?" Rita snapped back.

"I am Cortex, and that…" He pointed at the ruined cabin, "… is my home!"

"Yeah? Well your home is being used by a gang of thieves!" Rita replied.

"Thieves?" Cortex turned to Violet. "Is she referring to the book?"

"Yes, the book! The John Milton book!" Rita said before Violet could speak.

"Gangsta and Pollen have already returned it to the museum in the twenty-first century," Violet said.

"Did you hear? The book has been returned. It has not been damaged or stolen. It has been returned from whence it came!" Cortex explained to Rita.

Larry appeared to stand side-by-side with Rita. "Who's the blue bozo?"

"He says his name is Cortex," Rita said.

Cortex had a translucent body that was predominantly blue in colour and seemed to be filled by an effervescent liquid. In the centre of his chest there appeared to be a brain-like mass, the source of the effervescence.

"Why take the book and then return it?" Rita asked.

Cortex replied: "Milton's book, Paradise Regained, no longer exists in this time. I needed to read it. I have done so and taken a copy so that others can read it if they so wish."

"You copied it and put it back?" Larry asked.

"That is correct." Cortex paused before adding: "Is there anything else you want to ask?"

Larry glanced at Rita before replying: "No, I don't think so … We're sorry about wrecking your house." He then whispered to Rita: "Do you think we can trust him or should we check out his claim to have returned the book?"

"Let's check it out."

Larry sent the Negative Man back to the twenty-first century, his body slumping against Rita while the N-Man was away. When the energy-creature returned to its host it was carrying a small package.

"I guess the blue-man is telling the truth!" Larry said getting back to his feet. "The book is back in the museum." Larry then handed the small, neatly packaged object to Cortex. Rita was intrigued but said nothing. "Open it. It's a gift that might make up for damaging your home."

Cortex opened the package to reveal a thick, paper-back book.

"It's The Complete Works of John Milton," Larry announced. "It means you don't have to break into museums again."

"I am grateful," Cortex replied.

"Does this mean I can't squish the wrapped man?" Bronto asked indicating Larry.

"I am afraid so," Violet replied. "They are our friends now, Bronto. No more squishing."

"Yeah. No more squishing!" Larry said for emphasis.

xxx

Violet returned Larry and Rita to the twenty-first century in their spherical ship. She dropped them off on the roof of Rita's apartment block before returning to her own time.

As they watched the sphere disappear back to its own century, Rita offered Larry a cup of coffee in her apartment.

"I'd prefer a martini," he replied.

"Okay. I think I can manage that."

While Larry relaxed with his drink, Rita went off to her bedroom. He was roused from his thoughts by a sudden shout from Rita.

"Rita, what is it?" he demanded as he ran into her room.

"My Chanel!" She was pointing at a dress hanging in her wardrobe. "It's been returned!"

"That's the dress that was missing?" Larry enquired.

"Yes!" She checked it out. "It's been worn! Someone has worn it and then returned it!"

"You mean they didn't get it dry-cleaned first?"

"No!" There was a look of horror on Rita's face.

"You don't think it was one of Cortex's crew, do you - that Plant-girl, or Violet perhaps?"

"There's only one way to find out!"

Rita ran back to her laptop computer on the kitchen table. "I'll check the camera-feed," she said. She then checked the recordings. It didn't take long for her to point at the screen. "There! Look, Larry, look!"

The screen showed two women in her wardrobe. One replaced the Chanel dress and then they both took their time checking out the others that were neatly arranged on the rails that filled two sides of the room.

"Who'd have thought," Larry said. His voice was full of wonder: "It was the Brotherhood of Evil, after all!"

"The new Rouge and that shadow-girl," Rita snarled.

They continued to watch the recording of the two thieves as they took their time, trying on various dresses until they had found something to their liking. Shadow-Thief then opened a shadowy gap in the corner of the room and both women stepped through with their loot carefully draped across their arms. The shadowy door then closed and they were gone.

Rita turned to Larry: "We have to do something about this, Larry. This is serious now. This is a crisis to end all crises!"

[END]