Brad was looking across the city through his apartment window when a noise behind him turned his attention back to his guest.

“Where am I and what the fuck are you doing here?” She got up, panicking.

“Ariadna, relax. It’s ok. It’s me, Brad. You’re in my apartment.”

“Why? Wh-why? Where is your apartment? Where am I?” She stood up but was a little unsteady on her feet.

“Take it easy, you’re still resting. Sit back down. I live in Manhattan, just a few blocks from Central Park.”

Ariadna realised it would be better to sit and began massaging her temples, like she had a headache or was trying to remember something. “It’s starting to become a habit of you appearing when I come round,” she muttered. “What happened Brad?”

“What do you last remember?”

“Being in The Met with my aunt. My aunt! Carajo, where is she?!”

“I-I don’t know. You weren’t exactly with- it wasn’t clear you were with anyone you were familiar with.”

Ariadna shot up again. “We have to find her!” But the speed at which she got up caused her to stumble again.

“Take it easy, Ariadna. Look, give me her name and I’ll pass it on to the Red Cross who are down there. Then we can talk more.”

“They’re going to look out for her, ok? It’s taken care of,” he said reassuringly, returning to the open plan living space with a glass of water.

“Thank you Brad,” she responded with more strength in her voice then she had before. “So why am I here?”

He sat down across from her on the sofa. “Well…”

***

“Ladies and gentlemen, and all those in between! Do not panic! It’s just a waste of your time,” the puppet announced, doing all the talking. This guy was good, thought Proten. The man wasn’t even moving his lips. A few dozen people decided they weren’t going to stick around, the rest who stayed were transfixed to the screen, out of that weird fetish people have for fear and the unknown.

“I’m The Puppet Master, an amateur in the party entertainment industry normally. But today we are on the cusp of something great. You have already encountered my puppets at the zoo- a result of my warm up act. Now, for the headline. And it’s going to need lots of audience participation!” The puppet paused and unrest grew in the crowd as they realised they were the audience participating.

The pause seemed to go on long enough to allow the hubbub which made Proten wonder if this was live and not a pre-record. He looked around, but it could be coming from anywhere.

“In five minutes, five more blimps will appear in the sky and will release Hypnoxia onto the streets below, making you part of the biggest show in town!” The crowds looked up and around, wondering where the blimps would be coming from, and perhaps judging their own escape chances.

“Under my control you will act in complete chaos as we throw today’s Mayoral election. Oh yes! Pleased don’t let the timing of this show go unnoticed. See, Mayor Dorian Jenkins is up for re-election and his is not a safe bet for this city. Our actions today will merely only delay and prevent the vote legitimately taking place today. That’s fine. But in good faith, I can’t let it go ahead without highlighting his short comings. Last year our Mayor cut funding for our city wide community healthcare and programs affecting mental health treatment, leaving us sufferers in the gutters of sanity whilst people like I spiral from the grips of reality. So join me as we descend into electoral chaos and ask ourselves how much value we ought to be putting into our mental healthcare. And we’ll have fun doing so! Here they come, blimps incoming!”

The crowds looked up and on cue, from different directions, descended five extra blimps. Most people started screaming and wildly running for enclosed shelter.

The puppet’s announcement horrified Proten. He turned round to see Ariadna still there. She could be of some help. But not in her current state.

That’s it! He remembered her file and what is said were her triggers. It was his only option.

Proten spotted a frightened looking officer fifty metres away and reached out for his firearm. I’ll give it back. Proten then grabbed Ariadna by the shoulder and brought the gun close to her head. He pulled the trigger, with the gun firing into the ground. It startled a lot of the people nearby, but it had the desired effect on Ariadna.

“It said all that on my file?”

“Yeah, you’ll be surprised at what we know,” Brad admitted. He noticed Ariadna look embarrassed as she clenched her eyes shut. “Look please don’t worry about it Ariadna. I’d hate to think what my file says. It’s just crap in some document, it doesn’t change anything.”

“So you know about what happened at school?”

“Yes. Of course. But only when I read it after meeting you in Fort Prirough.” Ariadna huffed but didn’t say anything. “It helped me out, reading it. I didn’t know what to expect but hell, you did us all a solid out there,” Brad continued to reassure.

Ariadna relaxed her face. “So what did happen next?”

Ariadna reanimated, her head shot up and looked at Proten, her eyes glaring wide at him. Oh God, those eyes. Both eyes had gone black.

“What did you just do?” she asked. Proten was taken aback by her eyes and was even more so when he heard her voice.

“Ariadna?”

