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“Welcome back everyone, to Miss Helen’s cabaret. My name is Miss Helen, and today we have an amazing plot featuring our sheriff, Hank, and his trusty sidekick, Henry the Alchemist, going face to face with our exotic villainous queen of crime, Han-Mi.” Helen opened with the intro for that week, smiling as she shouted it into the audience that she couldn’t see.
Hank stood next to her with his hand near his gun. “We’ve received word that Han-Mi is planning on robbing the museum, so we’re going to set up outside the entrance to stop her from stealing any of our precious artifacts.”
They paused for a moment.
“Have you seen Henry today?” Helen eventually asked.
Hank shook his head, “No, I haven’t. Isn’t his line next?”
“Oh god. Well, we’ll just have to improvise a little,” Helen cleared her throat to do an impression of Henry, “She won’t be stealing anything on our watch.”
Hank stared at her, unimpressed. “Please don’t do that. Just speak normally.”
“The audience might love my Henry impression,” she argued.
“I doubt–” Hank was cut off by a loud crashing noise from inside the museum.
“Oh no! She must have snuck around behind us!” Helen exclaimed.
“Let’s go catch that villain!” Hank shouted, and triumphant music played as he kicked down the door of the museum.
“Woah, you might be getting a little over excited there, Sheriff,” Helen laughed nervously, and propped the door back up as she entered with Hank.
They stared around the main entrance room but everything looked undisturbed.
“Wait!” Helen exclaimed, “That vase over there must have been what Han-Mi knocked over! Let’s go look at the side room over there.”
“Good eye Henry!” Hank nodded approvingly.
“You mean me,” Helen corrected, “Henry’s still missing.”
“Oh, yeah. Good eye Helen!” Hank corrected himself as he led them to the antique weapon room right next to the knocked-over vase.
Han-Mi pushed the chair in the corner to get it more in front of the back door of the museum, making a loud screeching sound as it scraped along the floor. With the added height, she was now able to reach up and grab the gun displayed above the doorway. Just then, Hank ran into the room, finally finding her, with Helen entering just behind him.
“Alas sheriff, you are too late to stop my robbery. You forgot to lock the back door of the museum.” She pointed the gun at him.
“I have you now, Henry. Give me all your money.”
“What?” Henry stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Han, you clearly just grabbed that gun from the display. It’s not loaded. Why would the display gun be loaded?”
“Oh shit.” Han-Mi stared down at the gun she had grabbed, disappointed, before she tossed it to the floor. “Well then, I’ll have to go for a good old-fashioned sword.” She nimbly kept down from the chair and ran towards the back of the room with the displays of older weapons. Han-Mi grabbed the sword from the display case and waved it threateningly at Hank. “Better back down now, sheriff. I don’t think you want to know what I’ll do to you.” However, rather than saying that in a threatening tone, her tone was flirty.
Hank didn’t seem to comprehend her flirting, and responded with his own threat in a far more serious tone. “You better return that relic to the museum unharmed, Han-Mi, or I’ll…”
At that very moment, there was a loud crashing noise as Henry threw open the back door to the museum and ran inside, only to immediately slam into the chair next to the door, sending both Henry and chair to the floor.
Hank rushes over to his friend, ignoring the threat of Han-Mi. “Oh my god, Henry, are you okay?”
“Uhh… I’m alright, I think,” Henry grasped Hank’s hand and pulled himself up off the floor.
While Han-Mi was distracted watching the commotion, Helen snuck over and tried to grab the sword out of her hand.
“Hey!” Han-Mi yanked the sword back, with Helen still holding on, throwing her into Han. The sudden weight put Han-Mi off balance, and she leaned on the wall to try and recover her dignity. Her cheeks darkened at the unexpected closeness to Helen. “Let go of my sword!”
“It’s not your sword, it’s the museum’s sword.” Helen gave her a pointed look, “And we’re here to prevent your evil museum heist, so you should be targeting the gemstones.”
At Helen’s reminder of how the script went, Han bristled. “Well maybe, it makes more sense for me to steal a weapon to fight than go after the stupid gemstones. What would I need gemstones for anyway?”
“You can sell them, but that’s not the point. Please just follow the script this time Han, for me?” Helen looked Han in the eyes and successfully pulled the sword out of her loosened fingers.
Han-Mi stepped back and announced in a deadpan voice, “Oh no! I’m running away to go steal things from the museum.” She turned on her heel and briskly walked out of the room.
Hank and Henry looked over at Helen from the doorway where they watched the whole interaction.
“Well? Let’s go catch that evil Han-Mi!” Hank declared, and they all ran after her.
The voices from the radio abruptly halted, and Han-Mi was thrown back into the present, unable to keep pretending she was still back in the cabaret with Helen and the others. She jerked over to the radio and fiddled with the buttons, but it didn’t seem like there was any way to make it play the cabaret again.
She tried to ignore the voice in the back of her mind that reminded her Raven had said in the collective unconscious it was impossible to tell what dimension you would get radio signals from, so she might never be able to tune in again. She clicked through channels, getting everything from weird techno funk to ska-punk recordings of questionable quality, but she couldn’t hear her friends again.
Han stepped back from the radio and collapsed onto the floor next to her bed.
Her eyes closed as she focused on inhaling. She could hear faint circus music playing from outside. A tear rolled down her cheek as she let out her breath.