Chapter Two
"Aaaaaahhhhh!!!" Todd Manning is startled out of his wits when he opens his hazel eyes and spots the weird, red spacewoman hovering over him with a gloved hand on his wrist. He shrieks briefly and loudly and jerks away from the alien creature.
Todd is shaken and feels like he’s in the sick bay in a Star Trek episode. He quickly grabs a Gideon Bible out of the nightstand next to his bed and holds it in front of him for protection, daring the alien to cross its path. "Back, space b**ch!" he commands sternly as he waves the book in her face. He wags one eyebrow in his best James T Kirk imitation.
The speaker in the red spacesuit retorts in a tinselly voice, "Mr. Manning, calm down. You’re in General Hospital in a quarantine unit. You’ve been exposed to a virus. I’m taking care of you."
Todd’s fuzzy mind feebly tries to race through at least one or two possibilities. "How do I know this isn’t a trick and you’re just using me for alien medical experimentation?" he demands. The alien nurse picks up a copy of the latest edition Port Charles Herald newspaper on the patient’s nightstand and hands it to him. Todd picks up the paper and snorts, "I’m in hell, not outer space. This is garbage -- election counts, environmental pollution, infant mortality. Where’s the interesting news?" Todd turns the page to the local news. His eyes widen at the sight of his own portrait and that of Lucky Spencer. "Get me a laptop!" he screams at no one in particular. Todd seizes the phone and begins dialing furiously, ready to abuse whoever is unlucky enough to answer his call. For now, he has forgotten about space aliens.
~*~*~*~
Stefan sits stiffly upright, seatbelt fastened, in the back of the huge whale of a white, Buick Century PCPD police cruiser driven by a tense, white-knuckled Detective Garcia. Brows furrowed, arms crossed, Stefan has been silent for the entire ride. Laura is beside him on the seat, head leaning sadly on the window. Every few minutes, she takes in a deep, sobbing breath that disturbs her otherwise silent weeping. Detective Garcia is silent also, not sure what to say to the parents of an apparent serial killer. He’s at a loss for words in a situation that he’s never encountered before. He concentrates instead on delivering his passengers safely to the waiting interrogation skills of Commissioner Scorpio and Lieutenant Taggert.
When the cruiser stops outside of the police headquarters, Stefan leans over to Laura and touches her arm gently. "Say nothing," he cautions in a low whisper. "Alexis will come and do the talking. We must protect our son." Laura raised a tear-streaked face to look into Stefan’s serious eyes. She bites her lip and nods.
~*~*~*~
Commissioner Scorpio decides to separate parents from son in order to get the full story. Nikolas is presently in the closed interrogation room with a frustrated Taggert who feels like a detective slash babysitter slash psychiatric orderly.
Mac sits down on top of Taggert’s paper cluttered desk with arms crossed and a fierce expression on his face. He picks up a Lucite paperweight with an embedded Homer Simpson toy in it and tosses and catches it repetitively.
"I expect some answers from you two," he hisses at a silent Stefan and Laura. "What were you doing by the body of Emily Quartermaine? What do you know about Nikolas’ whereabouts this evening?" Stefan stares stoically into Mac’s sharp eyes, and Laura bends her head down and stares at the scuff-marked floor, weary and grief-stricken at the devastating events of the last 12 hours. She’d almost lost one son in a viral-induced bloodbath and now she’s afraid that the other one is slipping further away to a permanent psychotic haze by the minute.
"Answer me, dammit!" shouts a livid Mac as he slams the paperweight onto the circa 1940’s oak desk. File folders slip and fall onto the floor, spilling their contents freely. Stefan looks bored and cocks and eyebrow. "My attorney will be pleased to answer your questions after I am given the opportunity to contact her."
"I can keep you here a very long time before you get any phone call, Cassadine," Mac angrily retorts, his green eyes flashing.
Stefan shrugs noncommittally. "As you wish, Commissioner."
"Mac?" Laura’s quavering voice questions. "Luke must be worried about me. I told him at the hospital that I’d only be gone a minute. It’s now been over two hours. Can I let him know where I am?" Laura meets Mac’s grave eyes with her big, blue tear-filled orbs.
Mac sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Okay. I don’t see any harm in that." Mac hands Laura the standard black indestructible police phone. "Make it short, though. And, I want some answers when you finish," he scolds.
Laura smiles gratefully and dials Luke’s cell phone number.
"Luke!" the tense voice grinds over the phone lines.
"Luke, it’s Laura."
"Laura, honey, where have you been? I’ve wandered all over the whole hospital trying to find you. Where are you? What’s going on?"
"I’m at the PCPD headquarters. Will you please come over here? I’ll explain when you get here. And, bring Alexis. This is serious."
"I’ll be there in a flash. Don’t say anything to the keystone cops. Wait for me," Luke instructs.
Laura replies dryly, "Don’t worry, my lips are sealed."
Laura hands the phone over to a ticked off Mac who realizes that he’s been fooled by Laura’s tear-filled plea. The last thing he wants is a loud, bossy attorney like Alexis Davis mucking up his investigation.
