Enthralled - 23. Chapter 23

23

 

The autumn sun beat down on the Oak Creek nature reserve, casting long, dappled shadows across the main clearing of Troop 442’s designated campsite. It was a beautiful, crisp Saturday afternoon, the kind of day perfectly suited for knot-tying, wilderness navigation, and quiet reflection in nature.

Instead, the clearing was currently hosting a two-front war of attrition against Ronan Draven’s sanity.

Ronan sat in a slightly rusted, green canvas folding chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a battered clipboard resting heavily on his knee. As an Eagle Scout and the pack's designated Omega, he was uniquely qualified to mediate disputes, maintain order, and supervise the younger pups. He possessed a deep, bottomless well of patience.

That patience was currently running on absolute, sputtering fumes.

About thirty yards to his left, Assistant Scoutmaster Lucas Cooper was locked in a brutal, uncompromising death match with a six-person dome tent. Lucas had confidently declared, roughly forty-five minutes ago, that reading the instruction manual was "for cowards and mortals."

He was now entirely encased within a collapsed cocoon of bright orange nylon, hopelessly tangled in a web of elasticized fiberglass poles. Every few seconds, the massive orange blob would thrash violently, and a muffled, enraged string of profanities would echo across the campsite.

"I am the Mac-Daddy of the wilderness!" Lucas’s muffled voice shrieked from beneath the synthetic fabric. "Unhand me, you geometric nightmare! I will bite you! I will bite the tent!"

Ronan slowly blinked, staring blankly ahead. He did not move to help. He knew that intervening in Lucas’s chaotic struggles only prolonged them.

Besides, Ronan had his own immediate, inescapable nightmare to deal with.

Standing directly in front of him, wearing a heavily modified scout uniform that had been aggressively bedazzled with silver sequins, was a ten-year-old werewolf pup named Gerald.

Gerald was currently attempting to earn the highly coveted, entirely optional "Extended 10,000-Word Essay and Presentation" merit badge. To achieve this, Gerald had foregone a traditional essay in favor of a one-man, multi-act musical rendition of the Broadway classic Chicago.

He was currently on his third performance of "All That Jazz."

"Come on, babe, why don't we paint the town!" Gerald belted out, his pre-pubescent voice cracking wildly on the high notes. He punctuated the lyric with a stiff, uncoordinated jazz hand, his golden eyes wide with terrifying, theatrical intensity. "And all that jazz!"

Set up on a small wooden stump next to Gerald was a battery-operated boombox playing a tinny, instrumental backing track.

And next to the boombox was a plastic, multi-level hamster cage.

"Behold my backup dancers!" Gerald shouted over the music, gesturing grandly to the cage. "They are executing the choreography of Fosse!"

Ronan looked at the cage. Inside were two incredibly fat, incredibly lethargic hamsters named Roxie and Velma. They were not dancing. They were not executing the choreography of Bob Fosse. They were currently sitting in a pile of cedar shavings, methodically and mechanically shoving sunflower seeds into their cheek pouches.

"Yes," Ronan said, his voice entirely devoid of inflection, his soul slowly leaving his body. "Excellent. Very... jazzy, Gerald."

"They're feeling the rhythm, Eagle Scout Ronan!" Gerald panted, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "Roxie is doing a pirouette in her heart!"

"I can see that," Ronan nodded mechanically, clicking his pen and making a meaningless checkmark on his clipboard. "Her heart is very graceful."

"I shall now proceed to the fourth verse!" Gerald announced, striking a dramatic pose, popping his hip out and resting a sequined hand upon it. "It explores the dichotomy of the jazz age!"

Ronan felt a dull, throbbing ache bloom behind his eyes. He looked over at the orange nylon blob. A single fiberglass pole suddenly pierced through the fabric, waving frantically in the air like a desperate SOS signal.

"I'm losing blood!" Lucas yelled from inside the tent. "Tell Andy I loved him! Tell him to bury me in the vintage leather!"

Ronan closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath of the pine-scented air. He was a Draven. He was strong. He could endure this. He just had to let his mind drift away to a quiet, peaceful place where pre-teens didn't sing show tunes and humans didn't fight camping equipment.

He had absolutely no idea that less than two miles away, the rest of the scout troop was actively committing grand theft auto.

