A Man Called Mongrel #1
"And Leave The Rest To Heaven"
By Derrick Ferguson
South Carolina, United States of America
The Henderson Institute Of Alternative Technologies
Despite the bright sunshine pouring in through the wide rectangular smartglass windows of the library located on the top floor of The Main Building of the sprawling 16,000 acre complex known collectively as The Henderson Institute of Alternative Technologies, the room had suddenly gone cold. The reason for that were the totally unexpected words that had just come out of the mouth of Dr. Sylvester Henderson. The last thing that his father, mother and brother had expected to hear him say was that he had killed an entire family. The many shelves holding numerous volumes of science, philosophy, art and literature suddenly seemed oppressive as thick prison bars.
Immediately, his mother came over to sit next to him. Rebecca Henderson gently wrapped Sylvester's larger hand in her own smaller, more delicate ones and squeezed hard. Her voice was low and urgently soft as Sylvester turned to look at her with a miserably sad smile. "What's all this nonsense, Sylvester? You haven't killed anybody and I certainly don't think you killed these Lossiu people, whoever they are."
Nayland Henderson put his pipe away in a leather case and stood up, the sunlight glinting off the gold wire frames of his glasses and looked at his other son. Mongrel Henderson was looking down at his brother with a bemused, quizzical expression. "What to you make of this, Charalambides? Do you know what Sylvester is talking about?"
"No, and neither does he, I'll bet. Sly always was dramatic, even when we were kids." Mongrel's full lips quirked in a sarcastic grin as he continued. "That's how he always got away with everything."
Rebecca looked up at Mongrel. "Oh, hush, you! Can't you come up with something constructive to help Sylvester?"
"I'm trying, Ma. Okay, Sly… what's your connection with the Lossiu family and how have you killed them?"
Sylvester opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the whooshing open of the library door and the entrance of Dr. Zita Laranjo. Her normally beautiful heart shaped face was now dark with anger and her baleful gaze fixed on the tall muscular form of Mongrel and she crossed the room in a few sharp strides, arm outstretched with a red-long nailed finger pointing at Mongrel as she snapped, "Thanks a lot for interrupting the ceremonies with your circus act out there! You know how long it'll take to clean up the plaza?"
"Sorry that saving the lives of my family interfered with your television debut," Mongrel replied easily and with no anger whatsoever. In the seven months he'd been working for his brother, he and the volatile Zita Laranjo had seen eye to eye on practically nothing so he had become more than used to her tirades.
"And you're telling me that this situation couldn't have been handled in some other fashion? There's an army of reporters downstairs screaming for a statement and I have no idea what to tell them."
"Well, isn't that why we have a public relations department?" Nayland said. "Let them handle it."
Mongrel sighed. "Dad, Zita is in charge of public relations."
Nayland blinked. "Really? I thought you were in charge of Artificial Intelligence Application Maintenance."
"I was until two weeks ago when Sylvester appointed me in charge of Alternative Technologies Public Relations Division," Zita replied.
"Really?" Nayland's broad shoulders shrugged under the well-tailored black jacket of his Armani suit. "Nobody tells me anything around here."
Sylvester waved a hand carelessly. "We needed someone with a comprehensive knowledge of Alternative Technologies as a whole and Mongrel suggested Zita."
Zita's mouth opened slightly in surprise and she looked up into the face of a grinning Mongrel. "Waitaminnit… you recommended me for the job? But why? You and I don't even agree on water being wet. What kind of games are you playing with me?"
"No games at all. I thought you'd be good for the job. I may have to reconsider that decision since you apparently can't deal with the duties and responsibilities that go along with it. You should be down there handling the press instead of being up here harassing one of your bosses." Mongrel lifted one eyebrow in a meaningful arch. Zita swallowed hard.
"Yes. I think I ought to be getting back downstairs. Do you have any suggestions as to what I should tell the press?"
"You'll think of something," Mongrel said smoothly. "Scram."
Zita scrammed.
Nayland chuckled as the door closed behind Zita. "Oh, you're going to have fun messing with her, aren't you?"
"You know it. But we've got to focus here and get on track and that goes back to Sly." Mongrel turned his attention back to Sylvester who still sat on the couch with Rebecca holding his hand. "Dramatics aside, Sly, I need you to tell me what you've got to do with the Lossiu family and where I can find them."
