2/28/15
“All in,” said Chase Jackson as he pushed his stack of chips toward the center of the table. He smirked as he saw the color drain from the face of the vacationing stock broker seated across from him.
Chase raised his martini in an affected toast then drained the drink. He handed the empty glass to the buxom blonde seated on his left and blew her an air kiss. She smiled at him, stood up and took the empty glass for a refill at the bar.
“Call,” said the pudgy-faced opponent with a crack in his voice that sounded like a croak.
The dealer snapped the final cards to the two players then called on the stock broker to show his hand. The man spread his cards to reveal four diamonds, then flipped over the card just dealt. A club.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the dealer. “You’ve busted. The pot goes to Mr. Jackson.”
“Well, I at least wanna see what he had,” said the man. “I’ve just dropped a bundle to find out.”
“Sir. Would you like to show your hand?” the dealer asked Chase.
“Nah, I don’t think so. He has already lost,” said Chase with a grin.
The dealer turned back to the reddening man and said, “I’m sorry sir, but the game is over.”
Chase slid the dealer a $1000 chip as a tip and thanked him. He then turned to the svelte brunette on his right and said, “Take my chips to the cashier, please.” She smiled, gave her long hair a toss, and began scooping up the large pile of chips.
Chase rose from the table and glanced around to see if the blonde was returning with his drink yet. He smiled as he thought to himself, One winning pair of ladies after another.. He felt the room key in his pocket and was glad he’d ordered a queen-size bed.
“Good evening, Mr. Jackson,” said a high-pitched, nasally voice behind him.
Turning he saw a young man with a blemished face and wearing orange polyester slacks topped with a mauve silk shirt. Chase estimated him to be barely twenty and wondered how he got into the casino.
“I’m sorry to bother you on vacation, sir,” the young man continued. “But Control sent me to find you. It’s an emergency. I’m Willie Druepen, by the way. I’m your assistant for this mission.”
Chase grimaced. He recognized immediately this was Control’s way of getting back at him for the incident with the senator’s daughter. Ah, well, she had been worth it.
“Alright, Willie, duty calls. I can cut my vacation short a bit,” said Chase. “But first you go change into something less, um. Well, just get anything from Abercrombie and Fitch. I’ll meet you in an hour. On second thought better make it two hours.”
Two hours and fifteen minutes later Chase Jackson exited the casino hotel and found Willie waiting for him beside a Ford Taurus.
“What’s this, Willie?!” said Chase with surprise.
“It’s what Control assigned us, sir.” Willie answered.
“He’s angrier than I realized. And I thought I told you to change clothes.”
“These are my lucky pants and this is my good karma shirt. I can’t go anywhere without them.”
Once they were on the road Chase asked about the mission.
“It’s terrible, sir,” said Willie. “A new villain has come to Metropolis who calls himself ‘the Jinx’. He has taken control of the city’s sewage treatment plant and the city’s water treatment plant, and has reset all the control valves. He threatens to pump a million gallons of sewage through the drinking water system if we don’t meet his demands.”
“Well, that stinks,” said Chase.
“No, sir. That’s the garlic I keep in my pockets.”
“What? Never mind. So, what does the Jinx want us to do?”
“He want the the City of Metropolis to pay him a ransom of one-hundred-million dollars. He knows that rebuilding the city’s waterline infrastructure would cost much more than that. He has broken into the the computer room which controls the automated functions for both utility systems and has it programmed to carry out his threat in less than an hour.”
“Whoa,” said Chase. “That doesn’t leave us much time, does it?”
“We had longer two and a half hours ago, sir.”
“Don’t be impudent!”
“Sorry, sir.”
A short time later they pulled up in front of the entrance to the sewage plant’s engineering room. Chase Jackson ran for the door but Willie called for him to stop.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Chase.
“Look! There in front of the door. Don’t you see it?!”
“It’s just a ladder. Someone was working on that sign up there. Let’s go, we’re running out of time.”
“Not with that there.”
“Gah! Okay. We’ll go around to the back. But hurry!”
Two minutes later they had entered the facility and were making their way down a darkened hallway. At the end of the corridor was a door labelled, Room #4: Command Center. They entered quietly and looked around. At the far end of the room was a wall-sized electronic display with animated flow maps of the entire sewage treatment facility. In front of this were rows of monitoring stations and input terminals, but no one was present.
Chase crept forward alert for signs of anyone else. Behind him he heard Willie take a couple of steps then whisper, “Oh, no.” He spun around to shush him but it was too late.
“I’ve stepped on a crack. Now I need to –.” Willie turned and reached for the wooden door frame behind him and knocked firmly three times.
Chase glared at him, but immediately there was a voice from the far end of the room.
