Chapter 8: The Wrong Vine!!!

When the men came to they found themselves in some large underground chamber. Jim scrubbed at his eyes and grimaced at a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. His voice came out in a low, manly rasp.
"Men, all present and accounted for?"
The men began sounding off, which took a little while and gave them time to get over the effects of whatever drug or gas or poison dart had clouded their minds. When the roll call came to an end it appeared that, indeed, all the men were present and unharmed. The chamber they had awoken was warm and dry and decorated in an industrial motif, with pipes running along the ceiling and walls, a heavy steel door at the stop of a metal staircase and (frankly) an overuse of brick and concrete. Jim tore his thoughts away from interior design and got to the matter at hand.
"Alright men, what's the last thing you remember?"
The men considered for a moment.
"Monkeys!!"
"Prison!"
"Mummy!" cried Heiroglyph Hank.
Jim leapt on this. "AHA! We were rescued by a band of vigilante mummies!"
"No, sir. Not those kind of mummies. My mother. "
"We were rescued by your mom?" All the men looked around nervously. You didn't want to cross Hank's mom.
"No sir, that's the last thing I remember."
Jim sighed, he'd tried earlier in the year to get the men on ginko-biloba supplements to improve their memories but Hank had some sort of immunity to memory-improving herbs.*
"Alright, men. Does anybody remember how we got out of the police station?"
The door at the top of the stairs flew open and voice rang out in the darkness.
"I believe I can answer that question.....brother!"
The men whirled around to see a large man leap off the metal stairs and grab on to a chain hanging from the ceiling. The man wore a black duster that billowed magnificently as the swung down from the ceiling. His steel tipped cowboy boots sparked as the landed on the concrete.
Then man was massive. His sable curls seemed almost to touch the very heavens...or brick.
Anyway.
The enormous man strode forward and the heels of his boots beat out a slow rhythm on the concrete. From somewhere in the room a skirl of guitar music sounded.
The men sighed. What overwhelming bravado!
Jim sighed. What a bunch of bullshit.
The lower half of the man's face was covered in a bandana, but not one of those wimpy paisley pattern ones. No. This one had a geometrical motif.
The men sighed. They loved geometry!
Jim thought he recognized the table cloth from mom's house.
With hands capable of rending dictionaries limb from limb** the man tore the bandana from his face.
The men gasped. He looked exactly like JIM!!!
Jim gasped. "You got your teeth fixed!"
The man grinned even wider and the shadows fled from the brilliance of his mirth.
"Ha Ha! Jim you scallywag. Never going to let me live that down, eh?" Nigel, for it was undoubtedly he, turned the full luminescence of his smile on the men. Albino Al's tender eyes began to water mercilessly. "When we were young I had to bite through a cage that Jim had gotten himself locked in." Nigel snapped his teeth thunderously.
Jim jumped up and began to protest. Nigel looked him in the eye and mouthed the word "apricot".
Jim fell silent. Damn Nigel. Damn him to heck.
Nigel through one arm around Jim and the men stared in disbelief. Nigel was actually taller and larger than their magnificent leader. How could such a thing be?
"Well" boomed Nigel, "I'm glad to see that the gas has left you none the worse for wear. Sorry for the lack of gas masks. My brother's constant scrapes leave one so little time for adequate planning."
The men looked at each other nervously. While they didn't really want to naysay Jim, they had to admit: they knew exactly what Nigel meant. Plus they were a little disappointed that Nigel used something as gauche as gas instead of proper darts dipped into the backs of proper tree frogs. This was the city though, and one did have to lower one standards a bit.
The men loved good manners.
Jim spoke up "Rescue! Ha! We were doing absolutely fine without you. The only thing you were trying to rescue was your own anonymity. I saw the photo Nigel. Just what have you been up to in this city's libraries?"
The men were shocked. Improper library behavior? And no darts?
Nigel laughed (again) and slapped Jim on the back.
"All in good time Jimmy. First let me introduce you to my men. Men! Saddle up!"
The guitar music swelled and from every dark corner of the room men began drifting forward. Each had long dusters with promising looking toolbelts just visible. Many had bandanas stretched across their faces and one carried a well-worn guitar.
"Jim...Jim's Men. I give you...Los Eruditos!"
Dan sighed. Brothers.....


*Sorry we can't remember what this one was about.
** Nigel is actually a 5th degree blackbelt in book violation.