Sylvester looked up, concern in his deep-set brown eyes. "They've got a family estate in Louisiana. If you're going down there I'm going with you."
"No you're not. You're going to stay right here and let me do the job you hired me to do. The only thing I need from you is to explain what your connection with them is and why you say you've killed them."
Sylvester took in a deep breath and nodded firmly. "I met Joseph Lossiu maybe eighteen years ago. We were both working for the government at the time. There was a considerable amount of work being done in bionics back then and Joseph Lossiu was one of the most brilliant men working in the field. His work with articulated bioskin armature and integrated neural cognition boosters was some of the most innovative research I've ever seen. We worked together extremely well and it wasn't long before we became friends. Joseph invited me to the family estate several times and eventually he took me into his confidence regarding a long kept Lossiu family secret.
"The Lossiu family suffers from a genetic disorder unique to them. It strikes the males in their family and causes them to suffer from a rapid and horribly painful and lingeringly hideous death that brings on insanity before the end comes. In symptoms it greatly resembles Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever. There's acute nausea, horrific headaches followed by bleeding of the internal organs and underneath the skin. All accompanied by frightening hallucinations and the feeling that ones nerve endings are being soaked in acid. Lossiu men had been known to kill themselves in the first stages of the disease rather than endure its ravages. Joseph showed me recordings made of the few family members who have endured the full stages of the illness." Sylvester shuddered. "I've seen some things in my time, Mongrel…but those images are ones I'll never forget. And they touched me. Joseph asked for my help in finding a cure for his family and I said I'd help."
"When does this family curse strike? What age? Under what circumstances?"
Sylvester shook his head. "It's a strange disease…it can strike at any time and sometimes it will even skip some male members and go on to others. It's a disease that has haunted the Lossiu family for close to two hundred years. I have to admit, I was flattered when Joseph asked me to help. I thought it would be another extraordinary triumph for the great Sylvester Henderson."
Rebecca squeezed his hand. "There's no shame in you wanting to help out a friend. Your father and I raised you boys to put your talents and skills to the service of others. If this Lossiu boy thought you could help then it was your duty to do so."
"I'm guessing that your finding a cure for the Lossiu family backfired?" Mongrel asked, folding his arms across his chest.
"Mongrel, backfired isn't the word for it..."
***
Louisiana, United States of America
The Lossiu Family Estate located on The Atchafalaya Basin
The Lossiu family estate was dominated by a magnificent example of an antebellum plantation house that had been built back in the 1700's and stood as a testimony to a magnificent way of life that had been enjoyed by many fine families who had lived in the region as long as anybody could remember. It was home to the twenty-one members of the Lossiu family as well as their ninety member staff, which was comprised of the domestic house staff, retainers, mechanics/chauffeurs, gardeners, security and personal care attendants.
And on this day the Lossiu family estate was a grim and bloody slaughterhouse. A testament to the destructive abilities of the single thing left alive who stalked hallways that a short time ago had echoed with screams.
He walked through the house, smiling absently at the great splashes of bright red blood on the antique white walls. Blood that he had deliberately caused to cascade in artistic gouts as his humming vibrating hands had sliced effortlessly through flesh. He stalked through the now silent Lossiu house. Once a grand house full of life and a fine old family it was now silent, except for them hum of his cybernetic body.
He was powered down now. He was not in the killing mode where he had moved like a dark wind of death among the Lossiu family. Once he had been powered up, his rebuilt adaptative cardiovascular system augmented by articulative supporting clusters of nanoglands pumping zillions of adrenal organoids into his cybernetic body, the killing of the Lossiu family and their staff had been as easy as wringing the necks of chickens and far more satisfying. His psychological handlers would download the killings of the Lossiu family later on and spend ample time going through the playbacks, studying his methods and suggesting ways in which he could have been more efficient. As if efficiency mattered to him. The only thing that mattered to him was how many he killed.
Bodies were strewn over the thick banisters of the curving marble staircase. He stepped over silent forms lying in huge puddles of cooling blood. Burst organs lay in the sunshine that streamed in through the high windows. And all was quiet in the Lossiu house as the murderous being that wore the form of a human walked toward the family room. Severed fingers crunched under his boots as he walked into the room, moving his head slightly to avoid the garlands of intestines that hung from the crystal chandeliers. He seated himself in front of the fifty-inch plasma screen television and narrowed his eyes slightly as he concentrated, searching for the right frequency to turn the television on. Nine seconds later the screen burst into color. Stations began to flicker as the killer mentally changed channels. He chuckled as he thought of how incensed his handlers would have been. Nine billion dollars worth of cybernetics implanted into his body and here he was making like a remote control.
