Chapter 34
Bill Marvel was one of those police officers who didn’t really stand out. He would never win the Cop of the Month award, and most of his colleagues didn’t even know his name. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a diligent cop and didn’t work hard to serve the public he had sworn to protect.
And so, once he had been given an order, he set about carrying it out. Chief Lip had told him to arrest the Germinator, and so he was going to arrest the Germinator, come what may.
Word around the station was that the Germinator had been seen at the police academy, and that’s where Officer Marvel could soon be found, talking to witnesses and trying to find a trace of the infamous superhero.
“I saw him come tearing out of the bushes,” said one of the recruits, pointing toward the outer perimeter fence. “He was heading that way hell for leather.”
“Was he using his powers?” asked Officer Marvel as he made careful notes of the conversation. “His superpowers?”
The man stared at him for a beat, then grinned. “Yeah, he was dressed like a bumblebee, if that’s what you mean.”
“Dressed…” said Marvel as he jotted all of this down, “…like a bumblebee.”
“I don’t even know what his powers are supposed to be, do you?” asked the recruit, whose name was Ned Skrzypczak. “I mean, he goes around catching crooks, but how does he do it? Does he sting them or something?”
“He does stun them,” Marvel acknowledged. He had been reading up on the Germinator and by now considered himself the superhero’s foremost expert. “He stuns them, and then he ties them to the nearest lamppost and calls it in so we can make the formal arrest.”
“Stuns them, huh? You mean with his stinger?” The man laughed, but Marvel remained stone-faced. He was a serious man and had little patience for jokes when there was a suspect to track down and apprehend.
“Thank you for your statement, Mr. Skrzypczak,” he said. “You will receive an invitation to drop by the station tomorrow morning to put all of this in writing.”
The man groaned. “Is that really necessary? I mean, I’ve told you everything I know.”
“I’m afraid it’s part of the procedure. And it’s not something that we can allow ourselves to slacken on.”
“All right. But I may not be able to come in tomorrow, since I have to be here for my training. So I can become one of you guys soon.” He grinned and tapped Marvel on the chest. “Pretty soon, I’ll be wearing this exact uniform. I can’t wait, to be honest!”
Marvel grimaced. “Neither can I, Mr. Skrzypczak.”
As he walked toward the fence, he noticed that a tiny tuft of yellow fluff had caught on a bramble, and he closely checked it to see if it might have come from the Germinator.
He placed the little piece of fluff in a plastic baggie, carefully sealed it, and resumed his approach to the fence, where this witness had said the Germinator had passed.
As he checked the fence closely, he saw that part of it was hanging loose and could easily be held open so an intruder might make his entry, or someone like the Germinator might make his escape. Though of course the Germinator would have flown over the fence.
But why had the superhero decided not to stick around? Why hadn’t he stayed true to his usual MO of arresting any crooks that he could find on the premises? In this case, those crooks were Vesta Muffin, who had driven a BearCat in a threatening fashion and had demolished part of the armory.
And yet the Germinator had fled the scene. This happened before Vesta Muffin had driven her BearCat into the brick structure, causing the edifice to collapse.
Odd, he felt. And very uncharacteristic.
Which told him there could only be one explanation: Vesta Muffin and the Germinator were working hand in glove.
She was protecting him, and he was protecting her, and the only reason he had escaped was because she had told him to.
Since she knew she was going to demolish that armory, and that would inevitably lead to the arrival of the police.
And Officer Marvel.
He grimaced as he straightened again and looked beyond the fence. A tiny piece of the same material fluttered in the breeze, attached as it was to the fence. He plucked it from the piece of barbed wire it had become stuck on and placed it in a different little plastic baggie.
Now he had two, and he would finally be able to ascertain whether the Germinator was a human or if he had indeed traveled here from another planet, as Marvel suspected.
If it was the latter, he knew he was up against a formidable foe. One who wouldn’t allow a mere mortal to arrest him, much less place him in a jail cell.
What he needed was a superhero who fought on his side and who was a match for the Germinator.
The problem was that he didn’t know any superheroes, apart from the Germinator himself.
As he started the trek back to his police vehicle and went over the different options in his head, he finally arrived at the only one that made sense under the circumstances.
He needed to keep an eye on Vesta Muffin. She would know where the Germinator was hiding. She would know his secret lair, and if he played his cards right and made sure not to be seen, Vesta would lead him straight to it.
How he would arrest the man was a problem he needed to tackle, but at least he knew the next step in the process: organize a stakeout of Vesta’s place, and if she left the house, follow her everywhere until she led him straight to the secret Germinator hideout.
In other words: the Germinator’s Batcave. Or was it a Bumblecave?
It was a matter which he hadn’t given any thought yet. Where did bumblebees live?
He instigated a search on his phone and discovered that they lived in underground abandoned rodent burrows, though sometimes they also lived aboveground in hollow trees or birdhouses.
He looked up and imagined discovering the Germinator in his lair, deep underground, in a giant mouse burrow.
He’d have to dig to get to where the superhero was hiding.
And then once he had found him, then what?
He really needed to figure this thing out.
Which is when the words of the witness Ned Skrzypczak came back to him: he had mentioned, partly in jest, that the Germinator used his stinger to stun his victims.
Wasn’t it possible that there was some truth to that? And if so, wouldn’t the use of a stun gun work like a charm on Hampton Cove’s first-ever superhero?
Wouldn’t a stun gun be the Germinator’s kryptonite?
It might be worth giving it a try.
A stun gun against a stinger.
Who would win?