Stefan hides his extreme amusement behind a blank countenance. Thank goodness. Alexis is on her way.
~*~*~*~
Luke places his cell phone back in his pocket and glances over at Lucky. Lucky is still asleep, and Luke bends over to kiss his forehead. "I’ll be back in a bit," he tells his cowboy.
Five minutes after Luke leaves the room, the door creaks open ominously and a shadow lengthens past the doorway. A man dressed totally in black steps menacingly over to Lucky’s beside. He stands there for a moment looking down at the defenseless boy. The man squints his dark eyes as his mouth turns down. He thrusts his black leather glove around Lucky’s exposed neck, squeezing tightly.
Lucky’s eyes fly open and widen in fear and shock at the sight of Andreas Andropolis’ grim face. He begins to fiercely struggle, choking and gasping for life-giving oxygen. His lungs burn as Andreas’ hand closes tighter around his throat.
"Happy to see that you’re awake, Spencer Junior," Andreas hisses in a low whisper. "It will make killing you all that much more fun." Lucky moves left and right in a thrashing motion, trying in vain to break Andreas’ hold. Andreas suddenly releases Lucky’s throat. "A brief reprieve, Lucky," he grins demonically. "Take that as a warning to stay out of my way. I stuffed you and your lame-brained friend into coffins recently. I have much more creativity waiting to be exercised. Next time you won’t see me coming," Andreas promises as he flexes his black-gloved hands and cracks his knuckles. When Lucky’s cardiac monitor issues a warning due to his rapid heart rate, Andreas gracefully and soundlessly slides out the door.
~*~*~*~
One hour later…
"Geez, you just had to wake me up with that monitor thingy screaming and nurses flying in all directions, didn’tcha?" Todd whines to Lucky as the two discuss their current dilemma.
"Shut up, Todd," Lucky yells as he lobs an empty tan, plastic water pitcher at Todd’s head.
"Hey, watch the head!" Todd shouts back. "These brains made you a millionaire." Todd is referring to Helena’s scheme to rob Asa Buchanan of his entire financial empire only to be foiled by Lucky’s quick coding of a reverse computer virus that instead re-deposited the funds into Todd, Blair and Lucky’s accounts.
"We’ve got to get out of here, Todd," explains Lucky. "I was almost killed by Helena’s boy-toy." Lucky clears his throat and gingerly rubs the red marks on his tender neck.
"And the problem is….?" Todd questions with a devilish eyebrow at half-mast.
"The problem," says Lucky, "is that he’s after you, too."
"Did he mention my name?" Todd asks breezily.
"He said ‘lame-brained’ friend. You’re the only one that qualifies for that," Lucky huffs.
Ignoring the insult, Todd replies, "We’re hooked to every kind of monitor that they make. And, I’ve got tubes sticking out of places that I’d rather not mention."
"Then we pull them out, scaredy-cat," Lucky yells.
Todd winces visibly. "That’s fine for you, junior. Some of us have more distance to cover," he says, mentally wondering how the hell to remove a urinary catheter without damaging his ability to spawn.
Lucky quickly rises from his bed, starts pulling off the sheets and
twists them around and around.
"What are you doing?" Todd asks.
"Planning our escape," Lucky replies. "Are you going to help me tie knots in these sheets or are you going to watch?"
"I’ll just supervise," Todd sniffs lazily. "I never was a Boy Scout. I was too busy pulling off the wings of flies."
~*~*~*~
Half Hour Later…
"I’m not so sure about this," Todd hedges as he positions one leg out the window and one leg on the windowsill. He adjusts his grip on the makeshift sheet-rope. "Are you sure you’ve done this before?"
"Positive," Lucky lies. "Now get going so I can take this junk off of me and climb down, too." Lucky had taken all of Todd’s monitors and attached them to his own body to prevent the nurses from discovering their escape attempt. He looks like a walking robot.
The end of the rope is tied to the leg of Todd’s bed, and Lucky has a firm grip on it as backup. Unfortunately, Todd’s knot tying technique leaves something to be desired, and Lucky forgot to check it. The white sheet begins to wickedly unravel from the leg, and Lucky feels a swift jolt of pain in his biceps as they now are holding the full weight of an over 6 foot tall Todd Manning.
"What’s all this, then?" Ian Thornhart sternly questions in his lilting Irish accent as he stands in the doorway surveying the scene before him. Startled, Lucky quickly turns around to face Ian with his eyes wide open and his mouth making an ‘O’ shape. The rope rips from his hands, and Ian hears the sound of a yell that seems to be coming from outside the window. The sound goes from loud to faint in an eerie echo. Lucky quickly thrusts his head out the window in time to see Todd break his fall on the gravel-lined rooftop two floors down. He flinches as the gravel scatters and Todd’s body splays out in a weird pattern of arms and legs. Two cardiac monitors start screaming.
Not on my wingtip shoes!
Rock ‘em sock ‘em robots
I got rocks in me head
Another Elvis sighting