Chapter 2
"I always knew I might be mobbed by Spineless Ones some day," Storm said three weeks later. "I just never thought they'd ask for my autograph."
"Face it, you're hotter than hot cakes, Stormy!" Mojo said. "Hotter than a fifteen-dollar laser! The ratings on Moonlightning are going through the roof!"
The success of Mojo's work had defied expectations in the past. There was the time he accidentally filmed his own face, for example. Moonlighting was no different, even though by Earth standards, what he was trying to accomplish was nothing out of the ordinary. Which only further underlined how completely different the two worlds were.
Spineless Ones watched TV. And did little else. They demanded TV. They demanded it in great quantities, especially their favorite shows. Consequently the highest-rated shows were also the most frequently aired. Hours of footage for some programs were churned out in a single Mojoverse day, then fed to the masses the following day. Mojo, like the Hollywood shlock producers he sometimes appeared to be emulating, was best-known and best-loved for his depictions of gratuitous violence, unnecessary explosions, and buckets of blood.
Moonlighting was none of these things.
True enough, nearly every episode they'd filmed had an action scene for a climax. It WAS a private detective agency, as Mojo had originally pointed out. They dealt with murderers, thieves, and swindlers on a daily basis. The fights themselves, however, were tame by Mojoverse standards. There were no high explosives, no lasers, no heat-seeking missiles. The worst they'd encountered was a horde of robots armed with machine guns. The robots would have been more fearsome if they hadn't been three feet tall. And made of an especially conductive type of metal that had allowed Storm to take them out with a single bolt of lightning.
For Storm, that was the strangest part of all. For all his assurances, she'd assumed that there would be a bitter fight to the death at the end of every episode until he finally "got" her. That was her past experience with Mojoverse. Here, though, Mojo didn't seem to be trying his hardest to have her killed. The action sequences hadn't been walks in the park either, but Storm had never really felt like she was in grave danger. These were challenges she was meant to win.
Especially when Spiral was working with you, rather than against you. True, Spiral generally used a regular handgun loaded with regular bullets, but when you included the fact that she used six at once, she became a small army all by herself. And of course, there was the magic Spiral employed to make her life more convenient.
Not that the two characters were trying to make each OTHER'S lives more convenient. "Sandra" and "Devon" were written as partners and rivals. Devon took delight in trying to get under Sandra's skin. Sandra went out of her way to show Devon it wasn't bothering her. When work didn't get in the way, both women seemed happiest infuriating each other.
Which described Storm's relationship with Spiral perfectly.
Regardless of how Storm felt about all of this, the fact remained that the show had captured the hearts of a jaded population. Subtlety, Mojo had declared, was the new "it" thing. Within reason, of course. What was subtlety if a few people didn't die along the way?
At least these weren't real people dying, like the slaves Storm was all too aware of. She'd forced Mojo on the first day on the set to accept that she wouldn't inflict any serious harm on living beings. Still, she thought about the other shows being produced, and she thought about ways to not only escape, but also shut Mojo's entire corrupt empire down.
And at least Mojo wasn't working them into exhaustion. Taking another page from Earth, Mojo was airing a single hour of footage every three days. At first the audience had resented him for it. Later, as they became hooked, they discovered that the agony of anticipation made the actual episode all the sweeter.
In short, they were starting to resemble American audiences.
"They love the action! They love the drama! They love the - my comedy!" Mojo crowed. "And everyone's favorite topic is the sexual tension!"
"Excuse me?" Storm asked.
"What?" Spiral asked at the exact same moment.
"The sexual tension," Mojo repeated. "They're already asking when you two are going to, what do humans say, 'jump each other's bones'?"
"WHAT sexual tension?" Spiral asked. "All we do is drive each other crazy!"
"Maybe you should watch more television," Mojo suggested. "That's always how it starts."
With a sinking feeling, Storm knew he wasn't far off. Still, she'd had a very simple solution ready for this moment. "I don't think that would be a good idea," she said.
"Why not? Sex sells!"
"Are you aware why Moonlighting isn't aired in America any longer?"
Mojo looked curiously at her. "No, why?"
"Because when the two leads eventually became lovers," Storm explained, "the sexual tension was gone, and people stopped watching." She'd never actually watched the show, but it was so famous an example of a program killing its own appeal that even she knew about it.
"Hm," he said. "Here I thought it had something to do with one of the characters jumping over some kind of ocean predator. You know, that DOES make a lot more sense. Let 'em wait! Let 'em suffer! They'll be dying for it! It'll make a great final episode some day!"
Which was why Storm needed to leave before then.
"There's something else," she told him.
"Oh?"
"I want to - renegotiate my contract."
Mojo grinned. "You don't have a contract."
"I won't work another day if you don't agree to something."
