Okay here’s a little prequel giving some of the past events and history of some of our friendly little aliens that live in Enchanted Valley

And a special shout out for Jerri for her awesome editing powers!

July 3rd 1947

Completing their sweep of the largest continent on the planet’s northern hemisphere, the squat disk shaped craft crossed the small sea toward the second largest continent on the planet. “Program the ship for the most economical sweep of the landmass and continue monitoring our stealth equipment. These creatures may be backwards but they do have craft that are capable of atmospheric flight.”

“Sir, the archives show that their weaponry is far below anything that could cause any issues for our ship,” One of the other two short gray aliens spoke without turning away from the instruments it was monitoring.

“True, but their radio waves have been noticed by the council of five and we do not want any signals to be received about an unknown ship fitting the description of ours reaching the council. We must find the lost unit without the council finding out anything about that unit. It’s the only way our empire will ever be free of the council and their rules.”

The small alien ship had crisscrossed the northern continent several times, working a pattern from west to east and back beginning at the northern icy regions and working south as the crew watched the instrumentation for the treasure they sought. As it passed over the city of Phoenix, the crew had to pay special attention to the aircraft arriving and landing at the busy terrestrial airport located there, actually lowering their altitude to 18,000 feet to keep below the aircraft arriving and leaving and above those in the holding pattern. Crossing over the border into New Mexico the skies were clear at the lower elevation with the exception of one small aircraft, their instruments detected that appeared to be on a straight course from El Paso to Amarillo.

While it looked like their paths would intersect, the small aircraft was several thousand feet above their own altitude, made no signs of seeing them and instruments showed it had no signs of weapons. The crew kept monitoring the smaller aircraft but were unworried about it. At ten miles away the small aircraft began losing altitude and sharply increased airspeed on their instruments.

“Sir, the small aircraft, its changed altitude and speed,” One of the gray bodied aliens turned from its console.

Turning toward the alien, “Did we lose stealth?”

The alien turned back to its console, “No sir… SIR IT'S POWERING UP A PARTICLE CANNON!”

“Evasive, get us out of atmosphere NOW!”

The disk shape craft began to rise at an incredible speed, taking it right through the invisible beam of the weapon concealed in the nose of the 1939 Grumman G-21. The disk immediately became visible two the two men in the twin engine amphibious aircraft as a bright beam of light burst forth from both the top and bottom of the craft, its ascent quickly slowed before it began to descend, increasing speed as it wobbled back toward earth.

“This is impossible!” the commander of the alien ship shouted as everything within their ship went dark, “These creatures do not have the technology.”

“Could the one in that aircraft be part of the lost unit?” The third alien asked. He would receive no answer as no sooner as he posed the question the ship contacted the hard ground.

As the small twin engine aircraft turned back toward the southwest the pilot looked over at the younger man sitting in the cockpit beside him, “Did you really have to shoot it twice?”

The younger man, possibly no more than twenty by his appearance, grinned over at the older man, “Aw come on, it’s not like I get to fire this baby all that much. Anyway, there is no way in hell I was taking the chance of them surviving and trying to take us back.”

The older man nodded, “Yeah now that we have tasted freedom, there is no way I would go back to that slavery either. I’m sure your mom thinks the same way.”

Noticing that the older man was guiding the aircraft into higher altitude, “We’re not going to land?”

Shaking his head the older man spoke, “Going to be light soon and I don’t want us or the goose seen around the crash.”

“What about the stuff onboard the ship? We can’t let the Army start playing with some of that stuff, who knows what they might find and turn on!”

“Catching us both with an armload of equipment would be even worse.” The older man reasoned, “Their medical science isn’t good enough to tell us apart from them yet, but if they locked us up long enough they would eventually see that we aren’t like them. No best thing we can do is go home and wait for the Army to come clean everything up for us, then once they have it all nice and hidden in some place they don’t think anyone will find, we slip in and remove the dangerous stuff.”

September 12, 1951
Underground facility, Groom Lake, NV

Dr. Henry Kuehn sat in the metal stool with both elbows up on the stainless steel table. His chin resting in both hands as he stared at the strange kite shaped object on the table. His bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair and three day growth of stubble on his face told of the hours he had exhausted trying to determine what the object could be. One side of the object was very smooth and slightly convex, while the other side held a complex concave shape that he and other scientist had determined fit perfectly with the alien’s back that they recovered at the crash site. Although the obvious placement of the object wasn’t the question, the question was what purpose it served.

