She surveyed the island causticaly, her eyes huge with rage and disbelief, a small part of her wondering how things could get so, so Those goons were toppling her rig! That wouldn't do -- no sir, not at all. "Set me down there." She pointed to a slightly open patch of ground just south of the Goon squad that lumbered around the teetering rig. The pilot turned to her with a look of horror. "No, offense, ma'am, but those goons would just as soon do the same to a woman as pretty as you." Olive smiled her best smile, the one that had cost ten thou andtaken three weeks to learn effectively, and batted her eyes. He blushed, looked away a second, and then found himself staring down the barrel of a very large gun. "Honey, those goons haven't a clue what I am, so why don't you keep a hold of your life and your job and set this chopper down where I told you to." He dropped her down, and she stepped out of the chopper, a huge scowl on her face and the mauser in her hand. As her feet touched the soil, she bellowed, a trick she'd learned ages ago that had come in especially useful when she was still foolish and in love with that dolt of a sailor. "Who's in charge here?!" The goons stopped bashing, and looked around at each other, their faces slack and eyes puzzled, then almost as one they grinned strangely and somehow formed a circle of pointing fingers about a dirty, raggeddy, obviously environmentalistic recluse witha single eye, thick arms, a powerful ches, er, chin, and, and Olive's face sagged. Not nearly as much as it had once, but still somewhat obvious (the bone grafts hadn't been done yet). That pipe. The old nutso's mouth popped openm as well, followed by his eyes springing forth from their sockets to bounce up and down in front of her for a fraction of a second before rebounding back into his head, starts alighting the air around him like an angelic halo of lust. "P-p-popeye?" "Oyliv?" He growled. Just then a milling Goon milled a bit too hard, and the club struck her on her now very pretty little head, and she fell into darkness, her heart fluttering for some reason. She dreamed of him, of that horrible man who somehow stirred things inside her she refused to believe were possible any longer. Mostly because she'd paid for them to be surgically removed. In fact, she'd paid quite a lot to have them removed. She grimaced, and realized her dreams had ended not only when she felt the grimace, but also becuase of the smell in the air. A smell she had hated and despised, a smell that only one thug had ever had the obesity to wear -- B. Luto. She opened her eyes, to find herself bound and and lying beside him, the ropes strategically placed by the goons to show off what she had worked so hard to achieve. Their eyes met. "You! I should have known you'd have somethign to do with this! You cad! You miserable, yellow bellied, sad sack, corrupt, two timing, lecherous, toad! I'm gonna .." "You'll do nothing!" hissed a new voice. SHe looked over, and beheld Peter Goon for the first time. "You!" "Me." "How dare you take me prisoner!" Olive boiled over, causing all the extensions in her hair to frizz... ---

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)