Part 2

     "Half sister, really," Lady Jaye added quickly.  "It's a long story."  She turned to 
Laurie.  "What the heck are you doing here, young lady?!?"
      "We needed to give you this," Mike explained, holding up the bag.  "You guys left so 
fast we didn't have time to give it to you."
     "Where'd you find that?"  Duke said, about to take it from him, and not realizing that it 
was.
    "Wait- that's the bag the Viper had-" Lady Jaye exclaimed.  "It has that biological 
weapon in it!"   There was dead silence for what seemed to be minutes, but was probably 
more like seconds, as everyone nearly panicked. 
     "Uh-oh," Mike said softly.  "I'll just put this down."  
     He was about the drop the bag on the ground, but Duke stopped him.  "Just put it 
down nice an' easy, son."  He called over to Gung-Ho, "Get Airtight over here ASAP!"
     Mike slowly placed the bag on the ground, then the Joes ushered the kids away from it 
as Airtight came in to investigate.
     "Laurie, do you know how danger that stuff is?  And you do you know how dangerous 
sneaking into here is?!?  You could have been killed!"  Lady Jaye scolded.
     "Gees, like you care," Laurie grumbled back.
     "You three are all in big trouble," Duke told them.  "First I'll send you down to the 
infirmary to get you all checked out.-  What happened to your eye, kid?"
     "Duke!  Duke!"  Footloose shouted, running up after them.  "Airtight didn't find any 
chemicals in that bag!"
     "What?" Lady Jaye asked, jerking around.    Then to Duke she said, "All of us saw 
him with the chemical."
     Footloose shrugged.  "That's what Airtight said.  There's just computer disks and 
papers in the bag."
    Immediately, Lady Jaye asked Laurie, "Okay, what'd you guys do with that bag once 
you found it?"
    "Nothing," Laurie insisted.  "It couldn't have fallen out."
    Bobby corrected, "Unless it did when Mike an' that guy were fighting?"
    "Jaye, start organizing a group to go search for the missing chemical and alert the local 
authorities.  I'll handle these three."
    "Duke-" Lady Jaye protested.  "Let me handle Laurie, okay?" 
     "I can do it."  Reluctantly, Lady Jaye stopped and went the other way, heading for the 
main computer area, while Duke took the kids to his office.   Duke would rather have had  
Lady Jaye handle this, or at least someone who was better with dealing with children then 
he was.   But he thought Lady Jaye was too emotionally tied up in the situation to be 
objective.
    "Hey!"  Duke yelled back to Lady Jaye, "Call your parents and let them know your 
sister's all right, would you?"
    She shouted back, "No, I'll  let you handle that." 
    Once they reached his office he said, "You kids have no idea how dangers it is for you 
to be here!   And you could have been exposed to a lethal germ warfare agent!" 
    "We didn't know that," Mike grumbled.
     Duke just shook his head.  "What were you kids even thinking?"
     "Uh-h, Mr. Duke, sir," Bobby asked, "are we gonna go to jail or something?"
     "If it was up to me," Duke began to say, then stopped.  "Okay, give me your names 
and phone numbers and I'll call your parents and tell them where you are. Then you all 
are-"   Duke was interrupted by the phone ringing.  
     On the other line was Breaker telling him that Col.  Sharp wanted to talk to him about 
the germ warfare thing.  He had to take the call, even though anything would be better 
then having to explain to the Colonel what may or may not have happened.   "Breaker, 
get someone in her to take these darn kids down to the infirmary... Yes, Colonel..."
     It was five minutes later that Blowtorch showed up.  Already the kids had messed up 
some stacks of papers on his desk and nearly broken his globe while they were waiting. 
The last thing in the world Blowtorch wanted to be doing was baby-sitting.   He was 
technically off duty now and he had plans.  But being the nice guy that he was, he 
volunteered to help out Breaker a few hours ago and then got conned into this job as well. 
     "All right, kids, this way," Blowtorch said, escorting them out.
     Halfway there, Blowtorch was paged.  Breaker must have thought he had already 
taken the kids to the infirmary by now and was out the door.  He wondered what was 
happening.  It must be big, he thought.   He made a detour and headed back to the main 
computer room with the kids in tow to see what was up.
