As Hiss Willow smirked on the screen, Quincy lunged over the seat-backs and made a grab for Todd's keyboard.
"Don't deal with him!" said Quincy. "We can't trust him!"
Todd wrestled the keyboard out of Quincy's grasp and shot to his feet. "You moron! He's an actor. He only played a conflicted character on the show."
"He's a bad guy in real life, too!" Quincy pointed at the screen. "He's in bed with organized crime!"
"Just a rumor, jerk-off!" said Todd. "We did a background check before we hired him, and he came up clean."
"Hired him?" said Quincy. "You mean he works for you?"
"How do you think we got thousands of fans to join up?" said Todd. "Baine's a resident antagonist. Players have the chance to go up against Hiss Willow himself and foil his schemes. Or team up with him, if he's on the side of justice that day."
Quincy blew out his breath and slumped back in his seat. "Don't trust him," he said to Dunne and Hannahlee. "He could be the Willows killer, for all we know."
Just then, Baine's avatar spoke up. "Hello? Todd? Lianna? Anyone home?"
Todd sat back down and resumed typing. His War avatar patted Baine on the shoulder. "Sorry about the interruption," Todd told him. "Thanks for taking time to help us out."
"My pleasure," said Baine. "I could use a break from all the double-crossing."
"Fold ya so," said Quincy.
Baine's avatar stepped up to Hannahlee's and bowed. "Wonderful to see you, dear sister. You don't look a day older."
Todd popped open the armrest beside him and pulled an earpiece out of the compartment within. Reaching over, he placed it on Hannahlee's ear. "Just talk to him," he said. "This'll catch and transmit your voice."
Hannahlee adjusted the earpiece. "Hello? Baine?"
"In the flesh, my love," said Baine's avatar.
Dunne frowned. Hearing Hiss, the sometime turncoat of the Willows, call Kitty his "love" did not seem right. They were just two actors who had played those roles thirty years ago, but it still felt wrong for the "bad guy" to say that to the "good girl."
"How do I know that's really you?" said Hannahlee. "Other than taking Mr. Myriada's word for it."
Baine laughed. "Remember Acapulco? I called you Joan of Ark." His avatar kissed her avatar's hand. Though the computerized voice didn't catch every nuance of human speech, it dropped and came close to sounding sensual. "Because you were so on fire."
Dunne could not believe what he'd heard. If Hiss calling Kitty his "love" had seemed wrong, the revelation that they'd been intimately involved was downright blasphemous.
Hiss and Kitty? In Acapulco?
Dunne could hardly imagine it happening. In the show, Kitty had always been upstanding, moral, loyal, and unquestioningly trustworthy. Hiss—short for "Hyssop," like the herb—had been an antihero of dubious intent. He'd been the most troubled of the Willows, prone to falling in with bad company and doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He'd strayed from the path of justice and double-crossed his family more than once out of arrogance and stubbornness. Though things had always worked out in the end, his actions had pushed the Willows ever closer to disaster. His brothers and sisters had never been sure of his true loyalties or whether they could rely on him.
With his mingling of good and evil, highlighted by his black-and-white yin-yang motif, Hiss had been closer to reality than the other Willows on the show. Gowdy had designed him as a reflection of America, especially Richard Nixon—positive and negative qualities inextricably linked. As such, Hiss had been a risky character. He had a following and was touted as one of the ground-breaking elements of the show...but he was mostly seen as a villain. It didn't seem possible that he and Kitty—even the actors who'd played them—would have had an affair. Maybe Hiss, on an especially wicked day, might have made a pass...but Kitty? Fall for Hiss? It could never happen.
Except it had.
Hannahlee cleared her throat. "'Joan of Ark?'" she said. "It's really you, all right."
Suddenly, a small piece of gray plastic landed in Dunne's lap. Looking up, he saw Quincy's hand overhead, full of cell phone parts.
"Kitty and Hiss were lovers." Quincy sounded broken-hearted as he let the rest of the parts dribble down. "The ultimate blog scoop. Why didn't I wait to destroy my phone?"
At that point, Todd spoke up. "So what have you got for us, Baine? Anything on our friend?"
"The last time I saw him was weeks ago," said Baine. "His avatar looked like Gary Escuchar."
"Ranch hand at the Weellow place, señor," said Quincy. "Wise old gaucho Latino weeth a heart of gold. Corazon de oro."
"So how many Gary Escuchar avatars are there?" said Dunne.
"A hundred and fifty," said Todd.
"But he's approached me as different avatars, too," said Baine. "He could be anyone."
Dunne sighed. "So how do we find him?"
"I've got an idea about that," said Baine. "But you've got to trust me."
