Arnie Amspoker turned to Samantha. "I'm glad things aren't as bad as I thought they'd be. My daughter texted me back. Said she's worried I might get..."
He never finished the sentence, for at that moment, he was zapped by a Transformation Gun.
Samantha knew right away which Transformation Gun it was. It was the Mime Gun.
Indeed, it could not be any other. Arnie's face was now covered in white mime makeup, and dressed in a strange outfit with a black beret. He appeared to be unable to speak, and pressed his hands against the air as if touching a wall.
"What?" Larry exclaimed.
"Over there!" Carrie Brierton shouted, pointing in the direction of the Transformation Gun wielder before she, too, was zapped. She ended up with white face paint and a purple, black and white outfit. She found herself unable to speak, and started making strange hand gestures.
However, Samantha Duncan and Larry Eastbrook had turned their heads in the direction of Peggy Pegany, another Marketing executive. Therefore, Carrie did not have to engage in a game of charades to tell them who had zapped her.
With the quickness and strength granted to her by the Jock Gun, Samantha rushed over to Peggy and wrestled the Mime Gun away from her. "What do you think you're doing? Is this some kind of joke to you?" Samantha demanded.
"Martin Stragey put me up to it." Peggy Pegany said. "Told me he was going to be Department Head soon, and would give me a big raise in my pay. I just had to make sure certain people kept quiet and didn't report us to McMillan. Besides, this place is just SO noisy."
"Really? You're THAT shallow?" Larry asked.
"Shallow? I'm just looking to better my career." Peggy replied.
"I hate to break it to you, but you're not getting a pay raise." Samantha said. "You're going to be fired. Stragey's little takeover attempt backfired. He's been fired, and when the Board hears you were helping him, you'll be fired too."
"That's impossible!" Peggy replied. "He had a fullproof plan!"
Samantha winced. "I can't believe you said that with a straight face. Do you even KNOW what his plan was?"
"He said he had the best of those weird guns, one that would make Mr. McMillan and the rest do what he wanted." Peggy said.
"It was the Random Gun." Samantha said. "Its effects are just that - random! He was trusting his plan's success to blind luck. Foolproof plan? More like foolish!"
"You lie! The plan HAD to work! He said it would and I trust him!" Peggy exclaimed.
She went on. "When he hears about this, you're going to be the ones who are fired! You all think you're better than us just cause you actually design all the tablets and hardware and electric vehicles and other techy stuff! But you'd be nothing without us in Marketing to help sell it! You're a bunch of ungrateful little..."
Peggy's rant was interrupted by Samantha picking up the Mime Gun and zapping her with it. Peggy was now wearing mime makeup and a mime outfit, and acting like she was stuck in a glass box.
Larry applauded. "Thank you. She was really starting to annoy me."
Samantha laughed. "She needed a time out. Anyway..."
She turned to Arnie and Carrie, placing the Mime Gun in the backpack she'd prepared and picking up her Restoration Gun. She then zapped Arnie and Carrie with the Restoration Gun, returning them to their normal colors and clothes.
"Thank goodness!" Arnie said, breathing a sigh of relief. "That was a nightmare!"
"I tried to speak but the words wouldn't come out." Carrie said. "Thank you!"
"What about her?" Arnie asked, pointing to Peggy, who was attempting to use sign language to communicate. Peggy noted the group staring at her, and raised a middle finger.
"I don't think she'll cause more trouble like this, but just in case, let's restrain her." Samantha replied. She grabbed Peggy and pushed her onto an office chair in a nearby cubicle. Then she pulled a roll of duct tape from her backpack, and motioned to the others. Samantha, Arnie, Larry, and Carrie soon quickly taped Peggy to the chair, wrapping her up with duct tape.
"There!" Samantha said. She noted a few other people were watching them. Some of them had clearly been zapped with the Mime Gun as well. They all watched with clear approval.
"Are you all right?" Larry asked the onlookers. "We have Restoration Guns."
Each of the four took turns zapping people with Restoration Guns. A few minutes later, the only mime in the area was the now-restrained Peggy Pegany.
"Thank you!" said Ms. Hitchens, Darby Adaway's secretary. "I thought we'd be stuck like this forever."
"You're welcome." Samantha said. "Where's Mr. Adaway?"
"He locked himself in his office." Ms. Hitchens said. "He's too scared to come out."
"Fine. We'll call him later when we need him." Samantha said. "You make sure Peggy here behaves herself."
It was just then that Samantha and her three teammates received messages on their phone. It was the group messaging they had set up with Doug Sallow. The message was from Sallow.
Samantha checked the message. "It's from Sallow. He says the doctors have arrived. He'll be escorting them here soon."
With this in mind, Samantha, followed by Larry, Carrie, and Arnie, left Peggy in the care of Ms. Hitchens and the others as they headed off to the waiting area near the Meeting room.
Samantha was glad that they had managed to restore order to the Marketing and Accounting departments without too much hassle or pain. But she had the uneasy feeling that the real difficulty and hardship was still to come. And that what happened next would not be resolved as easily or as neatly.