“I said, what did you do?” she demanded.

“I... I need your help. There are six blimps about to release some hypnotic gases across Manhattan.”

Ariadna moved in sharp, jerky movements that made her seem less human now, like she was possessed or slightly robotic. She jerked her head to the sky and saw for herself the blimps floating across the Manhattan skies, blocking out the sky as they moved. Proten checked his surroundings, noticing people were running for their lives and abandoning their cars to do so.

“How can someone do this?” she asked.

“I’ll catch you up later. I just need you to help me stop them while I try to work out where the signal is coming from,” Proten explained.

“Fine. Bet you could do with Network being here for that,” she said bluntly, before leaping high into the air, like a frog would do from lily pad to lily pad. It was extraordinary to see. She landed on the side of a skyscraper, maybe fifteen storeys up, and had managed to grip into the building itself before then leaping onto the nearest blimp.

She wasn’t wrong though. Lucas would have identified the source and shut off the transmission in no time. An acute twinge of guilt and shame swept through Proten, but he shook it off. Now wasn’t the time.

Proten watched on for a bit longer as Ariadna grabbed part of the canvas in one hand and pulled herself up the tower with the other, dragging the blimp with her. She’s more than got this, he said to himself, but now he had to be careful of the affects the Hypnoxia would have if it got to street level. Luckily he had the ability to be able to get high up if push came to shove.

Proten looked up again at the first blimp. It hadn’t changed its path or altitude, unlike the others. It seemed like the best first place to try. It was floating over Central Park West and Strawberry Fields. Easy to get to with his elastic arms propelling him from tree to building, all the way to Strawberry Fields.

With ease, Proten was now clung to the gondola structure of the blimp that delivered the Puppet Master’s initial message. Smashing through a window, Proten snaked his neck through the gap to look in.

“You’re here, that’s convenient,” mused Proten, before his whole body recoiled through into the gondola.

“Don’t hurt me!” The Puppet Master pleaded somewhat pathetically. Proten was caught off guard by it. The man wasn’t especially tall and wore the ill fitting tuxedo he had on in the transmission earlier, with the ventriloquist dummy on his right arm. The puppet was animated, with it’s lower jaw dropping as Proten entered.

“It doesn’t have to come to that… Puppet Master. But you do need to stop this now.”

“Stop? Why? Only one blimp has started releasing my Hypnoxia.”

“Crap, well, I can’t let you do anymore. It’s insane!”

“No, remember I’m insane. I can’t afford my meds, which is why this is all happening. We’re taking a stand.”

Proten advanced a step closer and The Puppet Master flinched, staggering back. He raised his hands to show he wasn’t threatening. Despite the danger he was putting Manhattan in, this guy was clearly vulnerable, and Proten was reluctant to use force. That’s not to say he wouldn’t though. He had a job to do, and not a lot of time to do it in.

“I think this show has already made Mayor Jenkins want to listen to you though. Surely that’s a better route to go down now?”

“Nah, he won’t. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. If he cared enough to listen, he’d have answered my letters and not left it until I caused some chaos. Besides, the show’s started, and the show must go on,” he manically boomed.

Proten reached out to punch the Puppet Master in the face from where he stood three metres across from him in the snug gondola.

The Puppet Master recoiled backwards, taking the punch to the jaw. Immediately in response, which caught America’s stretchiest by surprise, the Puppet Master lunged with the ventriloquist-first across at Proten, smacking him back in the face.

Now the puppet and puppet master had the upper hand on Proten, briefly, pinning him against the window. Proten’s torso snaked up and out of the hold, appearing behind the Puppet Master, grabbing him firmly by the shoulders. With a firm grab, Proten smashed the Puppet Master’s head into the window before he could turn back round to re-face Proten.

The impact with the window sent him through it, him now doubled over and hanging out of it. Proten tore the ventriloquist from the Master’s arm and threw it onto the floor behind him. For good measure, he stomped on the head, not forgiving it for lunging at him earlier.

With the Puppet Master momentarily incapacitated, Proten turned his attention to the threat of Hypnoxia. He could only see one blimp in the sky still. Crap, where are the others? Am I too late? Is Ariadna ok?

“I have no recollection of any of this.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope, it’s just a blank.” Ariadna fell back into the sofa, taking in the account of the events from earlier. She had worked so hard over the years to harness and control her black out blind rages, but sometimes too much over stimulation was too difficult to filter out. Brad had used this to his advantage. Who could blame him? She was capable of extraordinary things when the rage personality took over.

“So what happened next?”

