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THE HOTEL LILLIPUT,
PARADISE ISLAND, THE BAHAMAS
MAY 19, 2009 (8:30 P.M./EST)

MILES STONE'S P.O.V.

"And, now, ladies and gentlemen? Direct from thirteen successful weeks in Sofia, Bulgaria: JULIET MERLINOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVA!"

Following the emcee's melodramatic announcement, there was a puff of white smoke. Followed instantly by the "magical" materialization of the Russian redhead.

I was cyber-telepathically watching her, via the hotel's CCTV surveillance cameras, while Gladys snuck backstage to infiltrate the Miscellaneous Props Room. It had been a busy first day for this "emergency replacement housekeeper." But, finally, she had gotten off-duty. By which time, I had secured the master electrician's electronic passcode from his computerized personnel file.

"How's she doin'?" Gladys whisperingly inquired.

"She's giving them their money's worth," I replied: "The female guests are entranced by her tricks. And, the male guests are entranced by her legs!"

Gladys chuckled, as she finished pressing the numbered buttons with her rubber-latex gloved fingers. She then slipped inside the room, and turned on her pocket flash light, before slowly closing the door until it had re-locked from the outside.

Two minutes later, she announced that she had found the puppets.

"How do they look?" I asked.

"Pretty standard issue. Strings and all."

"What about the ones without strings? The ones that look battery-operated."

I slowly felt her body move, as she swept the flash light along.

"Found 'em!" she exclaimed, in a thrilled whisper: "They're on the top shelf in..."

Her pause made me ask the obvious.

"In what?"

"Well, let's put it this way," she replied: "Since when do animatrons have to be kept in hamster cages with those upside-down water bottles?"

I then heard the slight scraping of chair (or step-ladder) legs on the floor. Followed by the feeling of Gladys climbing that chair or ladder.

"Okada? Okada Takeo. Wakari masa desu?"

That last part translated as "Do you understand?" A question frequently asked, by Watanabe-sensei, of all the normie bodyguards he trained for M.A.C.H.O.

"Yeah!" came a squeaky reply: "I understand my ESL is better than your Japanese! Who are you?"

"Your oyabun hired me," she replied: "I've come to get you back home."

"About frigging time! Did you see what that rabid Russian cougar did to me?"

"Never mind her, for now. Let me just concentrate on pickin' this padlock."

I chuckled to myself. That is; till I saw something in my mind's eye that instinctively made me gasp.

"Gladys!" I called up to her: "Hurry it up. Merlinova is performing the Submerged Trunk! Which means she's not really in there. She's somewhere backstage!"

"Roger, that."

"Who the frig is Roger?" I heard Okada ask.

"My should-be silent partner. Now, shut up and let's go!"

I heard her click off the flash light just as she got back to the prop room door. Then, I heard the door slowly open up. Following which I heard (in a tell-tale Slavic accent):

"My-my-my! Fancy meeting you, here."

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TARZANA, CALFORNIA
(5:45 P.M./PST)

Chet Northfield's phone rang.

"Hello?"

"It's me. There's been an incident involving the Ghost Spiders."

"I'm on my way."

tbc
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