"Why?" said Hannahlee. "What are you going to do?"
As limited as the avatars were in conveying expressions, Baine's avatar managed to shade his grin with menace. "What won't I do?" It was one of his catch phrases from the show.
Baine's avatar snapped his fingers, and a huge bullhorn appeared in his hand. He turned the volume dial all the way up to MAX, then put the mouthpiece to his lips.
"Everybody listen up." Baine's amplified voice boomed over the crowd in Justice Commons. The assembled avatars all stopped what they were doing, fell silent, and looked in Baine's direction.
"I am going to murder my sister. The original Kitty Willow." A knife popped into Baine's hand, and he laid the blade against Hannahlee's avatar's throat. "Only one man can take her place. Only one man can stop the Willows Killer...if he's man enough.
"Cyrus Gowdy, step right up."
For a minute that felt like an hour, none of the avatars in Justice Commons made a move.
"So, Todd," said Dunne. "What'll Baine do if Gowdy doesn't step up to save Hannahlee?"
"Probably kill her," said Quincy. "This is Hiss Fwillow we're dealing with here, remember?"
"Don't worry." On the big screen, Baine turned and winked at them. "It won't come to that."
Dunne had his doubts...but it turned out that Baine was right. Too right.
Just when it seemed that the gambit had failed, a Leif Willow avatar stepped forward. "I'm Cyrus Gowdy," he said. "Let Kitty go."
"See?" said Baine. "I toldja so."
Before Baine's avatar could lower the knife, though, another avatar—Kenya Willow this time—stepped forward alongside the first.
"I'm Cyrus Gowdy," said the Kenya avatar. "Let her go."
And another avatar stepped up beside that one.
"Oh boy." Quincy squirmed and giggled. "I see where this is going."
"I'm Cyrus Gowdy," said the third avatar...and the fourth, and the fifth, and the twentieth.
Groups of avatars stepped forward together, five and ten at a time, all saying the same thing in unison. "I'm Cyrus Gowdy."
Quincy's giggles turned into belly laughs. "Oh God, this is good." He stomped his feet and smacked the back of Todd's seat. "Shades of Spartacus!"
Soon, every avatar in Justice Commons was on its feet, marching toward Hiss, repeating the mantra. "I'm Cyrus Gowdy."
Quincy leaned forward and whispered in Todd's ear. "I'm Cyrus Gowdy, too!"
Todd swatted him away and typed on the keyboard. "Any other ideas, Baine?"
"How 'bout you find the one guy who doesn't say he's Cyrus Gowdy?" said Baine.
"Good idea," said Todd, "but not practical."
"If Gowdy's playing," said Dunne, "where else in the game would he be?"
"Better yet, where's the last place we'd look for him?" said Hannahlee.
"Scratchtown?" said Quincy. "Waystation Cemetery?"
"What place wouldn't he like?" said Hannahlee. "He dreamed up all of it."
"Not all of it," said Todd. "There are places based on alternate sources. Not part of the official Willows canon from the TV show, but still valid."
"'Sources?'" said Dunne. "What 'sources?'"
"So which one would Gowdy like the least?" said Hannahlee.
Todd thought, then typed. "I think I can take a guess."
The scene on the screen changed. The grassy, sunny park became a thick forest pelted by rain.
As Dunne watched, the view rotated from left to right, revealing more trunks and branches. Rainwater ran from the leaves of oak, sassafras, sycamore, and poplar. A sodden squirrel leaped between limbs, then spiraled down a stout trunk with tail rippling.
When the shot turned further, something new appeared—a log cabin, sliding in from the edge of the screen. Light flickered in the windows, smoke curled from the chimney. Red flowers bloomed in window boxes, and a plot along one side burst with the green tangle of a vegetable garden.
A wind chime hung from a corner of the front porch roof. The chime was made from lengths of metal tubing and star-shaped metal pieces, strung at varying heights from a motorcycle helmet.
As the image of the chime sank in, Dunne realized where his avatar had gone. He suddenly knew what part of the world of Weeping Willows he was looking at on the screen.
The metal tubing on the wind chime had been cut from gun barrels and nunchuks. The star-shaped pieces were deadly shuriken throwing stars. The motorcycle helmet was War Willow's.
Dunne knew all about the wind chime, because he'd made it up. He'd written about it in one of his Willows tie-in novels, War No More.
So he himself was one of the "alternate sources" of non-canon locations in Willowtopia.
"Does this look familiar to anyone?" Todd stared directly at Dunne. "Can anyone tell me the name of this place?"
"Willow Grove, Tennessee," said Dunne. "Where War Willow and his common law wife conceived Cyrus Gowdy."