Season Parallel Development - 4. Lady Killer

While Sam was busy doing the time-machine camouflaging, the rabbit decided that it’d be better to open up the windows and get somewhat of a cross-breeze going through the room, so he mustered up all his strength to lift the bottom pane of glass.  It seemed like the office hadn’t been occupied in a while, and the stagnant air, completely lacking in pollution, was starting to frighten him on some level.  As he took a moment to admire the scenery and breathe in a little of that familiar, grimy air, he couldn’t help but notice an unfamiliar sight below.

There was an… alligator, it seemed.  She seemed far removed from the gator that he and Sam had raised several years ago, which was no more than a mere beast; this one was walking upright, clad in a denim jacket and black leather skirt, and wearing a thick head of long, black hair.  And it looked like she was looking for something.

She glanced up in Max’s direction and saw him peeking out the window.  “Hey!” she called.  In short order she was heading into the building.

“Now what?” Max said aloud.  “Oh well; I guess Sam won’t mind if I take on a case for us once in a while.  Though he didn’t seem too happy about the piranha farmers losing their keys…”

The gator soon opened the door and headed inside.  “Thank goodness I found you; if anything, I’d heard that you two were the only ones who could help me with my… problem…”  Her voice trailed off as she noticed the decidedly not female Max standing in a very feminine room.

“Is there a problem?” Max asked.

“Well, I mean, I’d heard that the great Sam and Max that everyone’s talking about are women… and you’re, well…”

“We know; we get that a lot.”

She just stood there, blinking.  “Huh?”

“Never mind.  We’re related to them; in fact, we’re freelance police ourselves.  So we’ll take the case in their stead.”  He ran behind the desk and sat down in alternate Sam’s chair.

“Really?”  She shifted her weight.  “Well, if you’ve got the same fantastic sleuthing genes they do, then that’s fine with me.”  A small smile worked its way onto her snout.

“So what’s this other problem?  The one you walked through the door starting to say before my decidedly masculine self caught you off-guard?”  Max’s eyebrows wiggled a bit.

“That sounded unsettling for some reason.  Well, whatever.”  She walked over toward the windows, leaned on the one Max had just opened, and turned to face him.  “Have you ever heard of the ‘Gear of Guidance’?”

The look on Max’s face would’ve beat out every brand new, blank whiteboard in the country.

“No?  Well, you wouldn’t be the first.  Maybe I’m just shooting in the dark.”  She tilted her head off to the side, away from Max.

“Ooh, I do that all the time!  But then Sam tries to take the gun away.”

The alligator chuckled.  “You’re a funny little rabbit.”  She pushed off the windowsill and slowly walked in a slinky manner around the room as she spoke.  “Anyway, the Gear of Guidance is said to be the stuff of myths and legends; like the myth about the seven orbs that summoned a dragon, bringing all the Gear together in one place is said to bring an elder god across the dimensional planes to grant one wish.”

Max’s ears perked up.  “Really?”

She nodded, stopping in the center of the room.  “So the manuscripts say.  The only thing is, not just anyone can make the wish.”

“Damn, there’s always a catch.”

“And this one is that it has to be the same person who can wield the Gear.  You see, the Gear themselves have individual uses, and they can only be wielded by, as the manuscript also said, ‘those who possess merely somewhat questionable hearts’.  I guess it all has to do with a person’s character.”

“So, you’re, what… a person with a very questionable heart?”

She tossed her hair and walked over to sit on top of the desk, leaning over toward Max a bit.  “That’s a bold assumption of yours.  My intentions might not always be the purest…  But aren’t we all questionable?”  A small grin worked up the side of her jaw, her eyelids falling halfway.

Max wasn’t sure where this was going.  He didn’t even know if he wanted to find out.  Still…  “You’re going to eat me, aren’t you?”

She chuckled with a deep, throaty noise that Max would have expected more from a male smoker in his 60’s.  “No, no, I prefer my food to be less intelligent… and dead.”  Max leaned farther back in the chair as she leaned in even closer.  “And you certainly don’t fit the bill on either of those, deary.”

Max’s eyebrows rose.  “Wow, you’re a picky eater.  If I was a gator, I wouldn’t even care about intelligence or vital signs.”

The gator leaned back and laughed a bit.  “Anyway, despite all I’ve read about the Gear, I’ve never even seen any of it, so everything I know about it is uncertain.”

“Never seen it, huh?  I take it it’s impossible to find, then?”

“And that’s why I’ve come here; to ask for your help.  I went to just about everybody, including that Florina Paper next door, and they all laughed.  They said it wasn’t possible.  But I believe it is; I believe in the impossible.”

Max shook his head.  “Well, that’s good, because Sam and I deal with the impossible all the time.  We’re pretty good at finding strange objects.  In fact, you could almost say that strange things find us!”

She leaned in close one more time.  “Just what I wanted to hear.”  She playfully bopped Max on the nose, but quickly yanked her hand back when his jaw nearly snapped onto her wrist.

“Reflex action,” Max said.

Taken a bit aback, the gator sighed off some of her adrenaline.  “Yes, well… I’ll keep that in mind, you lady-killer, you.”

“Not intentionally, miss… not intentionally.”  He grinned.

She hopped off the desk.  “Let me know if you hear or find anything.”  When she reached the doorway, she grabbed the door frame and turned to face Max once more.  “I’ll be checking back often.”  And with a wink, she was gone.