---

Deep within the dense, shaded canopy of the pine forest, well out of earshot of Gerald’s boombox, a highly classified tactical briefing was taking place.

Four twelve-year-old werewolf pups were gathered in a tight circle, kneeling in the damp moss. They were wearing their full Class-A khaki uniforms, their neckerchiefs tied with mathematical precision.

In the center of the circle sat Timmy.

Timmy was a serious boy with a sharp jawline and an intense, unblinking stare. He had recently discovered a massive, unauthorized cache of classic 1960s television shows on a streaming service, and his entire psychological framework had fundamentally shifted. He was no longer just a scout. He was a starship captain.

Timmy held a small, plastic flashlight up to his mouth like a recording device. He stared dramatically into the middle distance, his brow furrowed in deep concentration as he worked to master the exact, staggered cadence of his hero.

"Scout's Log," Timmy whispered, pausing for a long, agonizing second. "...supplemental."

He looked around the circle. Alvin, Simon, and Theodore Sanchez were watching him with rapt, monotone approval. They fully supported the sci-fi protocol. It aligned with their own rigorous, tactical view of the universe.

"We... have... a mission," Timmy continued, his voice dropping into a husky, dramatic register. "To... recover... the... Scoutmaster's... Impala. From... the evil... clutches... of Mister Harrisson."

Timmy paused, taking a breath. Talking like Captain Kirk was physically exhausting. It required a level of breath control and dramatic pausing that his twelve-year-old lungs were struggling to maintain. But he couldn't stop. He was the captain. The crew was relying on him.

"The Impala," Timmy stated, staring fiercely at a nearby pinecone, "is currently being held by Mister Harrisson, who is unaware of its true significance. He believes it is a simple rust bucket. A mere automobile. He does not know that it is the Scoutmaster's sanctuary. We must retrieve it. We must... liberate it. For the pack."

"Good," Simon said, adjusting the heavy canvas papoose strapped securely to his chest.

Nestled comfortably inside the papoose was Barty Junior. The baby gargoyle was wearing a custom-made, terrifyingly small khaki scout uniform, complete with a tiny, green neckerchief. He was currently chewing aggressively on the plastic neckerchief toggle, his glowing quartz eyes blinking sleepily in the dappled sunlight. He burbled, a sound like a handful of gravel tumbling down a metal chute.

"We have assembled a team," Timmy continued, gaining confidence, leaning into the role. "Alvin... you are... Spock."

Alvin did not smile. He simply raised a hand and executed a flawless, mathematically perfect Vulcan salute. "Logical, Captain. I have spent the last seventy-two hours reviewing YouTube tutorials on the navigational layout of Oak Creek, as well as the internal schematics of a 1972 Chevrolet V8 engine block. I am prepared to calculate our optimal trajectory."

Timmy nodded solemnly. "Simon... you are... Bones."

Simon frowned, crossing his arms over the papoose. "I'm more of a Spock, honestly. I have a higher GPA than Alvin. But I will accept the role of the medical officer and chief helmsman for the duration of this mission. I have memorized fourteen separate videos on the physics of steering a vehicle without power steering."

"Theodore," Timmy turned to the last triplet. "You are... Uhura."

Theodore’s face lit up with absolute, unadulterated joy. "I get to be Uhura? Yes! She’s the coolest one! She has the earpiece, and she does the frequencies, and she gets to sing the songs while playing the harp!"

"The singing is optional," Timmy warned, holding up a finger. "We require stealth."

"I am going to be the best Uhura," Theodore whispered fiercely, ignoring the warning. "I am going to out-Uhura every Uhura that ever Uhura’d in the history of Starfleet."

"That is not a grammatically correct sentence," Simon pointed out.

"It’s a word now, Bones," Theodore shot back, tapping the side of his own head. "I control the communications. I control the dictionary. I have also watched eighteen videos on how to depress the gas and brake pedals of a classic muscle car. I am the legs of this operation."

Timmy held up a hand, silencing the crew. He looked through the tree line, toward the distant, rolling hills of the Oak Creek suburbs.

Esca Tyrell had committed a grave, unforgivable sin against the pack. He had forged the paperwork, sold the Impala—Andy's moving coffin, his history, his safe space—and forced their Scoutmaster to ride a banana-yellow Vespa. It was a tactical humiliation that the troop simply could not allow to stand.

