Chapter 6

The rest of the week was kind of a letdown, since we were all primed to make our big public debut, but we didn't run into anything to make a big deal about. Every night, there was something needing our attention, but it was not the kind of thing that the public would get excited about. But, as we knew it would, our time finally came, just not the way we expected.

We were headed toward home. This night had been the almost boring routine of stopping petty robberies in service stations and convenience stores, so we were looking forward to a little time in the swimming pool before bed. Yes, we still went to bed even though it was not necessary, it just was an ingrained habit. Gecko was looking out her window when she gasped in surprise and exclaimed, "My God! Did any of you guys see that?"

We all craned to see what she was talking about and saw, off in the distance, a plume of fire rising from an apartment building. Genie did his thing and got the exact address. Gecko reported the fire through a 911 call, then I asked Genie to transport us to the site. I didn't want to wast the time it would take us to drive there. People might be injured needlessly by having to wait for help.

The next moment, our van was parked one block away, where we thought it would not interfere with the fire trucks, etc. Fortunately, Genie had already given us the ability to communicate with him, and through him, to each of us by means of mental telepathy—that saved a lot of time and nuisance. Genie had us standing on the street outside of the burning building trying to decide what we should do first.

The place was eerily quiet. Where were the screaming fire alarms we expected to hear? OK, our first priority was to make sure that everybody inside the building was awake and aware of the danger. There were four of us and four floors, so that made that part easy. I became the de facto leader of the rescue brigade, so I sent Komodo to cover the ground floor, Gecko to the next, Basilisk up one more, and I, Chameleon, took the top floor.

Fortunately, Genie's ability to multitask easily was able to cope with helping each of us and still directing Komodo, so we were ahead of that part of the game. Each one of us had Genie jump us into every room in that building getting people dressed well enough to cope with the 74 degree Fahrenheit weather and transported to a central location across the street from the burning building. To cut the possibility of panic, each person was given the memory of being led or carried down the stairwell or fire escape by the appropriate one of us. Genie's abilities never cease to amaze me!

Everybody from the burning building was standing, waiting and drinking coffee or soft drinks, for the Fire Department to show up, which they did within 15 minutes. The firemen did their usual efficient and workmanlike job of controlling the fire, though they were not able to save any part of the building or its contents. Examination after the event disclosed that this was an insurance fire, and the apartment owner had sabotaged the gas line and started the fire there. He had disabled the fire alarm to keep the fire department from arriving in time to save the building. The bastard gave no thought to the number of lives that might have been lost if Gecko had not seen the start of the fire. I am delighted to report that he is still doing hard time for his deed.

We four were prominent in our costumes as the TV cameras shot crowd shots and pictures of the firemen in action. Each of the rescued people had been given an appropriate figurine of whomever had engineered their rescue, and they were all anxious to tell their story on TV. We got a fantastic amount of national publicity out of this stunt, and we all had a great time. We still kept some slight anonymity by not giving TV interviews ourselves, but by letting our fans do all of the talking. We stayed around a while to make sure that our assistance would not be needed any further before melting into the crowd and going home. Man, now that was fun!

We had a celebratory sex party in the swimming pool that night. We were so wound up, it was a wonder that we came down from the high for a month. Now, that was how we wanted the public to know us.

The next morning, Babs' phone rang. It was her father. "Now that was quite a display y'all put on last night. That wasn't quite what I had in mind for your public introduction, but it sure made an impression."

"Yeah, Dad, it was kind of impromptu, so it did get a little out of hand. But it sure was fun! Are your cops doing anything soon that we might join in on?"

"I don't know of any big plans, so you will have to play us by ear, too. One thing for sure, you won't be ignored, at least not by TV. Rumor has it that a couple of the stations are assigning special crews to follow you around. I hope nobody gets hurt, if they do."

"Well, if they are going to follow us, they will have to find us first. Since we don't know where we'll be, they are going to have to do a lot of searching. I hope they have plenty of gas and coffee money stashed away to cover their efforts."

They spent some time in general family chit-chat before hanging up. Babs raised the point of how we could use the TV people to our advantage when she turned back to the rest of us. None of us had any ideas on that, yet, but we hoped that something would occur to one of us.

This brought something to mind. I asked Genie, "Could you tap the 911 lines and get us an extra step on knowing what's going on? Hopefully, you could screen out the trivial and just prompt us on the big stuff."

"Yes, I think so. Give me some time to experiment, and I may have something useful, possibly by this afternoon."

This afternoon it was, too. We were lolling around the pool just marking time while we waited for night. Genie suddenly broke into our private musings with the announcement, "There's a big bank robbery going on at Simmons Savings and Loan. Is everybody ready to go?"

Of course we were, so Genie moved all four of us to out-of-the-way spots within the bank with our suits in full stealth mode. We were invisible for all practical purposes and in mental communication with each other. Basilisk said, "There are three perps in the lobby holding guns on the customers and a couple of employees."

Gecko announced, "The vault is empty of people, but the door is standing wide open."

I said, "There is one gunman in the office area holding a gun on three people."

Genie announced, "Two men are behind the counter cleaning out the cash drawers of the tellers. They already have two full sacks of money and are working on a third."

I asked Genie to lock all of the crooks' guns so that they would not fire. That took only a moment, then I said, "OK, team, show yourselves in your most terrifying regalia, and let's put a stop to this before somebody gets hurt."

It was hilarious to see the crooks' faces when the team popped into their vision. We were all wearing our demon guises, but nothing was as scary as Komodo dressed as an 8-foot-tall demon straight from Hell. Naturally, they all dropped what they were doing and tried to shoot us, and, naturally, they all panicked when their guns wouldn't work.

I don't know what else might have happened because the cops showed up. That kind of froze the action at that point, but things began to move again as, a moment later, the first TV crew showed up. The cops moved to cordon off the bank and to keep the curious out of harm's way. I let things settle down a little bit, then I had Genie amplify my voice.

"THIS IS CHAMELEON! GENTLEMEN OF THE POLICE, THE EMERGENCY IS OVER! THE ROBBERS ARE NOT CONSTRAINED, YET, BUT THEIR GUNS ARE INOPERABLE! WE ARE MAINTAINING ORDER INSIDE THE BANK, BUT WE WOULD DEEPLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU WOULD TAKE OVER! BY THE TIME YOU GET INSIDE, ALL OF THE ROBBERS WILL BE LINED UP AGAINST A LOBBY WALL! THANK YOU!"

Komodo had the honor of opening the front door and ushering the police into the lobby of the bank. This way, he was featured on the TV tape, and he was a sight to see. I was sure that all of the kids would want Komodo suits for Halloween. While the cops were doing their thing, we were handing out coffee and Coke, along with a souvenir figurine, to each of the customers and bank employees. Of course, the Komodo figurine was the most popular.