“Welcome, Mr. Jackson. I thought I might be seeing you once the city let the deadline for payment pass. I’m sure you can guess, I’m the Jinx!”
The man who had stepped out from a side room was dressed in a toxic-green tuxedo with a black cape and top hat.
The man spoke again. “How did you get past the booby-trapped front door? Well, no matter.”
“Where is everyone else?” Chase responded at last.
“Oh, you mean the engineers and technicians? Ha, hah! They all lost their jobs last year. Isn’t automation wonderful? I was able to just walk in and take over. But you’ll find you can’t get through my own security measures in time to stop this little caper. The city should have paid. Oh, and tell them I’ll be calling again soon with the rules for my next game.”
The Jinx then ran back into the side room as Chase ran to the main computer terminal in the center of the floor. After several minutes of trying unsuccessfully to enter commands into the keyboard he finally gave up.
“He’s right,” said Chase. “He has this locked down so tight it’ll take hours to get through his code. But I think I understand his plan.”
“What is it?” asked Willie.
“There is a large pipeline that brings clean water from the city’s main reservoir for use in processing the sludge. By setting the automated valves the wrong way, the flow will be reversed and water will go backwards toward the reservoir instead. All the raw sewage in the holding ponds will then bypass the filtering tanks and flow directly into the city’s fresh water supply.”
“Eww! Isn’t there any way to prevent that?”
“No. The two pipes are adjacent to each other. They were both meant to only draw water, not have one returning it. It will be almost a direct feed from one to the other.”
“If we can’t get into the computer what will we do?”
“We have to find where he went and force the password from him. Let’s go.”
Chase ran into the side room where the Jinx had disappeared. Willie followed as far as the doorway, then stopped. Chase turned around and called to him.
“What’s wrong now?”
“The room number,” said Willie. “Didn’t you see the number? This is Room #13! I can’t go in there.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Well then let’s go back out the way we came in.” Chase started for the first doorway.
“No, that’s no good either.”
“And why not?!” said Chase with growing exasperation.
“It’s bad luck to leave a room or building through the same door you entered. We have to find a different way out.”
“We have a different way out but you don’t like its number.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it,” whimpered Willie.
“Look. Over there is a third way. Let’s take that.”
They ran down the small corridor Chase had just spotted. Reaching the end they found a door exiting into a small fenced yard. In the center stood two large, hand-cranked valves. The sign read, Diverter to Emergency Spillway. Chase read the brass plate mounted beside the valve housing.
“Oh, ho! I think we’ve got him!” Chase laughed. “This will stop the the sewage from entering the main line and instead will send it to an underground containment area.”
“What underground containment area?” asked Willie.
“There’s an abandoned mineshaft in that vacant tract just across the street. They connected to it to serve as an emergency overflow pit.”
“How come the Jinx didn’t see this?”
“It’s not part of the automated system. This dates back to when the plant was still manually operated. Here, help me turn this handle. It’s pretty rusty. Yes, that’s it. Keep going.”
“Is that all?”
“No, now we have to shut that other one. Hurry, we’re almost out of time.”
Chase Jackson and Willie had just finished when they felt the ground begin to vibrate and heard a rumble. Moments later the large pipe beside them began hissing with the sound of large volumes of rushing water.
They ran back to the command center and saw on the wall display animated symbols showing that all the raw retention ponds were emptying through the emergency spillway and into the mineshaft. The line between the reservoir and the treatment plant was showing closed. They had done it!
Hearing the sound of emergency vehicles approaching they went back outside. Chase and Willie directed the responders to the command center and warned them of the front door traps. They then saw an Agency limo pull up and the back window slide down. They stepped over and spoke to their boss.
“Well done,” said Control.
“Thank you, sir,” said Chase and Willie simultaneously.
Just then there was a loud shriek from across the street. They looked and saw a man climbing out of what appeared to be a hole in the ground. He was covered in filth from head to toe, but they could just make out what once was a toxic-green tuxedo.
A group of policemen ran to the man. Then handling him as little as possible, led him back to Control.
“How did you know?!” he kept saying. “How? How could you possibly know?”
“Know what?” Willie finally asked.
“How did you know I had my secret lair in that abandoned mineshaft?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Willie answered.
The Jinx was practically in tears. “It was the perfect concealed hideout. But now that you’ve flushed a million gallons of sewage into it, it’s no more than a giant toilet! Years of work and planning, ruined!”
A few hours later the city sewer plant and city water plant were back to normal operations. Control was so pleased that Willie was heading to a new assignment in the Agency’s technical services division, and Chase was cruising down the highway in his familiar Jaguar. He was now out of the doghouse and released to finish his vacation.
Chase Jackson turned the wheel toward the casino hotel. By now his two girlfriends should be ready to play another round.
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