"We will not fail," Timmy said, his voice resolute. "The pack is counting on us. Scoutmaster Andy has been trapped in a glass cage, forced to endure the indignity of pastel polos. We must restore his dignity. We must reclaim his identity. We must steal back his car."

Barty Junior burbled loudly, spitting a small piece of chipped plastic from the toggle onto the moss.

"The Ensign agrees," Alvin noted, adjusting his collar.

"This is the mission of a lifetime," Timmy said, standing up and brushing the pine needles from his khaki shorts. "This is what we have been training for. This is..."

He paused, squinting through the trees toward the main clearing. In the distance, the bright orange nylon of Lucas’s tent was thrashing violently, accompanied by a muffled scream of "I WILL DEFEAT YOU, POLE!"

"...the distraction," Timmy concluded smoothly. "Assistant Scoutmaster Lucas is providing the distraction. As planned."

"He's trapped in there," Theodore observed, tilting his head.

"A perfect distraction," Alvin agreed. "He is utilizing maximum chaotic energy to draw the attention of the high command."

"And Scoutmaster's assistant's assistant, Eagle Scout Ronan, is currently incapacitated," Timmy added, nodding toward the clearing. "He is distracted by Scout Gerald’s 10,000-word essay presentation badge. Gerald has slides. He has a musical number. He has dancing hamsters."

"The hamsters are female," Simon noted with clinical precision. "They count as dancing girls."

"They count," Timmy agreed. He took a deep breath, placing a hand over his heart. "This is going to take skill, precision, and a whole lot of blind luck."

"We have all three," Alvin said, tapping his temple.

"We have snacks," Theodore added, patting a heavily loaded tactical pouch on his belt. "I packed the fruit snacks. The ones shaped like dinosaurs. They provide optimal glucose for high-stress pedal pushing."

Timmy nodded, his jaw set with the grim determination of a man about to violate the Prime Directive. "Then let's do this. For the pack. For the Scoutmaster. For the Impala."

He raised his hand, pointing toward the suburbs. "Let's move out, team. Engage."

The tactical infiltration of the Oak Creek suburbs required the utmost stealth. The Away Team moved in a diamond formation, utilizing the dense evergreen hedgerows and manicured suburban lawns as cover.

Timmy took the point, his eyes scanning the horizon for hostiles. Alvin flanked to the left, his smartphone held out like a tricorder, monitoring the GPS coordinates to Mr. Harrisson’s residence. Simon took the center, supporting the Ensign in the papoose. Theodore covered the rear, keeping a sharp eye on their six o'clock.

"Captain," Alvin whispered, his voice a low monotone, stopping abruptly and holding up a clenched fist. "Hostiles detected on scanners. Sector four."

The team immediately dropped to a tactical crouch behind a large, decorative rhododendron bush on the corner of Elm Street.

"Report, Spock," Timmy hissed, crawling forward and parting the leaves.

"Klingons," Alvin murmured, pointing toward a group of high school seniors loitering near a parked car across the street. They were wearing letterman jackets, drinking iced coffees, and laughing loudly. "They are circling the perimeter. They are... everywhere."

"They suck and circle Ur-Anus," Theodore whispered theatrically from the back of the formation.

Simon turned his head slowly, glaring at his brother. "That’s Uranus. It is a gas giant. Respect the astronomy."

"I know what I said, Bones," Theodore grinned, entirely unrepentant.

"Hold your positions," Timmy ordered, his eyes locked on the teenagers. "We will not engage the Klingons. We will avoid them. They are volatile and possess unpredictable emotional responses. We will use the communicators if we are separated." He tapped the cell phone clipped to his belt. "We will outwit them. We will outmaneuver them. Like the Enterprise."

"Exactly," Alvin confirmed.

Suddenly, a massive shadow fell over the rhododendron bush, blocking out the sun.

The four twelve-year-olds froze. Their heightened werewolf senses immediately caught the heavy, territorial scent of old spice, leather, and immense, overwhelming Alpha power.

They slowly, agonizingly tilted their heads up.

Towering above them, holding a massive protein shake in one hand and wearing a tight black t-shirt that stretched across his terrifyingly broad shoulders, was Marty Sanchez.