     They walked in a side door.  Standing in front of the computer terminal were Flint and 
Lady Jaye, having a private  conversation.      
    "Yeah, well, we can't really say that much about are families," Lady Jaye was saying.  
"Remember what happened to Scarlett and the other's families.  And I don't even have 
any contact with mine anymore anyways.  I haven't seen Laurie in nearly six years."  
Finally Flint signaled her that Laurie and the others were standing right behind her.  She 
jerked around, hoping that they hadn't heard her. 
      "What's going on, Breaker?" Blowtorch asked him.  
      "We got a big mission cookin'.  Hey, what are they doin' in here?"  he asked, pointing 
at the kids.
      "This is off limits, kids," Jaye said, "Blowtorch you know that."
      "Yeah, but I got paged and... you want to take the kids to the infirmary?  They're 
driving me nuts!"   Lady Jaye just rolled her eyes.  "Fine, I'll do it."
      Flint was about to say that maybe Jaye needed the time to talk to Laurie, but Duke 
paged Lady Jaye right then and told her to report to his office.
     "He must have talked to my mom," she mused with a half hearted chuckle.
      Jaye was hoping that Duke wanted to talk to her about the impending mission.  
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
     As she walked into his office, Duke asked her, "Did Laurie know anything about you 
being in GI Joe before now?"
     "No.  She knew I was in the army.  Duke, I haven't even talked to Laurie in over six 
years, much less told her anything about GI Joe.  She could have seen me on TV, I 
guess."
She paused.  "Honestly, Duke, I have absolutely nothing to do with my family anymore.  
It's a long story and  I'd rather not get into it.  I'm not on speaking terms with my mother.   
Laurie barely knows me.  I don't even know if she would have recognized me if she had 
seen me on tv."
     "All right then,  let's just worry about finding  that chemical.  I'll just send the kids 
home." 
      Just as Lady Jaye was about to open the door, Duke told her, "If you want leave to get 
things squared away with your family, take it.  We can handle this."
     Jaye shook her head no and just shrugged it off, "I'd need a more then a few days to 
get that mess squared away."

     "Blowtorch, get those kids out of here before they get into more trouble," Breaker 
grumbled.
     "All right," Blowtorch sighed, "C'mon, kids."   Reluctantly, they followed.  
     Mike whispered, "You guys see all of that?"
     "All of what?" Bobby whispered back.
     "The map- the location of that Cobra base on the monitor," Mike explained. 
     "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"  Laurie said quietly with a devilish grin. 
     "Okay, but first we gotta ditch Lame-torch."
     "But-" Bobby began to say.
     Mike interrupted, "I've got an idea."   Once they were in the basement, nearing the 
infirmary, Mike signaled Laurie and a reluctant Bobby to sneak off.  Blowtorch was far 
enough ahead that they didn't even notice.  When they approaching the infirmary, he 
turned around and asked. "Where the heck are the other two?"
      "Oh, they went to the bathroom."
      That sent Blowtorch racing back down the hallway to toward the closest rest room.  
Mike met up with his friends upstairs and they began exploring the GI Joe base.
     "Where to now?" Laurie asked.
     "I still want to hot-wire a tank and go blow things up," Mike said.
     "That's gonna have to wait," Laurie said.  "Someone's coming!  Hide!"  They ducked 
off into a hallway as several of the Joes walked by.   They continued down the empty 
hallway until they came to a room that they heard voices inside of.    The door was 
cracked open just barely enough so they could see inside.  It was the planning room.  
Flint, Ace and Roadblock were inside discussing the appending mission.
     "Okay, we need all units to report to hanger 2 at 21 hundred," they heard Flint say.  
"We leave at 22 hundred.  That's all."
     "Move it!"  Laurie whispered with urgency.  They tried to run down the hall as quietly 
as possible to avoid the Joes as they left.  They just barely made it around the corner.
     "Think they saw us?" Mike asked.
     Laurie just shrugged.  "C'mon, guys.  Let's find that hanger 2."
