The Regulators

Floating in the middle of the parked Power Wagons, between SNAKE HUNTER’s Tracker Arrow and the silver-sided Rooty-Toot, is a grim visitor: the Meatwagon,HUMMING SOFTLY.

INT. RESUME MOTOKOPS SQUAD

COLONEL HENRY

MotoKops, prepare for battle!

SNAKE HUNTER (his stun-pistol already out) Way ahead of you, boss.

The others draw.

INT. RESUME MEATWAGON

The Doom Turret SLIDES BACK, revealing NO FACE, sinister as always in his black uniform. Sitting behind him at the controls, with her customary look of sexy hauteur, is COUNTESS LILI. The Hypno-Jewel around her neck FLICKERS WILDLY through the color spectrum.

NO FACE

Floatpad, Countess. Now!

COUNTESS LILI

Yes, Excellent One.

The COUNTESS pulls a lever. A floatpad appears. NO FACE steps on to it and is wafted down to the floor of the Corral. He is unarmed, and asCOLONEL HENRY steps forward, he holsters his own stunner.

COLONEL HENRY

Aren’t you a little far from home, No Face?

NO FACE

Home is where the heart is, my dear Hank.

BOUNTY

This is no time for games.

NO FACE As it happens, I couldn’t agree more. The Force Corridor approaches. You, Colonel Henry, are planning a Power Wagon assault-

MAJOR PIKE

How do you know that?

NO FACE (icy)

Because it’s what I’d do, you idiot!

(to COLONEL HENRY) A Power Wagon assault is incredibly risky, but it may also be Earth’s only chance. You’ll need all the help you can get, and you have no vehicle at your command as powerful as the Meatwagon.

SNAKE HUNTER That’s a matter of opinion, you mutt. My Tracker Arrow-

COLONEL HENRY

Stow the gab!

(to NO FACE)

What are you offering?

NO FACE A partnership until the crisis is past. Old quarrels put aside, at least temporarily. A joint attack on the Force Corridor.

He offers his black-gloved hand. COLONEL HENRY starts to reciprocate, and then MAJOR PIKE steps forward. His almond-shaped eyes are wide, and his mouth-horn quivers with alarm.

MAJOR PIKE Don’t do it, Hank! You can’t trust him! It’s a trick!

NO FACE I understand how you feel, Major… we both do, do we not, Countess?

COUNTESS LILI

Yes, Excellent One.

NO FACE But this time there are no tricks, no hidden cards.

COLONEL HENRY (to MAJOR PIKE) And we have no choice.

NO FACE Indeed we don’t. Time is running out.

COLONEL HENRY reaches out and takes NO FACE’shand.

NO FACE

Partners?

COLONEL HENRY

For now.

ROOTY

Root-root-root-root!

We FADE TO BLACK. Ends ACT 2.

Chapter Six

Now speaking in the voice of Ben Cartwright, patriarch of the Ponderosa, Tak said: “Ma’am, it looks to me like you were planning on skedaddling.”

“No…”

It was her voice, but weak and distant, like a radio transmission coming in from the West Coast on a rainy night. “No, I was just going to the store. Because we’re out of…” Out of what? What could they possibly be out of that this monster would care about, believe in? And, blessedly, something came to her. “Chocolate syrup! Hershey’s!”

It came toward her from the den doorway, Seth Garin in MotoKops Underoos, only now she saw an amazing, horrid thing: the child’s bare toes were dragging across the living-room carpet, but otherwise it was floating along like a boy-shaped balloon. It was Seth’s body, poignantly grimy at the wrists and ankles, but there was no Seth in the eyes. None at all. Now it was just the thing that looked like it belonged in a swamp.

“Says she was just going to take a mosey down to the general store,” said the voice of Ben Cartwright. Whatever else Tak might be, it was a hellishly good mimic. You had to give it that. “What do you think, Adam?”

“Think she’s lying, Paw,” said the voice of Pernell Roberts, the actor who had played Adam Cartwright. Roberts had lost his hair over the years, but he had gotten the best of the deal, anyway; the actors who had played his father and his brothers had all died in the years since Bonanza had galloped off into the sunset of reruns and cable TV.

Back to the voice of Ben as the thing drifted closer, close enough for her to be able to smell sour sweat and a sweet lingering ghost of No More Tears shampoo. “What do you think, Hoss? Speak up, boy.”