Timmy’s face went completely, instantly pale. The blood drained from his cheeks. "Kang the Merciless," he whispered in sheer horror.

"What?" Marty grunted, his golden eyes narrowing as he looked down at the four pups cowering in the dirt.

"I mean... nothing, Alpha Martin," Timmy stammered, abandoning the Kirk cadence entirely. "We're doing... scout stuff. Just standard... foliage assessment."

Marty squinted, taking a slow sip of his protein shake. He looked at his three younger brothers. He looked at the baby gargoyle strapped to Simon’s chest, currently trying to eat a rhododendron leaf.

"Are you wearing tactical backpacks?" Marty asked, his voice a low rumble.

"Yes, sir," Alvin replied.

"Filled with what?"

"Snacks, sir," Theodore volunteered eagerly. "Dinosaur fruit snacks. For optimal glucose."

"And..." Timmy paused, desperately trying to channel Kirk's bravado one last time, puffing out his small chest. "And... determination. We are... determined."

Marty stared at them for a long, heavy moment. The silence was thick enough to cut with a whittling knife. He looked down the street toward the high schoolers, then back down to the twelve-year-olds. He knew exactly what they were doing. He knew Mr. Harrisson lived three blocks away. He knew the Impala was there.

And as the Alpha who had happily provided the expired hair gel to ruin Andy’s pastel polo aesthetic, Marty fully approved of this treason.

Marty shrugged his massive shoulders. "Whatever. Don't get caught by the cops. I'm not bailing you out using pack funds. And if you scratch the paint on that car, Andy will literally drain you dry."

He turned and walked away, his heavy combat boots echoing on the pavement.

Timmy let out a long, shaky breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. "Kang the Merciless has been avoided. His attention has been diverted. He has granted us safe passage. We are still clear."

"Bones," Alvin said, tapping his phone. "The Klingons are regrouping near the coffee shop. We must move now before the patrol route intersects with our trajectory."

Simon rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. "I'm not Bones. I'm the helmsman. I'm driving."

"The Klingons are regrouping," Timmy repeated, his voice dropping right back into the Shatner pause. "We must... move... now."

He raised his hand. "Let's go, team. For the pack. For the Scoutmaster. For the Impala."

Barty Junior burbled loudly in his papoose, waving his tiny stone fists.

"The Ensign is ready," Theodore beamed, patting the baby gargoyle's heavy granite head.

"Engage," Timmy ordered.

---

Back at the campsite, the situation had deteriorated from a minor annoyance into an avant-garde psychological thriller.

Ronan sat in the folding chair, his clipboard dangling loosely from his fingertips. His eyes were glazed over, staring vacantly at the wooden stump.

Gerald was currently in the middle of the fourth verse. He had incorporated a feather boa he had found in the arts and crafts bin.

"I'm no one's wife, but oh, I love my life!" Gerald screamed, spinning in a circle and throwing the feather boa dramatically over his shoulder, where it instantly snagged on a pine branch. "And all that JAZZ!"

Next to the boombox, the hamsters had not moved. Roxie was currently asleep, half-buried in a pile of cedar shavings. Velma was aggressively chewing on the metal bars of the cage, attempting to escape the auditory torture.

Ronan nodded mechanically. The upbeat, tinny brass music from the boombox was drilling directly into his cerebral cortex. "Yes. Excellent. The dichotomy is... very palpable, Gerald. You have truly captured the essence of 1920s Chicago."

"Wait until you see the grand finale, Eagle Scout Ronan!" Gerald panted, his face flushed red with exertion. "I am going to execute a synchronized kick-line with the rodents!"

Ronan’s eyelids grew heavy. The words blurred on the clipboard. The hamsters blurred into a furry blob. The bright orange tent in the distance—which was now rolling slowly across the grass as Lucas fought his way blindly toward the tree line—blurred.

His head dipped. His chin touched his chest. The jazz music faded into a dull, comforting hum.

Thump.

The clipboard slipped from his knee, hitting the dirt.

Ronan’s head snapped up, his golden eyes wide with sudden panic. He instinctively sat bolt upright. "Bravo! Yes! Well done! Top marks! Badge earned!"

Gerald froze, mid-kick, his leg suspended awkwardly in the air. He beamed, dropping the leg and gasping for breath. "Really? I still have the fifth verse! It’s the emotional climax where Velma confronts her hubris!"