Running one of the objects through both an X-ray machine and a fluoroscope had only proven the object was made out of a material that was completely invisible to those tests, not impenetrable as the scientists thought would happen but actually not showing up at all, as if the object wasn’t even there. While this was the opposite of what Dr. Kuehn and his colleagues had expected, especially after every means they had tried to cut into one of the objects had failed to even scratch the surface, it did inform them that whatever material the objects were made of did not exist on the periodic table.

Turning toward the sound of the door to his lab opening, Dr Kuehn sighed at the sight of the dark suited man wearing sunglasses that entered. “I’m sorry Mr. Smith, I don’t have anything further to report. Nothing we have tried has given us any clue as to what the devices are used for.”

“That’s quite understandable given the nature of the device, Dr. Kuehn,” Mr. Smith’s face was as expressionless as his monotone voice. “We have decided that the only way to process with testing is to have a volunteer put the device on.”

“Volunteer?” Dr. Kuehn gasped, “Are you mad? We don’t have any idea what the object will do to a human. Who in their right mind would volunteer to do something like that!”

“Leave that to us Doctor, Mr. Jones is currently in the process of interviewing candidates. He should have a suitable volunteer within a few days. While he is doing that I suggest you get some sleep, you look like hell.” Looking over at one of the soldiers standing on each side of the door he had entered, Mr. Smith saw the three chevrons with a single rocker underneath on the sleeve of the soldier carrying a M1928 submachine gun while the other soldier carrying an M2 carbine only had the three chevrons of a Sargent. Thinking about their choice of weapons Mr. Smith called to the lower ranked soldier, “Sergeant, please escort the doctor to his quarters and make sure he isn’t disturbed so that he may get some rest.”

The Sergeant snapped the M2 carbine up as he stood at attention, “Yes, sir!”

“What’s your name son?” Mr. Smith asked the Sergeant.

“Brown, sir,” the Sergeant replied.

“Alright, Sargent Brown, I’m reassigning you to the doctor. You’re his shadow from here on out. Got it?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

September 17, 1951
Underground facility, Groom Lake, NV

Dr. Kuehn looked down at the man lying face down on the table in front of him shirtless. The lack of a tan around the edges of what looked to be a fresh crew cut haircut and the back of the man’s neck led the doctor to believe this man normally kept his hair much longer. If that wasn’t enough to give the doctor the idea that something was wrong with the situation, the terribly done tattoos told the doctor all he needed to know about the volunteer Mr. Smith and his colleague had provided. The way his legs arms and waist were strapped down in leather restraints made the Doctor wonder if he had in fact volunteered or been forced.

Looking up at the other men in the room with him. Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones stood with their usual emotionless expressions on each side of General Collins, “These are prison tattoos!” Dr. Kuehn stated, mainly toward the general.

“Who gives a fuck where I was!” The man on the table turned his head so he could shout at the doctor, “I volunteered! That’s all you need to know, I let you put the thingamajig on my back I get out of the slammer!”

“We don’t know what this will do to you,” The doctor argued. “For all we know it could kill you.”

“Doc, I haven’t had any for going on five years now. It’ll be another twenty five before I get the chance to play back seat bingo.” The convict reasoned, “So the way I see it, twenty five years without is pretty bad, getting out so old that most good looking dollies won’t have anything to do with me is even worse, so I may as well die now.”

“You heard the man, doctor,” Mr. Smith softly spoke, “He knows the risks.”

“But you’re talking about releasing a convicted felon back onto the street!”

“If he survives the object and the tests afterward, yes,” the side of Mr. Smith’s lip curled upward in a way that made the doctor cringe, knowing that Mr. Smith did not plan on this man leaving the base alive.

“Doctor, if you will be so good as to begin,” the General spoke.

With a heavy sigh the doctor turned toward a stainless steel table along the wall behind him where the three identical objects sat. Picking up the closest one by the edges, the doctor brought it over and positioned in over the man’s back before lowering it down and letting go. Almost a full minute passed with no change when suddenly the surface of the hard kite shaped object seemed to melt conforming to the man’s back.

“Oh man, that feels fucking great!” the man moaned, “fuck, that feels good.”