"You won't breathe another day if you don't work."
"You really think you can kill me off NOW? End the show just when it's taking off? All that 'sexual tension' remaining unfulfilled?" Storm smiled grimly. "You NEED me alive."
Mojo looked at Spiral, who just shrugged. "Well," he said. "This is a first."
"You've had actors make those demands before," Spiral pointed out.
"Yes, and I hacked off their limbs for asking them, as I recall. Okay, Storm, I'll 'bite'," he said, showing off vicious, pointed rows of teeth. "What do you want?"
"I want you to put a moratorium on killing slaves for ALL of your shows, not just ours," Storm said.
"Wha-wha-WHAAAT!"
"No more killing," Storm said. "Not while I'm on the air. You've adapted on Moonlighting. Why not elsewhere?"
"X-Men," he sighed. "Knew this was coming. How about a counteroffer?"
"As in what?"
"We had a rebellion here a couple months before you came," he said casually. "As you might have guessed, it failed. Care to see who some of the prisoners are?"
He pressed a button on his console, revealing two pictures on the monitor. Storm gasped.
"Hey, look at that! It's your old teammates, Longshot and Dazzler!" he said, gesturing to the image of the two mutants, each chained and muzzled in cages barely big enough for their bodies. He pushed a second button, and the form of Lila Cheney appeared on another screen. "And I'm sure you recognize your old pal? Dontcha LOVE reunion episodes?"
"What! How did you - let them go this instant!"
"How did I let them go? Do they look gone to you?" he asked innocently.
"You KNOW what I meant!"
"And you must know why I'm showing you this?"
Storm's stomach sank. "You're blackmailing me."
"No, I'm bartering with you. Think of them as being under lifetime contract. Try not to think about how short those contracts could be," Mojo replied. "Now imagine me releasing them from their contracts - IF you agree to modify yours?"
"How?"
"No sulking in your trailer because occasionally a few people die every day on the sets of other shows. I don't see why it bothers you so much. I didn't see YOU leading any rebellions with Longshot."
Storm didn't like being asked to choose between standing by idly as innocents died, and having three friends die if she didn't do something about it. The shot to her pride didn't help.
Eventually, however, her shoulders slumped. If Longshot lived, was released - "You must return them to my home dimension," Storm said suddenly. "Give them their futures back, not just their lives. Do that, and - I will follow your directions."
"Stormy, doll! I was always going to do that!" he said sweetly. "Spiral, be a dear? Get Major Domo on the line and let him know Longshot and his friends are going to hire themselves out to the competition. And then maybe you and Storm can go over your lines?"
"Joy," Spiral said, sounding less than thrilled.
Storm knew she felt worse.
"Come with me," Spiral told her.
"Where?"
"Always so suspicious."
"Should I not be so?"
Spiral frowned. "We're coworkers, for lack of a better word. If nothing else, in Mojoverse I've learned to value professionalism highly. You could do the same."
"Coworkers implies we're on the same level. But you can do as you wish, and I cannot," Storm reminded her.
"See, this is why we're doing this. Because I don't want you to be snippy with me for the next few weeks. Well, snippier than usual," Spiral retorted.
"You still haven't said what we're doing."
"I could just teleport us. Do you want the hangover that comes with it?"
Storm rose from her seat stiffly, like a queen greeting an unwanted guest. "Let us go then."
As they walked briskly through Mojo's fortress, Storm shot her an angry look. "Whatever bribe you've cooked up, you can forget it."
"Bribe?"
"You've obviously just come from sending Longshot and the others to who-knows-where. Don't think I believe your boss - "
"Our boss, o untrusting one."
"When he says he sent them back to my dimension," Storm finished through gritted teeth.
"They haven't gone yet," Spiral replied. "Major Domo is handling it. I'm taking you to watch."
Storm looked startled. "What?"
"Well, I considered showing you video footage of their departure, but you would have just accused me of staging a recreation with actors. I trust you can tell the real Dazzler from a fake from ten yards away?"
"Yes," Storm admitted.
"Good. Remember, if you attempt to contact them before they go, I have permission to run my sword through your heart," Spiral said coldly. "They will NOT be permitted to bring news of your presence here back to the X-Men."
It was supposed to be a threat, but instead Spiral convinced Storm that her friends were really being sent where Mojo had promised. And she didn't know what to think.
"Why are you doing this, Mojo? You know I'll be back."
Storm froze. That was Longshot's voice!
"Be quiet. No sudden movements," Spiral warned her as she slowed down. "It's too dark in here, so they won't be able to see you."
Moving forward again, Storm turned a corner, only to have her progress arrested by a pair of arms across her chest. Spiral glared at her, fingering the hilt of a sheathed sword with a third hand, before looking away.