     They headed outside, trying to avoid anyone.  But the base was relatively quiet that 
evening.  They sneaked around, eventually finding what they were looking for.   Hanger 
2 wasn't easy to miss.  In fact, it was the size of four football fields put together.  Inside, 
was a C-105 Galaxy that was being loaded with equipment for the impending mission.  
    "Okay, here's the plan.  We go around in there and then sneak into one of those tank 
and they'll just put us right on there," Laurie told the boys.  "Just wait until the coast is 
clear."  The kids anxiously watched as several Joes in plain green uniforms walked by 
carrying crates of ammunition.  "Hold on.... hold on.... " 
     And just as the Joes were out of the way, and Laurie was about to say now, she heard 
a familiar voice behind her say, "I thought I'd find you three out here." 
    "Alison," Laurie grumbled, standing up.  "What have you been doing? Following us?"
    "No.  It's dangerous for you kids to be out here.  C'mon."  And she quickly added, "I'm 
not letting any of you out of my sight!"
     "Gees, Al, when did you turn into such a stiff?" Laurie grumbled.
      The kids finally were taken to the infirmary where Doc checked to make sure they 
hadn't been exposed to any biological weapons of any sort.  
     Lady Jaye came back a while later.
     "Duke called all your parents.  Needless to say, they are all very worried about you.   
The O'Neils had already called the police.   We're flying you all home tonight."
     "Awh, can't we stay?" Mike pleaded.  "we'll be good, we promise."
     Lady Jaye smirked.  "Sure you will.   C'mon."  They followed her out to the tarmac.
     "So, is mom mad?"  Laurie asked Lady Jaye.
     "I don't know.  Duke talked to her."  Lady Jaye replied, trying to avoid answering 
anything.
     "What he say she said?"
     "I didn't ask," she replied.
     "So... are you coming home any time soon.  I mean,..." Laurie's voice trailed off.
     "G.I. Joe keeps me busy.  I don't get much leave and I-"
     "If you aren't going to come home just say it.  I'm not stupid, okay?"
     "Laurie, it's nothing against you.   You're too young to know what was going on."
     "What was going on?"  
      Before Lady Jaye could reply, Mike enthusiastically questioned, "Do we get to fly in 
one of those?" He pointed to a long line of Sky Strikers that they were approaching.
     "Yeah, right," Lady Jaye replied, leading them to a utility chopper parked off to the 
side.
     "You're tellin' me I got called in from my night off just to fly some kids to 
California?" Wild Bill grumbled.  "Gee whiz."
     Lady Jaye shrugged.  "Sorry, Bill.  Somebody's got to get them home."
     Reluctantly the kids got in the helicopter.  
     "None of you get air sick, do yah?" Wild Bill asked, walking up to the cockpit. 
      "Listen," Jaye said to Laurie, "I'll tell you everything when you're older."
     "Great," Laurie grumbled, climbing inside, "considering that it seems like you never  
plan on seeing me again."
     "I'm not not planning on seeing you again," Lady Jaye replied, showing the frustration 
in her voice.  "I'll call you, okay? "  She smiled faintly, then closed the door.
     "Yeah, right," Laurie grumbled, kicking a toolbox.
     "Hey, don't break anything back there," Wild Bill shouted over the noise of the rotors 
starting up.  "An' buckle yer safety belts an' all that.   There's gonna be a little 
turbulence."
      "Okay, Mr. Wild Bill, sir," Mike shouted back.
      The chopper was about to lift off.  Laurie hadn't finished pouting.  The boys were just 
looking out the window admiring the jets.  Just as the chopper was hovering off the 
ground, Laurie slide open the side window and jumped out.  It had completely taken 
Mike and Bobby by surprise.  Mike followed, as did Bobby, but they nearly killed 
themselves, jumping from nearly ten feet.   Wild Bill, meanwhile, was distracted with a 
weather report from the tower and didn't notice the any of it.  He continued on, thinking 
the kids were still in the back. 
      "God, Laurie, what the heck was that?!?" Bobby whispered loudly. 
     "We've got some unfinished business here," she replied.  "C'mon, back to hanger 2, 
before that plane takes off."

To Be Continued...