The rest watched as the top and bottom tips of the object began to ooze upward and down slowly covering his spine. The top stopping at the base of his skull while the bottom found its way under the waistband of the trousers the man wore. “Shit, doc, this is better than fucking sex! And I thought nothing was better than sex.” The man moaned and squirmed against the restraints as the object continued whatever it was doing.

“Ummfff!” the man suddenly jerked. “Ugggh! Oh crap! Shit!” the man groaned through gritted teeth, “Get it off! Get it off!” As he began to thrash around as his uncomfortable grunts and groans became screams of pain. His screaming continued as the off gray colored object began to change color, matching his skin tone as it appeared to be absorbed into his body. HIs body began to shake and convulse so violently that he began to rip the leather restraints away from the table finally ending up in the fetal position in the floor beside the table he had been laying on.

They could do nothing but watch as the now unconscious man’s body began to change before their eyes. His waist thinning incredibly fast, the tattoos on his back and arms disappeared. The muscles in his arms, back and chest took on definition that could only be described as what someone would expect to see in a Mr. Universe competition, while his facial features reformed giving him a very handsome look.

September 20, 1951
Enchanted Valley, WA

“Taking off on us already, Cliff?”

Cliff handed the box off to someone inside the rear hatch of the Grumman amphibious plane before turning to the older man walking under the wing toward him. Spotting the air force cap on the man’s head Cliff went to military attention while saluting the man. “I see you still got that old hat, Captain Jack,” Cliff grinned.

“Well had to have somethin’ fer a souvenir, since some jackass lieutenant got my damn plane,” Jack laughed as he walked over placing his hand along the fuselage. “Still hard to believe you were actually able to put the old girl back together.”

“You could say I have an affinity for machinery,” Cliff chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess you do at that,” Jack nodded. “People here in town told me all about your kind. Most of ‘em don’t trust you three cause what you are. But me and you, we flew together during the war… Hell Cliff you saved my life. Even though in doing so you made me something like you with those tiny machines they tell me are in my blood now.”

“If there had been any other way…” Cliff sighed.

Jack placed his hand on Cliff’s shoulder, “I know, you didn’t have any other choice.” Nodding toward the plane, “So you leaving us?”

Cliff shook his head, “Just a little sightseeing trip. Found out about some place called Homey Airport. Funny thing is this airport is located in the middle of a no fly zone in Nevada.”

“You think that they may have the Fruell ship there?”

“The air force made a huge deal out of transporting something to Wright Patterson, we found nothing there so that was decoy. So they have to have it somewhere else probably closer to the original crash site since there were no other large convoys going cross country at the time. It could be this place, if not then I cross it off and keep looking. Either way I’ve got to check, it’s my responsibility, I shot it down.” Cliff sighed, “I know the ship's systems are fried, made sure of that when we took it down, but the particle beam would not have affected any item or system that was not powered on and who knows what they may have had onboard. They figure out how to activate any of those…”

“Ya think there could be anything left that was dangerous?”

Cliff held both his arms out, “They’re the ones that made me and my kind.”

Jack thought back to the day they were shot down so many years ago. The day he had learned the truth about his friend.

July 23, 1943
Solomon Islands

Jack and Cliff had spent most the war running supplies out of Port Moresby to the coast watchers stationed in the Solomon Islands. Usually flying low level fights at night to keep from being spotted by the Japanese. That fateful night they had been spotted by a Japanese convoy. Before they could get out of range of the Japanese naval guns a shell exploded off their port side, ripping the engine apart along with embedding several pieces of shrapnel into Jack sitting in the pilot’s seat. Cliff had managed to bring the plane down, beaching it on a nearby island. That morning was the day Jack found out that his copilot wasn’t human.

As if being shot down wasn’t bad enough, they had apparently crashed on a Japanese held island. Jack found himself in a small cave, his left arm, leg and side bandaged. It hurt to breathe deeply and from the blood he was coughing up, Jack knew he was in bad shape. Looking over he could see Cliff sitting cross legged on the cave floor nearby, “How bad?” Jack managed to get out before coughing up more blood.

Cliff crawled over to Jack, kneeling beside him, “Pretty bad buddy. It looks like you took some shrapnel that went through a lung and got your liver too. Looks like we managed to crash on one of the Nip’s islands and they’re looking for us.”

