Mom is visiting Aunt Ethel. 173 Lilac Lane, Upper Luddberry. CYA soon.

I felt a familiar thrill as I read the text message then deleted it. “Mom” was one of our best agents; if she was calling in backup, then this was big. Very big.

Two hours later, I pulled up in front of the small cottage on Lilac Lane. Chintz curtains twitched at the window as I walked up the flower-lined path. Before I could knock, the door flew open and I found myself wrapped in a death grip.

Fortunately, I recognized the technique. Although I hadn’t worked with her in five years, Mom hadn’t changed a bit. Her gray helmet of hair, thick glasses and shapeless dress effectively masked the woman underneath; nobody in her Garden Club would ever believe that her hands were licensed to kill – and had.

“Jack! It’s so good to see you again! How are Suzy and the boys? Come in and get out of those cheap city clothes. It’s about time that you relaxed…”

I gave her another hug and looked around. If Mom was calling my Gucci’s cheap, then I knew that she was under tight surveillance.

“Now, go get changed and then we can talk. I have a few errands I was hoping you could run.” She swept me into a small bedroom in the back. My disguise was simple – a flannel shirt, denim overalls, and some sturdy boots completed the ensemble. A quick change and I was sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a piece of homemade apple pie. Mom was a woman of many talents.

“Jack, dear, I was wondering if you could do a favor for me. I’m a little short on money this month, so I’m going to have to sell my cow. I know you love Lulabelle as much as I do, but the time has come to part with her. There’s a man in the market who’ll give you a fair price.” Sharp blue eyes stared at me from behind thick lenses, willing me to understand.

“Lulabelle’s milk…is better than a golden egg. I'm sure that he'll buy her.”

The Agency had spent 14 months searching for Dr. Goliath’s secret lab. Nicknamed the Golden Egg, it turned out some of the world’s deadliest – and most expensive – toxins. Sounded like Mom might have located it.

“Well, what are you waiting for? The cow’s outside. Get going.”

Looking up, I was surprised to see a live cow grazing contentedly in the back yard. A quick glance told me that there was no way Lulabelle was going to fit in the passenger seat of my Jaguar. We would have to hoof it.

Twenty minutes later, Lulabelle and I entered what I assumed was downtown Upper Luddberry. A small street fair was in full swing, complete with music, a juggler and various vendors selling their wares. The small crowd didn’t seem to find anything strange about a man in overalls walking a cow down the middle of the road.

I spotted Shifty Eyes immediately.

“Nice cow,” he wheezed.

“Her name’s Lulabelle.”

“I’ve heard that Lulabelle’s milk…is better than a golden egg.”

“That’s right. And she’s for sale. What will you give me for her?”

Grimy hands dug in his pocket and came out with five beans.

“These are magic beans. Amazing what you might find if you planted them.”

I traded Lulabelle for the beans and headed back to Mom’s. I was almost to the flowered path when I heard muffled sounds, then a strangled shout.

“Plant the beans! Plant the –“

I pulled three of the beans out of my pocket and threw them to the ground. On impact, they exploded into huge vines, twisting together as they shot into the sky. I grabbed a leaf and was 10 feet off the ground before Dr. Goliath and his men made it through the door.

Thirty feet up, the vines took a sharp left and moved away from the road; after a quarter of a mile, the incredible legumes slowly descended onto the roof of an old barn. It looked just like any other barn – except for the expensive ventilation equipment cleverly disguised as bales of hay.

Mom had found the Golden Egg.

The vine trembled slightly and I turned to see Doctor Goliath drop off a leaf and start towards me, hypodermic needle in hand. I ran to the nearest ventilation shaft, tossed in the beans and waited. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…

Vines burst through the roof of the barn, carrying lab equipment with them. I grabbed the first equipment-free leaf and rode into the air. The vines swayed back and forth dangerously, but I managed to hold on. Dr. Goliath wasn't so lucky. The new plant swept him off the vine. I heard a brief scream - then silence.

As I soared through the air, I pulled out my phone and hit speed dial 7.

"Mom needs a clean-up crew in Upper Luddberry. The Golden Egg is out of business."

"And the giant is dead."

Chase Jackson had less than twenty hours to procure a 20-carat ruby from an isolated gemstone mining company. Without that ruby, there'd be no kilowatt ruby laser, and thus no trigger for the gigawatt fusion deflection device, and thus no way to keep Asteroid NEO 2008d from destroying the Earth.