Storm followed her gaze and saw the monstrous bulk of Mojo. Nearby was one of his toadies, Major Domo, standing at a panel. In front of them - a sight that made sudden tears spring to Storm's eyes - were three familiar figures, those of Longshot, Dazzler, and Lila Cheney. It wasn't at all the same as seeing them imprisoned in cages on a video screen, and their faces made her homesick in such a way that she almost felt like she really had been teleported there.
"Of course you'll be back. That's why I'm letting you go," Mojo replied blithely. "I know it doesn't cost me anything. Your pitiful rebellions never succeed. I'm thinking of making it into a series, actually! Sort of a takeoff on The Prisoner. How does the role of Number Six sound?"
"You think everything will always work out just the way you planned it, Mojo," Longshot retorted, "and that's going to be your downfall."
Mojo picked at his teeth idly. "But everything DOES work out the way I want it to. I mean, we call it Mojoverse for a reason. Look, this makes for great drama - in fact, I'll make it the first five minutes of our new collaborative effort."
"Don't bother, Longshot," Dazzler told him as he opened his mouth. "You're just giving him material to work with."
Mojo shrugged. "I'm a visionary, what can I say? I turn crap into gold. Now, as for you, Major Domo is still blocking your teleportation powers, Lila. Once you're back on Earth, the block shuts off, and you can go to your friends and do what you like."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Lead the X-Men back here and into some sort of trap for your audience?" Longshot shot back. "When we return, you won't have any footage, because you'll never see it coming."
"A visionary sees all," Mojo said. "Which is probably why 'visionary' stars with v-i-s-i-o-n."
Major Domo finished working at the panel, and a sudden portal opened up near the three prisoners.
"Oh, and speaking of the X-Men, be sure to offer them my condolences," Mojo added.
Dazzler stopped as they turned to leave. "What?"
"That's right, you couldn't have known. I was considering having the X-Men star in my very own version of the Wizard of Oz, but then I found out the one called Storm died in action, so I decided they wouldn't be any fun for the time being."
"You lie!" Lila burst out, her eyes wide with dismay.
"Okay, I lie. But I wouldn't suggest wearing bright colors when you drop by the mansion," he said, chuckling.
Lila lunged forward, but Dazzler stopped her. "It's okay, Lila, I'm sure she's fine," she reassured her.
"Of course she's fine," Lila muttered, but the look both women were giving Mojo belied her words.
Storm watched all of this from the shadows, and her heart broke. "No," she whispered. She started to raise a hand.
"Don't make me kill you!" Spiral hissed. "And who do you think will die next?"
Before Storm could answer, Longshot led Dazzler and Lila through the portal, and they vanished into space.
"Always leave 'em laughing, that's what I say! Or sobbing - it's the same difference! Real, honest emotions!" Mojo said cheerfully. "But I wouldn't envy them their visit to the X-Men, wondering if I was telling the truth or not."
"What truth?" Storm snarled from where she stood. "You're perpetuating a lie!"
Mojo turned and smiled at her. "Television is truth AND lies, Storm. Here in Mojoverse, there's no difference between the two. So," he said, shifting gears, "how about we head over to the set and shoot the next episode? Now that my newest star got the contract she wanted?"
Storm turned on her heel and walked away without a word. Through her anger, she was aware of two things.
One - she didn't need Spiral to get out of here. She just needed that panel, and the coordinates to Earth.
Two - if Longshot wasn't there to lead the next rebellion, then she would be. And she'd win.
Not long ago, Storm's life meant something. Even if humans despised her kind, Storm knew in her heart that her work as an X-Men had saved many lives over the years. Her choice had brought her great fulfillment.
Now she was an actress. And how trite and empty her life seemed now.
Storm stared out the window of the "detective agency" and sighed. The script called upon her to be "pensive" at the moment; her character was comparing her new life to her old one of being a supermodel. She was supposed to realize by the end of the episode how alive being a detective made her feel. Undoubtedly the audience would interpret that to mean being a detective with Devon was what made her feel alive. The Spineless Ones continued to read things into the relationship that wasn't there.
So she "acted" pensive by actually being it. Once she'd made a difference. Now she made television. The one could never possibly measure up to the other. What was the point of making the show succeed in order to save her life, if her life was so singularly shallow now?
And then of course, she thought as she turned halfway to look behind her, there was her roommate.
Spiral had claimed that she took Storm to see her friends leave Mojoverse in order to make their quarters slightly less uncomfortable. Even if that were so, Storm found herself unable to suppress the growing dissatisfaction with her life, and she took it out on Spiral. Which made their repartee all the more caustic on the set, as Spiral was determined to give as good as she got. Storm supposed it was good that her captor/cohabitant was so difficult. Otherwise she might grow used to her surroundings, when really she needed to be focused on figuring out how to get her powers back permanently. Right now she was right where she'd started when she was abducted. Spiral only let her use her powers on the set, and then just for the purpose of the story. If Storm did something out of line, Spiral could shut her right down again. Plus Mojo continued to direct the series himself, so the set was constantly crawling with armed men off-camera.