“Leave me and get yer ass outta here!” Jack covered his mouth, coughing up more blood.

“Jack you’ve been like a brother to me, I’m not leaving you.”

Holding out his hand to show Cliff the bright red blood he had coughed up, “I’m not gonna to make it and I’m not gonna have you sit around and get caught by the nips while you watch me die.”

“I’m not going to let you die Jack.”

“Unless you got a miracle in yer pocket, I don’t think there’s a lot you can do about it.”

“Jack, I got that miracle but it’s something you can’t ever tell anyone about. Anyone ever finds out about this they would hunt us down and lock us up in some government lab as guinea pigs.”

“Whatever ya tell me I’ll be taking to my grave, which I don’t think will be too much longer.”

“Jack I have microscopic machines in my blood.” Cliff reached over to the small first aid kit, picking up the empty morphine syringe he had earlier injected into Jack, “They’re like tiny repair robots, if I inject some into you they should be able to heal you.”

Jack began to laugh which immediately turned into a coughing fit, “Dammit man I’m not stupid, no one can make machines that small. Next thing you’ll be saying is your one of those little green Martians.”

“Close, but it was little gray men are the ones that made the microscopic robots. And they’re from a lot further away than Mars.”

“Sounds like some of that shit you’d read in one of those Yellow papers,” Jack snarked. “But any chance is better than no chance, do what ya got to do.”

Cliff nodded, sticking the syringe into his own arm drawing some of his own blood into the syringe. “I do this, you’ll always have these running around your system making repairs forever.”

“You make it sound like I’ll live forever.”

“Forever is a damn long time buddy.” Cliff grimaced as he jabbed the needle into Jack’s abdomen, “It won’t make you bullet proof either, you can still get yourself killed.”

Looking down at the now empty syringe as Cliff pulled it out Jack joked, “I guess this sort of makes us blood brothers.”

“Yeah, and it’s a good idea not to let doctors take any blood samples from here on out.” Cliff explained, “They may not have the technology to see the machines in your blood, but who knows what they can do in fifty or a hundred years from now.”

September 20, 1951
Enchanted Valley, WA

“I’m going with ya,” Jack grinned over at his friend. “Someone’s gotta keep you out of trouble.”

Cliff shook his head, “Sorry Jack, you might heal fast but you don’t have any of our other abilities.”

“Way I figure, you need a pilot.” Jack’s grin widened, “I’m guessing nearest airport is Las Vegas. How far away from the no fly zone is that?”

“Fifty, maybe seventy five miles to Homey airport.”

“So we skirt along the edge of the no fly zone, you parachute out while I fly on down to Las Vegas where I keep the engines warms just in case,” Jack explained his idea. “That way we can plan for alternate pick-ups in case you find the need to exist the area from another direction.”

“Actually that’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah, I’ve been known to have one once in a great while,” Jack chuckled.

October 5, 1951
Underground facility, Groom Lake, NV

“Look guys,” The now ex-convict test subject swung his legs up and around so he sat facing the opposite direction on the examination table, “I’m not asking to be let go, even though that was the deal you made, I just want a weekend to myself, you know how it is right?”

“Mr. Tucker, our agreement was that you were released after the testing was completed.” Mr. Jones pointed out, “As you can see the doctor is still in the process of determining everything the object did to you and how it was able to do that.”

“Try to shaft me and I’ll gonna go ape on your ass Mr. Jones.” John Tucker knew he now had the strength and speed to back up his threats, “That goes for you too Smith, if those are even your real names.”

“Mr. Tucker,” Mr. Smith tightened his lips into a thin line, “Your ‘Deal’ was that you are released when the testing is complete. This is non-negotiable.”

“Well I’m making it negotiable!” John stood up from the examination table. “I haven’t see the god damned sunlight since I got here. I’m finding a way to the nearest town. I’m going to get some booze and a babe this weekend if I have to hitchhike my fucking way there! And I’ll step on anyone that gets in my way!”

Smith’s right hand shot up and inside the dark jacket he always wore going for his gun, Jones was a bit slower but was reaching for his also. Smith’s hand came out of his jacket wrapped around the handle of his snub nose .38. Before he could begin to train it on John, John rushed to Smith’s side, grabbing his wrist and twisting himself and Smith’s arm around. The handle of Jones’ M1911 was just visible as Smith’s gun was pointed at Jones’ head and John forced Smith to pull the trigger.

