The Diabolical Glyde

Chapter 1 - Glyde Has Tron

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She had a dull headache that started somewhere behind the eyes and ended in a long moan. She opened her eyes and looked around her. It was cell of some sort; the walls were dark and near; she couldn't see a door. She pushed herself off the bed only to realize it was a futon. Dazed and confused she picked herself up and tried to think. A light bust on, just above her head, and a section of the wall gave way. A mechanical duck marched into the room holding a mace, followed by Glyde, and, in turn, another mace bearing waterfowl.

"Awake already?" he said with all the charm a gentleman could ever muster. "I was beginning to think I had been a little too rough back there."

Slowly it came back to her. They were trying to break into a ruin on Kattalox Island when a herd of strange looking ducks started flying around, blowing up all over the place and making chaos run like water in the spring. In the heat of battle something hit her over the head and that was the end of that. She reached up to feel a bandage attached to the firm lump. "Where's Teasel?" she asked, naturally assuming that this time he had gotten them both.

"A good question. Where's Teasel!?!" he shouted.

"Headed south-southwest toward the Sulfur Bottom," a birdbot returned over an intercom.

She suddenly felt woozy and sat, or fell as it were, back on to the futon. Glyde, who smiled for half a second, resumed his uncaring demeanor. She looked at him, thinking more about her throbbing head than anything. "Where am I?"

"Another good question." He sucked in his breath to shout once more, but only because he knew this time she would cover her ears. Loud noises and headaches don't mix too well. He began, with a loud smirk but a quiet tone: "We're in the headquarters to one of my superficial corporations. You can't be an illegal arms dealer without two or three at least. Superia is its name, ironically enough, and while it isn't world renowned I'm sure you've heard of it if you've ever been to Port Grace."

She gasped. "You mean we're in the Superia Tower? You own the Superia Tower?"

He tried not to look pleased with himself. "Mr. Loath owns the Superia Tower, and quite frankly that means me. No doubt you know why you're here while your brother is flying as fast as he can to find your friends and get you back. I know this is a little low brow, but would you mind coming with us long enough to make a demand or two."

She honestly didn't feel up to it, but unfortunately, as civil as Glyde was, she knew he wasn't really asking at all. She tried to lie back down, but Glyde just kneeled down, putting one arm under her back and one arm under her legs, and picked her up. She was wide eyed and blushing, half expecting him to carry her wherever he was taking her, but he just set her back down on her feet, snatched her wrist and started to pace out of the room, the armed ducks not far behind. She didn't wonder why he paced so fast, for half a second she thought she saw him blushing, and while part of her knew she was imagining it, she knew he was walking clearly ahead so she couldn't see his face.

He led her through dimly lit, but carpeted, hallways, and soon they came to a door just yards away from where she had lain unconscious. There were a few cameras set on tripods; a desk with a computer set up, and half the room was unlike the rest of the motif. It was walled with old, well-rounded, and gray, stone bricks. There were pieces of straw on the fabricated dirt floor, and a few chains hung on one side, the side with the cameras pointed at it. A few mechanical ducks were messing with the equipment, until Glyde came in, when they lined up and saluted.

"String her up!" he ordered the ducks, releasing her into the room. They waddled over to the girl, tried to grab her arms and attach her to the wall, but the chains were about seven feet high, and two of them on top of each other were only five. Even though they knew there was no point to it, they tried again and again. The long and short of it was that after ten minutes of messing around they finally gave up. Glyde would have interceded earlier, and angrily, but those little ducks just looked so ridiculous falling all over themselves, trying to stack three ducks high, when two was barely manageable, and Tron trying almost to help them, but not really wanting to be chained to a cold stonewall, found herself caught in a moral dilemma. The reason Glyde hadn't wanted to do it in the first place was because he didn't want to get a too touchy/feely with her, and while she was good looking, she was his captive, if only in some sense of the word. He held her wrist once more and held her hand high above her, attaching it to a chain cuff, and again with the other hand. She didn't notice this time, but he was holding his breath as he walked away (thanking the heavens that she wasn't any better endowed, thinking about cold showers and baseball, reciting that she was only seventeen).

"Are the cameras on?" he demanded.

"Yes, kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa, but the least we could find is morphine." "Morphine! I want to numb her face, not stone her!" "Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!" the birdbot chanted angrily.

Glyde turned and looked her over. From a distance she was not so appealing, mainly because she hadn't been cleaned off, and, little did she know, the birdbots had dragged her back to their ship through Clozer woods rather than carry her. She was a mess with grass stains and dirt everywhere, not to mention a large hole on the right leg of her getup. The white skin was a stark contrast to the dark outfit, but it lacked something. Glyde walked near again, picking up a small cup with a brush in it. He powdered her the white spot and it became dirty and wretched. Looking her over again, and taking off the bandage on her head, he gave the cup t o one birdbot, and picked up covered needle from another. He took the top off and she screamed.

"Did you catch that?" he shouted to a duck now sitting at the computer.

"Kwa-kwa," he muttered nodding.

He took the needle and started pointing it at certain areas on her face. She moved all over the place, trying to avoid the inevitable, and he was trying to pick a spot without actually poking the thing through her cheek. "Its only morphine, don't be such a baby," he whispered.

"You take some then," she hissed, "its not the drug so much as the shot."

He looked at the point. He wasn't all that comfortable around needles himself, but he couldn't see any easier way. Or did he. "Hmmm," he muttered to himself. "All right I'll try this, but if it doesn't work then you'll regret it." He winked at the duck on the computer and two little red lights intertwined with the cameras started to glow. He held out his free hand and slowly pulled it through the air, put it on her face and pushed it away all in a circular motion. When he was through he walked over to the computer, setting down the needle and looked indifferently at the screen. "Slow it down a little, I don't want to look computer generated. That's perfect, but we need sound. Get this," he said, walking over to one of the bird bots and slapping it upside the head, making a very impressive smack sound.