And what a set it was! Mojo did nothing small, so rather than simply build an office, he'd also built the building in which it was housed. Storm was not just looking out the window. She was looking five stories down.
While Spiral, behind her, sat with her feet on the desk, twirling pencils in three different hands while a fourth clutched a coffee mug. The last two hands worked at a typewriter, something Storm had not used in years but which Mojo had added for "atmosphere".
Storm sighed as she looked outside once more. No matter how grudgingly she accepted her role on the show, Spiral was still an important woman in Mojo's hierarchy and had little to fear from cancellation. How Storm could look at her as anything more than her personal prison guard, the one person more responsible than anyone - save perhaps Mojo himself - for her predicament. Living under lock and key, reading empty lines for a repellent species, fighting battles she was supposed to win with only a modicum of effort . . .
Dodging flaming wrecks.
Her eyes widened as she looked up and saw what appeared to be some kind of massive military vehicle descending in flames from the sky at an excessive speed. And it was speeding toward her window.
Her only thought before moving was, "This isn't in the script!"
Then she had Spiral in her arms as she flew out the office door, into the hallway, and out a window at the other end of the building, rising into the air.
"What the - what the fuck are you doing!" Spiral screamed, surprised.
There was a large explosion behind them as the machine plowed into their "set" and ripped it to pieces like it was made of paper-mache. In less than a minute, while Storm hovered in midair, still clutching Spiral, the building collapsed into a sea of dust and rubble. The vehicle had passed completely through it, and had plowed into the ground - or rather, the floor - below them.
"Oh," Spiral finally said as they watched.
Flying back down, taking a brief moment to revel in a rare opportunity to soar, Storm set Spiral down before landing next to her. Mojo was in an uproar. "Did you get that? DID YOU GET THAT! That was stupendous!"
"Does he see everything that goes wrong as something going exactly as planned?" Storm asked.
"What?" Spiral asked, distracted. "Uh, yeah, you could say that. Except Mojo would say it didn't go wrong in the first place."
"Ladies!" Mojo cried out, moving towards them. His eyes were alight with a kind of insane glee. "We're going to need a new script! Heck, two new scripts! It's going to be a two-parter, and THAT was the cliffhanger ending! And you survived, so THAT'S a bonus. It'll make shooting Part Two SO much easier! You see this?" he asked, pointing at his delighted face. "This is the face of an artistic genius!"
"You always did have your priorities straight, Mojo," Storm replied. "What happened?"
"Near as I can figure, it came from the next set over. The walls separating the sets are made of Mojonium," Mojo explained, "but they're not impenetrable. I guess you fling a forty-ton hunk of flaming metal at almost anything, and you'll have a big hole when you're done. Wow! They can stop asking for a big explosion scene from our show now! Hey you! Don't clean that debris up! It's going to be the set for Part Two!" He hurried back to the set.
"I suppose no more shooting today," Storm said.
Spiral turned on her. "Why did you do that!" she demanded.
"Do what?"
"Carry me out of there!"
Storm rolled her eyes. "My apologies. I should have let you teleport yourself out. You're a grown woman and - "
"No!" Spiral said, furious. "I never saw or heard it coming. Why the hell didn't you leave me!"
" . . . You're kidding. You're asking me why I saved you?"
"Don't give me that 'X-Men save lives' crap," Spiral retorted. "That was your ticket out of there! All you had to was fly out of there. By the time I would have noticed what you were doing and why, I'd be a pancake. It was a gift tied up in a pretty little bow. Let Spiral die, keep your conscience clean, get your powers back permanently, escape!" Spiral was confused, and she didn't like being confused, which only made her angry. "Why not?"
"I'm sorry, next time I'll let you die."
"That's not what I meant!"
"It was just instinct, all right?" Storm said testily. "I help people in danger. I suppose if I'd had TIME to think about it - "
"You'd have left me."
Storm didn't answer at first. Why HAD she acted as she did? "I don't know," she finally said. "Probably I'd have saved you anyway."
Spiral looked flabbergasted.
Storm walked away before Spiral could continue berating her for her actions. But why had she saved the very person she'd been thinking about in such unflattering terms not two seconds before?
Why?
Spiral continued to stand there, watching Storm leave. Her features slowly relaxed.
And she smiled.
"Well, that was certainly unexpected," she murmured before pursuing Storm. Couldn't let her get beyond fifty yards, of course.
"And don't put out those fires!" Mojo bawled. "Keep 'em burning until I finish the script!"
To be continued . . .
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