But in a way he was. He was the deadliest remote control in the world because his handlers simply used him to change the living to the dead. And he had changed a whole lot of people from living to dead today because of Sylvester Henderson's interference. The Lossiu family had been marked for death centuries ago and Henderson had had no business changing the course of their destiny. It was most unfortunate that they all had to die but what was to be done? The sentence had been passed on the Lossiu family and the males had been infected with the Sgurem Virus. It was not Henderson's due to cure them of that. In fact there wasn't even supposed to be a cure for that. The killer's face twitched in a smile as he remembered the consternation among his handlers when they had discovered that Henderson had found a cure only after a year of study and research. The Lossiu family had spent millions on research over decades to find a cure with no success. The language used that day had been most unbecoming to such learned men of science.
He found AT1 and settled back to watch the fun. The plaza outside The Main Building was packed with reporters screaming for answers to their questions. The Alternative Technology security staff was doing a fair job of holding them back but it was plain that the media sharks smelled blood in the water and they simply would not go away until their hunger had been satisfied. Zita Laranjo was climbing up onto the podium now, walking over to an active microphone and thumping it for attention. The killer crossed thick black legs encased in segmented, overlapping bands of metal and leaned back, mentally raising the volume to a comfortable level so he could hear every word.
***
"Please, people, PLEASE! I'll be happy to answer as many of your questions as I can but you'll have to CALM DOWN and ask them one at a time!" Zita was barely able to keep her frustration in check. She hardly expected her first official day on the job to be anything like this.
"Dr. Laranjo, was this an organized terrorist attack on Dr. Henderson and his family?"
"I have no information at this time that would support that. Next question."
"Dr. Laranjo, is there any evidence at all that Post Modern Humans were involved in today's attack?"
"No, not at this time-" Zita lifted slim arms as if to hold back the wails of disgruntled mumblings from the reporters. She was acutely aware that this was all going out live all across the world and she had the sinking feeling that she was coming across as an overpaid, unprepared ass. "-ladies and gentlemen, the attack happened mere minutes ago. The investigation by our security staff has barely begun and you simply just have to give us more time to conduct proper interrogations and corroborate the information given by the attackers."
The reporters, honed by years of experience that the hapless Zita simply didn't have immediately pounced on that seemingly reasonable statement. ""So then you're saying that the attackers HAVE given you SOME information then? Have they disclosed their motives for the attack? Was Dr. Henderson and his family the primary targets?"
"No they haven't given us any information as of yet!"
"But you just said-"
Zita took in a deep breath and forced herself to get herself under control. She was having no luck at all in trying to control this situation and she had the distinct feeling she was only making it worse. "Listen to me and listen carefully: we have NO INFORMATION AT THIS TIME as to who the attackers are, why they attacked or their motivations. I will be holding another press conference in three hours right here and I will have a complete statement then."
"Dr. Laranjo, who was that man who captured the attackers?"
"That would be Dr. Sylvester Henderson's brother. He's working for Dr. Henderson now in a consulting capacity on matters of personal security for the family in particular and security for Alternate Technologies in general."
"Doesn't this brother have a name?"
Zita tried to keep the disgusted disdain out of her voice as she answered, "Certainly he does. Charalambides Henderson."
"Actually it's Doctor Charalambides Henderson." A new female voice said from behind Zita. She whirled about, ready to tear a new one into whatever bitch was stupid enough to try and answer for her. She had no intention of the focus being taken from Sylvester Henderson and directed to his son of a bitching brother. However, when she got turned around and saw exactly whom it was standing behind her, all hostility drained away leaving only a sort of stunned surprise.
Dr. Mirella Henderson was a caramel skinned beauty that radiated a calming influence on everyone in her immediate presence and this situation was no different. She well knew how to handle the press having been a White House Scientific Advisor for a number of years. She effortlessly drew the attention of the reporters to herself and Zita seemed to fade in the background as Mirella took over answering the questions. "In fact, his full name is Charalambides Miguel Henderson which I think sounds totally delightful but he can't stand either of his names. And he doesn't like to be called Doctor either so when you talk to him, Mr. Henderson will do just fine."