Reaching up with his left hand, Smith gouged his fingers at John’s eyes causing John to let go of his gun hand, “Sergeant get the doctor out of here now!” Smith shouted at sergeant Brown before adding, “And sound the alarm.”

“Come on Doc!” sergeant Brown grabbed Doctor Kuehn by the arm.

“No, no wait!” Dr. Kuehn pulled free of sergeant Brown before scooping up the other two alien objects, that were identical to the one that changed Tucker, from where they were laying on a table near the wall.

“HEY! Where you going with those!” John picked up a chair to throw at the same time as Mr. Smith fired his revolver hitting John in the shoulder as he tried to throw the chair, causing the chair to miss both Dr. Kuehn and the sergeant.

The chair slamming against the wall right above Dr. Kuehn’s head caused him to fumble and drop one of the objects as sergeant Brown pulled him out of the room. “The artifact,” the doctor tried to protest as Brown pulled him down the hall.

“Is no good to you if you’re dead, now move!” No sooner than he had finished the sentence Mr. Smith’s body came flying out into the hallway, slamming against the wall before slumping down to the ground unmoving.

John stepped out in the hall carrying Jones’ .45 in one hand and the alien object the Doctor had dropped, spotting Brown and the doctor at the far end of the hall, “All I want is the alien device doc, drop it and I’ll let the two of you live!”

Pulling Dr. Kuehn around the corner to the right, Brown stopped before leveling his carbine and stepping back out around the corner, “Put down the gun John and I’ll make sure they let you go have a night out on the town. Hell I’ll join you, we can hit all the cat houses!”

“Oh yeah, like a lowly grunt like you can make that happen!” John laughed, “Those two G men made the general shake in his boots, your promises are useless.”

When sergeant Brown saw John begin to raise the .45 toward him, he fired off several rounds at John. He could see John twitch as the bullets hit, but John did not go down.

Dr. Kuehn reached out and pulled the sergeant back around the corner, “You can’t shoot him, his skin acts like a non-Newtonian substance.”

“A what?” Brown began running down the hall alongside the doctor.

“The greater the force applied to his skin, the harder it becomes.”

“Are you telling me he’s god damned bulletproof!” Brown darted through a door on their right, dragging the doctor with him. “Anything in here I can use to fight him?” Seeing the doctor shake his head as Sergeant Brown pulled the door closed and locked it behind them, “Come on we can use the freight elevator to get you out.” Brown began dragging the doctor across what appeared to be a large storeroom.

Reaching the other side of the large storeroom they found the freight elevator was up at the top. Dr. Kuehn looked at the sergeant after the sergeant had hit the button to call the elevator, “He’ll get to us before it gets down here.”

“Not much we can do about that but hope that door slows him down long enough for it to arrive.”

“There’s one thing we can do,” Dr. Kuehn took a deep breath as he held out the alien object. “How do you feel about becoming a real life Captain America?”

“Are you serious?”

“I can’t think of any other way to stop him,” Dr. Kuehn stated. “Not only that but he has the other device, we can’t let him take them and use them to create others like him.”

Sergeant Brown pulled his shirt out from his pants, turning his back to the doctor as he lifted the shirt exposing his bareback, “Do it!”

Dr. Kuehn placed the kite shaped alien object on the sergeant’s back and as soon as it attached said, “Quickly go hide, I’ll try to give you enough time for the change to finish.”

The sound of gunfire in the hallway alerted the doctor that more troops had arrived. Dr. Kuehn wished there was something he could do to stop the deaths of those brave soldiers but he had already done the only thing he could do. The men would probably die fighting against the alien augmented John Tucker, but the doctor tried to think of them giving sergeant Brown the time he needed to become the only thing the doctor could think of that had a chance of stopping Tucker and that was another alien augmented man.

It was at least ten minutes before the gunfire came to a halt and only a few minutes after that the door to the storeroom came completely off its hinges as it flew open. “Doc I know you’re in here. Hand over the device and you can leave.” Dr. Kuehn heard John shout after walking into the storeroom. Dr. Kuehn thought about getting on the elevator and going up, he was close enough that he doubted John could get across the storeroom in time to stop him, but that would have left the sergeant who he knew was probably unconscious from the changes the alien object had forced on his body. If John found him before he woke all hope of stopping John would be lost. No Dr. Kuehn had to give the sergeant the time he needed, he had to stall John any way he could.

