Once Upon A Ryland

"Dammit!" Ryland shouted as he kicked a random spot on the wall. How could he have forgotten and done that? Just when he thought his plans for a world takeover were perfect, that there were no flaws, it had all been ruined, by one slip of the tongue. It was Jake's fault, his arch-enemy. "That bastard," Ryland muttered bitterly. If only Jake had just left President Bush alone, Ryland knew how to take care of Bush... His furious musings were interrupted by footsteps coming down the basement stairs. Ryland flinched and started to dive back into his hiding place, but it was only Mitchell. His face was impassive as usual, but his hands were twitching. Ryland groaned, knowing something else had gone wrong. Mitchell took a deep breath and said, "Agents Becky and Marina of the CIA are in the living room. Robyn and Tessa are stalling them with tea and cookies, but I know they'll eventually want to search the house." One shaking hand held up a plane ticket. "Lotus is waiting outside. She'll take you to the airport. This ticket will take you as far as Greece. Dawn will meet you there and hide you somewhere." He hugged Ryland quickly, shoved the ticket into his hand, and pushed him toward the door. "Get out of here." Ryland nodded grimly and bumped past Mitchell. As soon as he opened the door, he saw Fiona on the other side, glaring angerly at him. "Oh, shit."

"Ryland, you said you would call."

"Baby, I tried to but i was so caught up..."

"Hooold on a second here," Fiona said, holding up her hand as if to physically stop him in his tracks. "You've never, not once, called me 'Baby" the whole time I have known you. Which," she continued as he looked like he was about to add something, "leads me to believe that you're up to something. Not to mention that you happen to have a plane ticket in your hand." She crossed her arms and looked triumphant.

Ryland looked down his nose at Fiona. /What did I think I was doing getting involved with her? I knew what I was getting into./ "Listen, I've got to go on a business trip, that's all. I'm gonna be back real soon, and I really have to go or I'll miss my plane. I'll call you as soon as I get back." He spread his hands & arranged his features in what he hoped was a fairly neutral expression, as neutral was his best bet at this point.

Fiona looked like she was about to spit. She looked at him, almost expressionless, then shoved him back with enough force to almost knock him off his feet. Ryland reeled backward, arms windmilling. Mitchell ran up and pushed him forward until he had his balance back. This was too much. Fiona was making no effort whatsoever to keep her voice down. The two CIA women might have heard her. So, without hesitation, he picked up Fiona and started carrying her across the backyard.

"Put me down, damn you! Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?"

"All right, all right. If you must know, I'm running for my life."

"Oh, I see. Which jilted lover is after you this time? Emma? Chris? Charlie?"

"No, it's not like that... Do you remember Project Cucumber?"

"Of course. Your master plan. Or so you said."

"It was my master plan until Jake got his greasy paws on it. Now it's ruined, they know who I am, and Becky and Marina are after me. They're in the CIA now, did they tell you that?" He nodded toward the street. "See, there's Lotus. She has the getaway car. I'm going to hide out in Greece for a while. There. Now you know it all."

Fiona took a moment to register all this, then said, "Well, what can I say except... HELP! He's out here! Come get him!"

The door flew open and Becky and Marina dashed out. Ryland looked at Fiona in horror. "I'm sorry," she said, "I couldn't resist. Becky made me do it." Ryland dropped her and started to run. As he got closer to the street he heard Fiona call out, "Oh, and they don't actually work for the government... They're just nuns." Ryland stopped in his tracks. Fiona had betrayed him to the nuns? He thought of the horrors he'd faced at the hands of Ted and his followers. He turned back toward the street. But then he thought of Mitchell, Robyn and Tessa. Could he really leave them to such a grisly fate? He had to make a decision soon, because the two nuns were racing down the yard toward him ...

Ryland turned, and ran for his life. He hopped into the car and slammed the door closed, screaming, "Move it move it move it damn you!!!"

Lotus looked suspiciously neutral, but as she had stomped on the gas pedal, he didn't really care, as long as they were getting out of there...away from the nuns.

"The nuns! God! The nuns!" Ryland bemoaned, holding his head in his hands, and wondering how they ever caught up to him...he'd been so careful...how had they done it??

Lotus cruised onto a bridge, and stopped the car.

"What the hell are you doing?!?!" Ryland screamed, his relatively calm state gone.

"So now we've found out what kind of person you really are," Lotus said cooly, her calloused fingers lightly tapping the steering wheel. Ryland stared at her in horror, and then twisted around to look in the back of the van...Where Mitchell, Robyn, and Tessa where staring at him.

"Whuh....?" Ryland felt his whole world coming down around his ears.

Mitchell looked at his hands for a moment, then looked up at Ryland and started explaining. "Becky and Marina were not really Becky and Marina. They were Selena and Kathleen. Fiona was Eire. We got the idea from Mission Impossible. We found out about your plan to sell us out to selfishly save yourself." Mitchell's face was hard as stone, and his eyes appeared to be little bits of ice.

"No...No! This was totally random! I had no plan!" Ryland clutched at his only excuse with the desperation of a drowning man.

"Ha! You must really think we're stupid, Ryland," Robyn said, her eyes as cold, or colder, than Mitchell's. "We know how you called Ted late last night, we know how you plotted with him...We know about the genetic engineering deal with the Nuns. That whole stunt? It's out in the open now, Ryland."