"Doesn't he prefer to be called Mongrel?"
"Yes, he does. It's a nickname he got back in the 9th grade. You'll have to ask him how he got it. He loves telling that story and I wouldn't deprive him of the pleasure."
"Dr. Henderson, is there ANYTHING you can tell us about the attack today? Are you and your family in any immediate danger? Are you going to request the FBI to step in to handle the investigation?"
"We have no intention of doing any such thing. Charalambides Henderson was asked by his brother to join Alternative Technologies because of his years of experience in dealing with such situations as you saw today. Charalambides is perfectly capable of handling the investigation on his own. And there's something else I'd like to make clear right here and now: Charalambides is most certainly not working for his brother. He works with him. And now I'll turn the press conference back over to Dr. Laranjo." Mirella waved and smiled easily as she turned back to enter the building, stopping long enough to whisper in Zita's ear, "As soon as you're done here I want to talk to you."
"Where will you be?"
Mirella's eyes turned from warm and friendly to chillingly intense in a heartbeat as she replied, "You make it your business to find me. Unlike Mongrel, you do work FOR me and my husband."
***
"You see the cure worked. It was a 100% total success and ensured that the male Lossiu family members would never have to worry about dying from that horrible curse." Sylvester shrugged. "However, there was a price. The cure worked but it made the men sterile."
"Which of course means that the Lossiu family would eventually die out." Mongrel nodded thoughtfully. "Seems like a powerful enough motive to want to kill you."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Rebecca snapped. "Sylvester saved Joseph Lossiu and the other men in his family from dying a horrible death! Who wouldn't be grateful for that?"
"It's a man thing, Ma," Mongrel said. He looked at his father. "Let me put the question to you, Dad. If someone made you sterile before you and Ma had me and Sly, even if they saved your life, would you kill them?"
Nayland stroked his chin and thought for a few minutes before answering. "I don't think I would but I have to be honest: I'd give it serious consideration. Ending a man's bloodline…you're talking about cutting off a branch of a family tree and ending the lives of unborn generations of that family." Nayland nodded with certainty. "I'd want to kill somebody and that's a fact."
"Looks like I'm off to Louisiana, then." Mongrel grinned. "I'll just pop in and have a talk with your boy Joseph and see if I can't sit down and make medicine with our families before I have to break somebody's neck."
Sylvester immediate got to his feet. "I'm going with you, Mongrel."
"No you're not. This is what you asked me to come aboard for. This is where I dance. You go back to where you dance and wait until you hear from me."
"I know how to handle myself. I've been in my share of trouble as you well know."
"I'm not questioning your ability to handle yourself and you know that there's nobody else I'd rather have at my side in a fight than you but we've got to get this straight right here and now: I'm in charge of security for this family and that means in situations like this the family does what I say. Including you, Sly."
"Mongrel's absolutely right," Mirella entered the library, walking over to where Sylvester stood. "We can't second-guess or override his decisions. If he says he's going to Louisiana alone, then he goes alone."
"Looks like I'm outvoted on this one," Sylvester grumbled. "But I've got to insist on you not going down there armed, Mongrel! I don't believe for a second that Joseph had anything to do with this and I don't want you going down there alarming him or his family until you've conducted a full investigation! He's not to be treated like the bad guy! You hear me?"
"I hear you, I hear you…" Mongrel waved a wide hand. "Look, you go on and handle the press and the stockholders and let me do my job."
"You call me the instant you've spoken to Joseph."
"Absolutely." Mongrel said and watched as Sylvester and Mirella left the library along with his parents. Nobody said anything until the door hissed shut behind them and then Rebecca was the first to speak.
"Charalambides, I don't care what Sylvester says. You don't go nowhere near those people without being properly armed, you hear?"
"Don't worry about it, Ma. I had no intention of going anywhere without my guns." Mongrel grinned savagely. "Sly's always been more trusting than me. I don't know who these people are and until they give me reason to trust them…" Mongrel patted his BOP Gun.
"Do you think they really had something to do with the attack or is somebody just trying to throw attention off of themselves and onto Joseph Lossiu and his family?"