Making his way slowly across the storeroom, John finally saw the doctor and walked over stopping about six feet away, “Okay Doc, all these morons shooting at me has really tried my patience, give me the device and I won’t lay a hand on ya. Screw with me and I swear I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with it.”

“I, I don’t have it,” The fear plainly evident in Dr. Kuehn’s voice.

“Where is it!” John stomped forward menacingly.

“Sergeant, sergeant Brown took it.”

“Which way did he go!” John yelled

One of Dr. Kuehn’s doctorates was in psychology and he knew all about those small tells people inadvertently shown in their body language. Glancing over to his left, the opposite direction Brown had ran, Dr. Kuehn hoped John was observant enough to catch his eye movement and fall for his deceit. “I, I’m not sure which way he went.”

“Doc you’re going to have to get better at lying than that if you ever want to trick a con man like me,” John laughed. “Still I like you so I’m not going to hurt you.” John turned to the direction the doctor had glanced and began looking around for places the sergeant could hide as he walked in that direction.

“Come on Brown,” John spoke loudly as he walked in between several stacked crates, “you’ve been okay toward me, so I’ll treat you just like you’ve treated me. Give me what I want and you can walk away just like the good doc.”

Off to the doctor’s right came a sound of crates shifting. Looking over Dr. Kuehn was startled to see instead of Sergeant Brown, a lithe young woman stagger out from between the crates wearing an olive drab soldier’s shirt that was at least three sizes too big for her. Her long blond hair was a mess and the oversized shirt seemed to be the only clothing she had on as she padded out onto the concrete floor with an M2 carbine in her hand. “I may not have what you want Tucker, but I can damn sure give you what you deserve!”

“Who the fuck are you?” John walked out from between the rows of crates he was in.

“Johnny boy, I’m your worst nightmare,” The woman raised the carbine to her shoulder taking aim at the man across the storeroom. “A woman that can fight back!”

John flinched when the bullet hit him across the bridge of his nose causing his eyes to water. Rubbing the tears from his eyes he began cursing, ‘You stupid bitch! You think that is going to stop me?

“Nope, just wanted to make sure I had your full undivided attention,” she began walking slowly toward John, rife still against her shoulder aimed at him.

Dr. Kuehn gasped when he saw the name ‘BROWN’ embroidered above the breast pocket and sergeant’s stripes on the arm of the shirt.

“Arrgghhh!” John screamed and ran toward the woman.

Waiting until he had built up a good head of steam, the young blond lowered her aim to his pelvic area where his left leg pivoted and squeezed off several bursts of full auto into the area which caused his skin to lock up hard stopping his leg from moving causing John to fall face first to the hard concrete floor. Before John could recover, she dropped the carbine and ran over to him. Grabbing him by the arm she threw him across the storeroom into the wall. Shoving the large crates out of his way as he got back to his feet John looked strangely at the smaller woman.

“Surprise, surprise,” She giggled, “You’re not the only strong one around here anymore.”

“Brown?”

“Oh did I finally knock some sense into that thick skull of yours?”

“You’re a chick?”

“Yeah well at least I’m not stupid.”

“I’ll rip your head off!” John growled.

“Bring it on shit for brains,” Brown smiled wickedly, “I know your weaknesses.”

Looking into her eyes John knew she wasn’t bluffing. Also knowing while she looked like a normal gal, this was still Sergeant Brown, a man trained in hand to hand fighting, not the street brawling that John knew. John could also tell that she was doing her best to get under his skin, and unfortunately John knew it was working. Realizing he needed to get out before she was able to provoke him further, John made a dash for the elevator shaft, grabbing the alien object on his way.

Seeing Tucker race up the open elevator shaft, Brown went over to check on the doctor, “You alright doc?”

“Go, go after him!” Dr. Kuehn stuttered, “You can’t let him get away with the object.”

“Slow down doc,” Brown knelt down beside where the doc had slid down against the wall where he was now sitting on the floor. “We’re in the middle of the desert fifty miles from nowhere and he’s on foot, we got time. I was bluffing when I told him I knew his weaknesses, but if I’m going to stop him I really do need to know if he does have any.”