"Badge earned," Ronan repeated, his voice tight, slightly desperate, reaching down to grab the clipboard and frantically scribbling his signature on the bottom line. "You've done enough, Gerald. You've done... so much. Your vocal range is terrifying. Go. Celebrate. Go eat some... seeds with your dancers."

Gerald squealed in delight, grabbing the boombox and the hamster cage, and scampered off toward his own tent, his sequins catching the sunlight.

Ronan let out a long, exhausted breath, slouching down in the folding chair. He rubbed his face with both hands, feeling the onset of a stress-induced migraine. He looked around the clearing.

Lucas’s tent was now halfway into a blackberry bush, the muffled swearing having devolved into breathless, exhausted weeping.

And the pups were entirely absent.

Ronan frowned, his wolf senses flaring. The clearing was too quiet. The Sanchez triplets were never this quiet unless they were actively committing a felony.

He squinted toward the dirt road that led into the camp. Something was happening.

---

Two miles away, the infiltration of Mister Harrisson’s garage had gone flawlessly.

The garage side-door had been unlocked. The interior smelled of old motor oil, dust, and cardboard boxes. And sitting in the center of the concrete floor, looking like a dormant, ancient beast, was the 1972 Chevrolet Impala. It was beige and brown, massive, and entirely perfect.

Timmy approached the hood, running a reverent hand over the cool metal. "The sanctuary," he whispered.

"We must initiate the launch sequence," Alvin stated, opening the heavy driver's side door. "The keys are in the ignition. Mister Harrisson is a trusting mortal."

Getting four twelve-year-olds and a baby gargoyle into a driving position required a level of logistical engineering that only the Sanchez triplets could achieve.

Simon, taking his role as Bones the Helmsman incredibly seriously, climbed into the driver's seat. However, because he was twelve, he couldn't see over the massive steering wheel. He immediately grabbed two dusty phonebooks from a workbench and stacked them on the vinyl seat, boosting himself up until his eyes cleared the dashboard.

"I have visual confirmation of the windshield," Simon reported, gripping the massive steering wheel with both hands.

"I am assuming position in engineering," Theodore announced. He did not sit in a seat. Instead, Theodore dove headfirst into the driver's side footwell, wedging himself onto the floorboards, completely out of sight. He reached out, placing his right hand firmly on the gas pedal, and his left hand on the heavy, metal brake pedal. "Ready on propulsion."

Alvin climbed into the passenger seat, pulling out his smartphone. "Navigational systems online. I will provide turn-by-turn auditory commands."

Timmy climbed into the back seat, securing the papoose next to him. Barty Junior patted the vinyl upholstery approvingly.

"Start the engine, Mister Spock," Timmy commanded.

Alvin reached across the steering column and turned the key.

The Impala roared to life. The 350-cubic-inch V8 engine exploded with a guttural, furious rumble that shook the dust from the garage rafters. The entire heavy chassis shuddered, the sound deafening in the enclosed space.

"The warp core is active!" Theodore yelled from the floorboards, coughing as a cloud of exhaust plumed from the tailpipe.

"Reverse thrust!" Simon commanded, clinging to the steering wheel. "Theodore, gently depress the right pedal!"

"Depressing!" Theodore shouted.

Theodore pushed the gas pedal with his hand. The massive Impala lurched backward out of the garage, moving at approximately one mile per hour.

It was an agonizingly slow, incredibly loud getaway.

Simon strained against the heavy steering wheel, fighting the lack of power steering to keep the massive boat of a car aligned with the driveway. Theodore lay in the footwell, manually operating the pedals like he was playing a high-stakes game of Twister. Alvin stared at his phone, calling out minute degree adjustments.

They rolled out onto the suburban street.

"We are clear of the space dock," Timmy whispered, looking out the back window. "Proceed to the outpost at maximum warp."

"Maximum warp is currently two miles per hour," Alvin reported monotonously. "Theodore lacks the upper body strength to depress the accelerator further while maintaining a safe grip on the brake."

"It's pedally down here!" Theodore complained from the floor. "It's so pedally! My arm is cramping!"

"Maintain course," Timmy ordered.

They made it exactly three blocks before the flashing red and blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror.