"KWA-KWA-KWA!!! I'll eat you like krill!"

"Sure you will." Watching the recording once more he muttered to himself. Then he pulled a white handkerchief out of his shirt and tied her mouth shut. "All right, lets do this, and Christmas bonuses all around if we get it right on the first try."

It wasn't a very complex process, first he pretended to smack her around a bit, then he stood in front of the other camera long enough to make a demand. However he didn't speak, he just stood there for a second or two then pretended to slap her around again. After about three times the little red light on the camera facing Tron went out and Glyde picked up a little phone to started punching in a number.

Suddenly she could hear Teasel shouting out of that speaker system, "Yes, Hello? Hello, hello? Can anybody hear me? Tron is that you? For love or refractors, somebody tell me I'm not talking to myself here!"

"Bawuu?"

"I meant on the phone!"

"Do you get Cable or Satellite?" Glyde said in a scratchy voice.

"Is this a telemarketer? I'm on the no-call list you rotten little bag of--"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you!" Glyde shouted.

"Glllyyyyyyddde," Teasel muttered in disgust, the word slipping out of his mouth like a worm or a slug. "I should have known it was you."

"But apparently you didn't. So which is it Cable or Satellite? I could overload the whole system and let everybody watch your sister getting her just deserts."

"What!?! Okay, okay, it's a Satellite, what else are we going to have on an airship, but which channel?"

"Try channel 787, its got a lot of interesting programming," he said pushing a button, hanging up the phone and walking to where the active camera could see him.

Teasel's voice still came over the intercom, "Fire up the TiVo Tron's on TV!"

A duck gave him a thumb up and Glyde was suddenly smiling, and stroking his chin. There wasn't a TV monitor that Glyde could see anything through, just the camera, and several ducks (not to mention Tron) all watching him, but he began with, "My word, you call this an airship? I've seen row boats in better shape than this."

"Grrr! Go describe your own home somewhere else!" Teasel shouted. "It doesn't exactly look like you're in a palace yourself?"

Then Glyde gave a smile that meant he clearly knew something that Teasel didn't. "I wouldn't call it a palace, but it's still much better than what she deserves."

"Where's Tron!?!"

"She's a little tied up at the moment, but I think if you come this way you might catch a glimpse of what life is like for her now." He walked off camera toward Tron, but he didn't bother getting in the shot. The camera hadn't turned on. Suddenly he started laughing, and the sound of him slapping the duck was heard.

"Tron!!!" Teasel shouted.

"Bawuu!!!"

Glyde quickly stepped back into the other cameras view. "Well, well, well, trouble in paradise?"

"You monster! Even I wouldn't have thought you'd slap a girl chained to a wall!"

"Tisk-tisk, like I care. However I do care about her ransom, because while she's here she really isn't worth the money it takes to feed her."

"So money is all you want? You think I have money!?!"

Glyde laughed again. "No, as a matter a fact I know you don't. That's why I'm making it a little more interesting this time. I don't want your money, I just want you to put everything you have in a big pile on the remains of my old base on Calika, and, simply put, throw a match to it."

There was a silence on the intercom, then a clunk and an inquisitive, "Bawuu?"

He walked of camera, long enough to point to one of the birdbots, and Tron's scream was played twice over itself. Teasel moaned into the phone before answering. "Tron is that you? Big Brother is coming, just hold tight. I'm coming as fast as I can little sis so just hold on and before you know it--"

Glyde made like he was reattaching her handkerchief and the little red light facing them glowed again. "Now, now," he said, like the wolf talking to the sheep, "you shouldn't scare your brother like that, you'll make him think we were hurting you."

"Glyde!!!" Teasel shouted.

He laughed one more, facing Tron as both the little red lights turned off and the sound of him slapping the duck echoed over and over.

At once he removed the handkerchief and threw it on the floor, then releasing her, he again led her by the wrist down the hall. This time they stopped in an open elevator with over two hundred buttons on both sides of the door. He pushed one that had the number 211 printed on it and the lift started. The birdbots were still in the hall, but they knew they weren't invited before the doors closed. Tron quickly noticed that they had been on floor B15 and, all ready, were passing floor 30. Her legs felt like Jello, but she didn't know whether that was because of her throbbing head or the rocketing elevator. They didn't speak. She sat down on the floor and rubbed the protrusion on her head. Glyde snuck the occasional glance at her, but that was probably just him making sure she wasn't pulling a knife out of some unsearched crevasse as much as anything.

The doors swung open to floor two hundred and eleven to reveal a penthouse the likes of which swindlers, like the Bonnes, only dream of (ever since the Gesselcraft was destroyed at least, and especially after Teasel squandered the Kattalox lode). It was a vast living room with a side door to a kitchen, a wide, clean kitchen and other extensions too numeral to mention, not forgetting the view of Port Grace and the sea they had just from the elevator. Glyde strode into the room and opened a drawer in one of the foyer's many lamp stands, and pulled out a new handkerchief. "This is where you will stay for the duration of your captivity," he said stuffing the cloth into his shirt. "It's not much, but considering your scenario I do not doubt you'll have few complaints."

She didn't know what to think, still sitting on the elevator, waiting for him to stop being silly and lead her back to the futon where she could rest. Gathering she wasn't as quick as she usually was, he re-entered the elevator and gave her a hand, to help her up. She had half a mind to shove him out and push one of buttons on the ground floor, but lacking in the capacity to even raise her hand Glyde picked her up by the elbow and impatiently escorted her to a couch facing a gigantic rectangle television. "I suggest you get some rest, I won't be so accommodating if you're still a space case when I come back." And with that he left. Alone again she slept.

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