Mongrel shrugged thickly muscled shoulders. "I don't see it. Sly's made more than his share of enemies in his day and if somebody wanted to throw suspicion onto somebody else then why pick a family that Sly has helped out? Even if there were a few men in the family who might have been pissed off that they could never have kids I don't see all of them feeling that way. There would have been at least one who would have tried to get in touch with Sly and give him a warning." He started for the door. "In any case, speculating about it isn't getting us anywhere and I'm burning daylight." He paused to kiss his mother lightly on the cheek. "I'll be back in time for dinner."
"You be careful, son," Nayland called after Mongrel as he left the library. He walked over and hugged Rebecca around her thin shoulders. "Now, what say you and I go see what we can do to help Sylvester and Mirella, hay?"
***
Mongrel strode rapidly down the hallway, taking inventory of his weapons. Besides the BOP Gun holstered on his right hip he had a .44 AutoMag on his left. He didn't want to go down there looking as if he was ready to take on an army. After all, he was just supposed to be asking questions. The two guns would have to do.
"Uncle Mongrel! Uncle Mongrel! Wait up!" The gangly, lanky Tyrell Henderson galloped after Mongrel, seemingly all long arms and legs, topped off by round owlish eyes behind round-framed glasses. He caught up to his uncle and in that breathless half-yell that seemed to be the normal voice of most teenaged boys he said, "When are you gonna teach me how to do what you did to them guys?"
"It's too late. I'd have had to start training you when you were three." Mongrel kept his face serious but inwardly he was struggling to keep from bursting out laughing. "The secret order of ninjas who kidnapped me started my training at the age of three."
"Aw, that's a lotta bullshit," Tyrell grinned widely. "Gramma says so herself when you tell that story."
"How many times have I got to tell you to watch your language? When did I ever give you the idea that you could talk like that around me?" Mongrel suddenly stopped and turned around to glare at the boy. "And why aren't you with your mother and sisters?"
"Ma went downstairs. Said something about she had to talk to Dr. Laranjo." Tyrell's face was crestfallen. "I'm sorry ‘bout cussin'…I just get excited, that's all….I forget…."
"Well, DON'T forget again. I mean it." Mongrel sighed. The so-called progressive attitude of raising children nowadays was one that confused him to no end. Certainly he and Sylvester had never gotten away with using that kind of language in front of adults when they were kids. Mongrel resumed his long legged stride down the wide, quiet hallway. This section of the building was restricted to only the family and a handful of trusted staffers all of whom had to be personally cleared by Mongrel himself and were provided with security codes that he himself changed every five days. A dedicated satellite in geosynchronous orbit over The Main Building was even now maintaining a constant surveillance scan of entire complex. Anything larger than a mosquito would set off a dozen different alarms and cause the top floors to seal themselves off from the rest of the building, including three-inch thick armor plating to cover all the windows.
"I promise I won't forget! Really! I'm sorry!" Tyrell was easily keeping up with his uncle, the only one in the family having the legs long enough to do so. "You goin' after the guys that tried to kill Dad?"
"What makes you think they were trying to kill your father? Maybe they were after me."
"Nah…if somebody was gonna try an' kill you why would they wait until today to do it? I mean, with all the cameras and stuff?"
Mongrel suddenly stopped again, one eyebrow arching. "Y'know, Ty…you got an excellent point there…why would the attackers strike today unless they wanted publicity? And the only reason to want publicity is to take credit." Mongrel nodded. "I owe you one, boy." He resumed walking.
"Aight! Teach me how to use a samurai sword, then!"
They came to a bank of elevators and Mongrel used a keycard to open the one on the far right. "I'll think about it. In the meantime, here's what you do: you go back to your mother and sisters and STAY with them. You wearing the special glasses I had made for you?"
"Sure."
"The first sign of anything funny, you cut ‘em on, you hear me?"
"I hear you." The glasses Tyrell wore were a marvel of microminiaturized electronics. When activated the glasses would act as a communications device, transmitting both picture and sound to Mongrel, in effect allowing him to see and hear everything Tyrell did. The elevator came and Mongrel stepped inside.
"You gonna be back soon, Uncle Mongrel?"
"Soon as I can. You just be my eyes and ears here while I'm taking care of business." The elevator doors closed and the elevator whooshed downward. To a secure sub-section from which a number of tunnels branched off in different directions, like the spokes of a wheel, a dozen in number. Gleaming bullet shaped shuttle pods resting on shiny metal railings waited. The shuttle pod system was one that Mongrel had personally supervised being built. There were over fifty shuttle pod terminals exactly like this one placed in strategic locations throughout the Alternative Technologies facility. They came in handy for getting from one place in the facility to another without Mongrel or any other member of the family being seen.