“Well let’s ignore the fact that I then started talking to Lucas, thinking he would be on the other end,” Brad admitted, looking embarrassed.

“I have a feeling that I probably didn’t make things any better bring him up.”

“Oh don’t worry about it. You were right. We could have done with him here,” he sighed.

“Do you miss him?”

This time, Brad fell back into the sofa, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. “Yeah I do. But I fucked up, Ariadna. Like, really fucked up. Between you and I, I didn’t treat him well and I have lots of regrets over how things were left between us before he… before he died.” He sighed heavily and looked up from staring at his lap, an awkward silence fell between the two. “But anyway, I know you don’t want to hear about that.”

“Hm, no. I just asked if you missed him.”

“Quite. Well, yes. Yes I do,” he coughed awkwardly.

After a quick pause, Ariadna looked over at Brad. “So? What did we do next?”

Proten looked around, and headed for a door in the ceiling he spotted. The blimp was descending. Did the hatch lead to anything?

A loud thud rung out and the gondola jolted due to the impact. Ariadna appeared, clinging to the outside. With a swift fist, she smashed through the glass and jumped in with Proten.

“You’re alive?!” exclaimed Proten, relieved to see her.

“Obviously,” she muttered back, glancing between Proten, the Puppet Master still doubled over through the window and the puppet laid out on the floor in a sorry state. “Have you not been able to disable this blimp yet?” she asked looking back at Proten with those squid black eyes.

“Well no, not yet. I had a couple of… issues,” he said, motioning towards the slumped bodies.

“Hijo de Mil Putas,” Ariadna uttered under her breath. “I’ve done five already and you can’t do one?”

“I was busy!” he protested again. “But how would one go about doing that, if they were to you know, have to disable a blimp?”

Ariadna huffed and walked towards Proten under the roof hatch. “Here, the engine and control mechanisms for the Hypnoxia release are in here,” she explained, tearing the hatch off completely as easily as opening a can of soda. She jumped up whilst Proten extended from the waist to join her.

“How did you know what to switch or disconnect?”

Ariadna didn’t answer verbally. Instead her actions explained everything. With just her two fists, she proceeded to pulverise the mechanics, tearing it apart, smashing it open. Proten looked on, scolding himself for even thinking there was a more graceful way of Ariadna disabling the blimps.

As the engines shut down, the descent quickened as the helium escaped casuing Proten to revert to normal height and hold on tight. Ariadna hopped back into the gondola and took a look at Proten, a slight smile creeping on her face.

“I think I did it.”

“I think we did a great job,” Proten replied, wanting to make sure his efforts had some sort of recognition, despite his small part. “We just need to get off this thing now.”

Ariadna stepped towards the door of the gondola, which was now steeply angled down as the blimp continued to career towards the street below, looking as if she was preparing to jump for it. The Puppet Master and puppet had slid into the wall.

“We’ll need to take them with us.”

“Leave the… the…” Ariadna started to say.

“What’s wrong?” Proten urgently asked. Ariadna turned back to Proten, and he could see the darkness in her eyes fade. She was slipping out of her over stimulated rage mode. She was soon going to black out.

Not now, damn it, Proten thought.

He grabbed her, wrapping and coiling his right arm around her a few times, and with his left, he did the same to the rotund Puppet Master. He approached the door and stepped out, allowing the leg to stretch and touch the ground. He followed through with the next leg, as if he was stepping off a train onto the platform- if the train was one hundred feet above the platform.

Proten hit the ground running, his limbs reduced to normal length as the deflating envelope of the blimp came down behind him, Ariadna and the Puppet Master firmly in his grasp. The streets were near enough empty, but a team of firefighters appeared in time to lead them all to safety.

“And so after handing the Puppet Master over to the authorities and getting you checked over, I brought you up here… and voila.”

“Voila,” she repeated.

“So your black outs? They wear off after a time?” enquired Brad.

“Yes,” she responded simply.

Brad changed tact and approached his questioning differently. “Right, ok. Well your black outs- what causes them to wear off?” An open question felt better here. “And how long do they last?”

“They vary in length. Usually I’m empowered long enough to fix a wrong and then I lose the rage.”

“Like at the gas station? Your ‘righteousness’ took over when the attendant fired back in self-defence?”

Ariadna nodded.

“And when you were at school?” Brad asked, referencing what he had read in her file.

She flinched at this line of questioning, her head jerking away from Brad’s direction, looking back out towards Manhattan. She stood up, still looking out through the windows.

“I need to go. I need to find my aunt.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I know. We won’t be. Thanks for looking after me. Bye Brad.”