Ryland looked around at the faces of his people, desperately searching for some little hope. He looked into Tessa's eyes, and whispered, "I love you. Help me." Tessa was momentarily thrown out of her stony-faced silence, but then Mitchell raised his hand to silence her once more.

"It's over, Ryland," Lotus said. "It's over." She leaned over, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out an onion.

Ryland's blood froze. "Hey... hey, no. Not the onion. Look, I know I've made some bad choices. That whole thing with Ted was a big mistake. But I haven't done anything bad enough to deserve the onion." He looked around for support, and found none this time. Even Tessa had regained her stony expression. "All right. I'll tell you anything. Just put the onion away."

Lotus relaxed slightly, but the onion stayed in her hand. "Where's Emma?"

Ryland winced. "I'll tell you absolutely anything... except that."

Mitchell shook his head. "We don't leave anyone behind. If Emma is still in Ted's clutches, we need to find her, and we'll do whatever's necessary." As he was talking, Lotus slowly began to peel the onion.

Tessa's resolve broke again for a moment. "Ryland, you know we hate to use the onion, especially after what it did to poor Zen. But this is a desperate situation. Emma may be in the process of being converted even as we speak. Please."

Ryland squirmed. He looked at Tessa for a long time, then at the onion, then back at Tessa. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. "I... I can't," he said finally.

All righty then," Robyn said grimly. She and Mitchell and Tessa started to reach forward to hold Ryland down. Lotus finished peeling the onion.

Ryland suddenly sprang into action. He batted their hands away, knocking the onion to the floor. He grabbed the keys out of the ignition, kicked the door open, and started running across the bridge, tossing the keys over the side as he went. He heard doors slamming and footsteps running after him. "Ryland!" Robyn yelled. "This is pointless! You'll only make it harder on yourself! If you're this stubborn, we'll have to use the zucchini and the onion!" But Ryland kept running. There was no way they could be allowed to know where Emma was. The future of his plans depended on it. But they were catching up quickly to him. Mitchell reached out to grab him, and...

A van screeched to a halt next to them. One of its doors opened, and Nick called out, "Ryland, get in!" Ryland jumped into the car just before Mitchell could catch him, and it roared off.

Nick looked over at Ryland and asked, "What the hell was that all about?" Ryland remembered then that Nick knew nothing about Operation Cucumber, or about the nuns. Ryland had to tread carefully. "Oh, ummm... They think I owe them some money. It's all a misunderstanding." Was that convincing? He couldn't tell from the look on Nick's face, but the car kept moving.

"Oh, hey," Nick said suddenly, "guess who I saw today? Victor!"

Ryland groaned inwardly. The LHF had always been an annoying obstruction to his world-domination plans. But he tried to sound interested. "Oh, really? How was he?"

"He looked all right. I didn't talk to him. He was running down the street with a couple of nuns on his heels. Who knows what the hell that was about? Knowing Victor, it could be anything. He probably stole that vegetable from a convent."

Ryland's ears perked up suddenly. "What vegetable?"

"He had this green vegetable in his hand, and he was talking to it as he ran."

Ryland tried hard to keep his voice even. "How weird. Did you catch anything he said?"

"Just one word. Wilfred."

Wilfred. Ryland felt a shiver of excitement pass through him. Perhaps his plans weren't completely doomed after all. "Nick.. What part of town was he in? Can you take me there? I'd like to see him."

"No problem." Nick took a right turn toward the street where he had last seen the LHF.

Meanwhile, back at their car, Lotus, Mitchell, Robyn, and Tessa were sitting around trying to figure out what to do next when Chris's car pulled up next to the them. He rolled down the window. "Need any help?"

"Not unless you've seen Ryland," Lotus mumbled. "He escaped from us just a few minutes ago."

Chris looked puzzled. "You must be mistaken. Ryland was shot by Dan F. about an hour ago."

"What?"

"Yeah, he's in the hospital right now."

Mitchell scratched his head. "Well, good for Dan, but then who were we chasing just now?... Tessa, what's wrong?"

Tessa had just begun to look quite sickly. "I just remembered something. About a month ago, while I was spying on the nuns, I heard Ted say something about cloning. Apparently Ryland was one of the subjects of that particular mad scheme."

"So which one is the original and which is the clone?" Mitchell wondered. "Does it even matter?"

Lotus shook her head. "I don't think so. Both of them must know where Emma is."

Robyn didn't look all that reassured. "Well, that's good for Emma's sake, but what about the Cucumber? Is it still with Victor? And if so, how long will it be until Ryland tracks him down?"

Lotus thought for a moment. "All right, I think I know what to do. Chris, can you take us into town? We can split up there. Two of us will go and pay Ryland a visit at the hospital, and the rest can go track down that wonderveggie." They all piled into the car and zoomed off.

Back in Nick's car, Ryland was looking up and down the street for a sign of Victor. Suddenly he said, "Stop the car." He got out and looked at the tiny puddle on the sidewalk, then got down on his knees and sniffed it. Sure enough, it was cucumber juice.

"Thanks for the ride, Nick."

"Any time."

Ryland sniffed the puddle again, stood up, chose a direction to walk in, and began his search.

He ran along streets, through allies and over dumpsters, until he slipped on a candy wrapper, and slammed head first into..."Selena?!?!" he exclaimed.

"Oof," Lena said.

 /add more/