The shuttle pod zoomed through a well-lit tunnel toward the direction of a private airfield Mongrel had for his own use on the western side of the facility. He kept a couple of planes there as well as a spacious hangar/workshop where a friend of his kept his aircraft and equipment in shape. The shuttle pod hissed to a stop and the shuttle pod rose smoothly upwards on a hydraulic lift until it emerged from the access tunnel into a small utility room. Mongrel stepped out of the shuttle pod. It would stay there until and unless it had to go back to the hub under The Main Building since it's only function was to ferry Mongrel back and forth. He walked into the hangar/warehouse.
A number of aircraft were parked here and there, some conventional airplanes; others were more experimental in nature designed by Mongrel himself. He'd always had a love of aviation and the aircraft he had flown today was one of his designs as well. A number of workmen were servicing the planes, doing routine maintenance or performing upgrades on the avionics or onboard computer systems. In fact, the aircraft he had flown today had been brought here and a friend of his was personally working on it.
The woman walking around the stubby aircraft, looking at it with a hypercritical eye, was barely five feet high. Straight black hair fell to her waist. A Yankees baseball cap rested on top of her head and the earbeads of an iPod were plugged firmly into her ears. Despite that, Mongrel could clearly hear the music coming from them, The Sugarhill Gang's ‘8th Wonder'.
Mongrel tapped her on top of her head and the woman turned and looked up at him with annoyance. She yanked out her earbeads and yelled, "Don't you know better than to sneak up on somebody like that? You trying to give me a heart attack or what?"
Mongrel reached down to tap the iPod's off button. "You couldn't have heard a charging rhino with this thing turned up the way it was. Aren't you scared you'll go deaf?"
The diminutive woman sucked her teeth in annoyance. "That's a big myth. I been listening to music that loud every since I was ten and the last time I had a hearing test the doc said my ears were so good I can hear some sounds that only dogs can hear."
"And when was the last time you had a hearing test?"
"Wha'd you say?" The diminutive woman mimicked hard of hearing, cupping a short-nailed hand behind her ear. Lorena "Chubba" Burton had come to know Mongrel during his mercenary days when both of them were working in Southeast Asia. He was training troops and she was in charge of the motor pool. Mongrel had come to gain a lot of respect for her mechanical ability and when he went to work for Alternative Technologies he knew he wanted her on board to service his vehicles.
"How's my Bumblebee doing?" Mongrel asked, walking around the stubby aircraft, checking it himself. "I see you replaced the entire engine."
"Had to," Chubba shrugged. "The fuel you use to make this thing go is so powerful that you actually melted some critical parts of it by pushing it so hard. Rather than go through the whole thing and pull out the melted parts I thought I'd be better off just replacing the whole damn thing and going through the old engine at my own speed."
"Good thinking, especially since I'm gonna need The Bumblebee. I gotta fly down to Louisiana."
"I keep meaning to ask you: why do you call this thing The Bumblebee? I'd've figured a macho guy like you would've called it something like The Killer Hawk or The Sky Shark."
Mongrel laughed as he opened up the spherical cockpit and began a pre-flight check. "You know anything about bumblebees?"
"They sting and make honey. That's about it."
"They're also not supposed to be able to fly. Their bodies are too heavy and their wings are too small. There's not a thing that's aerodynamic about them. They shouldn't be able to fly worth a lick. But God gave ‘em wings and said ‘fly' and so they do in defiance of every single law of aerodynamics. Same with this thing here. First time I built and flew it there were bets taken that I'd crash and burn."
"Touching story. Full of heart and soul." Chubba grunted. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be in awe of your skill in designing and flying aircraft or your God complex."
"I'll let you take your pick." Mongrel fitted his big body into the cockpit. "I'm off. You'll probably hear from my brother."
"What do I tell him?"
"Nothing. Open the doors and stand back."
Chubba nodded and walked away from The Bumblebee a respectful distance and removed a remote control from her pocket and pressed a button. The double doors at the far end of the hangar/warehouse smoothly parted and rolled back on the tracks as Mongrel powered up The Bumblebee and it slowly began it's take off run. Thanks to the unique design of The Bumblebee as well as its amazing power it didn't require a lot of room to take off at all and it wasn't long before Mongrel was airborne, turning toward the south.