"Captain," Alvin said, not looking up from his phone. "We have drawn the attention of the Federation Security Forces. A police cruiser is matching our speed."

Timmy looked back. A single Oak Creek police cruiser was crawling along directly behind them. The lights were flashing, and the siren emitted a short, half-hearted, incredibly confused whoop-whoop.

The officer inside the cruiser was staring at the back of the Impala in total bewilderment. From his perspective, he was tailing a classic car that appeared to be driving itself at a walking pace. He couldn't see Simon over the high back of the bench seat, and he certainly couldn't see Theodore on the floor.

"Do we engage evasive maneuvers?" Simon asked, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"Negative," Timmy said, his voice dropping into its most dramatic Kirk pause yet. "Maintain... course. We will... out-endure them. The Klingons... are slow."

---

Ronan blinked, standing up from his folding chair, his clipboard forgotten in the dirt.

He stared down the long gravel road that led into the heart of the scout camp.

A massive, beige-and-brown 1972 Chevrolet Impala was rolling slowly down the path. It was moving so slowly that a determined snail could have overtaken it on the shoulder.

Behind the Impala, a police cruiser was following at a leisurely, crawling pace. Its lights were flashing silently. Behind that cruiser, a second police vehicle had just arrived, falling into line, its driver leaning out the window and pointing at the ghost car in sheer confusion.

Ronan stared in absolute, stunned silence.

As the Impala crawled past the clearing, Ronan saw the top of Simon’s head barely cresting the steering wheel. He saw Alvin sitting in the passenger seat, calmly looking at his phone.

And from the open back window, Timmy’s voice drifted out into the crisp autumn air, perfectly clear over the rumble of the idling V8 engine.

“Scout's Log, supplemental. The Klingons are pursuing. We are... evading. Slowly.”

"So slow," Simon muttered loudly from the driver's seat, his face red with exertion as he wrestled the wheel to navigate a slight curve in the gravel. "We're going so slow."

"The pedals are hard!" Theodore’s voice echoed hollowly from the footwell. "They're so... pedally!"

"Focus, Ensign," Alvin said from the passenger seat, his voice perfectly monotone, completely ignoring the flashing police lights illuminating the interior of the car. "The Klingons are gaining."

"They're gaining at two miles per hour," Simon argued.

"They're gaining," Alvin repeated logically.

Ronan watched the parade crawl past. The Impala, the two police cruisers, and a stray golden retriever that had decided to join the slow-motion chase, trotting happily alongside the rear bumper.

Ronan looked back toward the woods. Lucas’s tent had finally stopped moving, wedged firmly between two pine trees. The muffled sobbing had ceased, replaced by the sound of exhausted, heavy breathing.

He looked down at the dirt, where Gerald had dropped a handful of sunflower seeds. He had just awarded a merit badge for a 10,000-word essay that consisted entirely of three renditions of a Broadway musical performed to apathetic rodents.

He looked back at the Impala, which was now executing a three-point turn into the designated Scoutmaster parking spot, a maneuver that was currently taking five full minutes.

Ronan closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I need a raise," Ronan murmured to the empty clearing, the absolute absurdity of his life finally crushing the last of his Eagle Scout optimism. "I need a very large raise. Paid in cash. Or perhaps heavy sedatives."

Over by the parking spot, the Impala finally lurched to a halt with a heavy, metallic clunk.

The police cruisers stopped behind it. Two officers stepped out, scratching their heads, walking cautiously toward the vehicle to confront the phantom driver.

Timmy rolled down the back window, holding his flashlight up to his mouth one last time.

"Scout's log, final entry," Timmy whispered into the plastic casing, watching the officers approach. "The Impala has been... recovered. The mission... is complete. The Scoutmaster's sanctuary is... back where it belongs."

Timmy closed his eyes, a serene, victorious smile spreading across his face.

"Kang the Merciless never suspected. The Klingons were... unaware. We have... won."

From the front seat, Alvin opened his door, stepping out to face the utterly baffled police officers. He raised his hand in a flawless Vulcan salute.

"We were never here," Theodore’s voice echoed up from the floorboards.

"We were never here," Timmy agreed softly.

In the papoose, Barty Junior burbled happily, clapping his tiny stone hands together.

"The Ensign has spoken," Alvin said to the approaching cops, his voice devoid of all emotion. "Mission accomplished."