Once again, it was up to Chase Jackson to save humanity.

He peered through the scope of his M16 rifle, systematically surveying the little house in the clearing. He didn't expect trouble, but he kept his finger near the trigger, just in case. Anyone coming out of the door with a raised weapon would be greeted with a 5.56mm round, right through the heart. Chase didn't want to do that, though: Dead miners make terrible jewel vendors, and if his primary plan failed, he'd need them alive.

The primary plan was to steal the ruby and thus avoid protracted negotiations. The family-run enterprise that worked the mine was so isolated, and so suspicious of outsiders, that they probably didn't know about NEO 2008d, and there wasn't time for a civilized discussion. If the asteroid were destroyed, the ruby would be returned, and no one would be the wiser. If the mission failed, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

His first problem had been to locate the mine—the Agency did not know exactly where it was. The fellow that ran security for the mining company—"Doc" somebody; no one knew his real name—was too good at his job. Undeterred, Chase had surreptitiously entered the house the previous night, while the occupants were sleeping, to plant a GPS tracking device in one of their lunch buckets. When the miners left that morning, their route, and ultimately the mine's location, had been transmitted to Chase's wristwatch. Tonight, Chase needed to retrieve the bug, make his way to the mine, steal the ruby, and return to the Agency. Meanwhile, he needed to keep the house secure: There could be no last-minute complications.

Not one, thought Chase.

Chase completed another surveillance sweep of the house. It was getting dark; the workers would be back from the mine before long. The hardest part was the waiting. Suddenly, a stooped figure shuffled out of the woods on the other side of the clearing, carrying a basket of apples.

Okay, maybe just one last-minute complication, thought Chase. A little one.

The old woman knocked on the door to the house, and the fetching housekeeper opened it. Chase watched through the scope. It was his first good look at the housekeeper, and the sight of her milky white skin, ruby lips, and ebony hair might have given rise to impure thoughts, except that Chase was too well-trained, too disciplined, and too self-controlled for such unprofessional behavior. He kept the cross-hairs trained on her cleavage, though, just in case she had any concealed weapons he might need to know about.

The housekeeper chatted with the old woman for a few minutes. Then the hag offered the housekeeper one of the apples, and Chase watched in horror as the housekeeper took a bite, and then collapsed.

OK, two last-minute complications, but that's it. No more, thought Chase.

Just then, off in the distance, he heard seven more last-minute complications—the miners, hi-hoeing their way back to the house.

While the hag did a little dance over the fallen housekeeper, Chase, thinking quickly, mounted a projectile launcher to his M16 and fired a single tranquilization gas grenade at the old woman. Seconds later, she was in dreamland. Chase ran to the prostrate pair, and immediately attended to the housekeeper. He confirmed that she had a weak pulse, slow respirations, and was clear of hidden weapons. Her breath smelled like roasted almonds and anisette.

Curare, he thought. It was an effective alkaloid-based paralyzing agent made from indigenous plants.

Chase could hear the miners quite clearly now; he had only seconds to save the mission. He reached into a cargo pocket and retrieved an epinephrine injector, and administered it to the housekeeper. It would keep her alive until she reached a Level 1 trauma center. Then he found the antidote for the tranquilization gas, and injected both women. He ran back to his observation post just as the miners reached the clearing and the old woman struggled to her feet.

She saw the miners and began to run; they dropped their tools and lunch buckets and ran after her. Chase ran to the pile of lunch buckets and recovered his tracking bug. He spent the rest of the night hiking to the mine, retrieving the ruby, and withdrawing to the rendezvous point. A waiting helicopter flew the ruby to the nearest airport, where it was put on a supersonic flight to Vandenberg Air Force Base. It got there in the nick of time, and humanity was saved once again.

On the way back to the Agency, Chase stopped off at a tattoo parlor to get another little tattoo of the Earth added to the scoreboard on his right bicep, right below the silhouettes of fourteen villains and the picture of the planet Mars.

As for the housekeeper, she had to find her own Prince Charming.

Gretel woke to the sound of the old woman screaming, as she did every morning.

"Wake up!" the wicked hag shrieked. "Fetch some water, lazybones! I'm eating your brother today, fattened up or not."

Gretel, a frightened little girl in a torn dress, quickly rose from her filthy mattress in the corner. In the cage across the room, she saw her brother, Hansel, looking at her from between the bars. His face was gaunt, but his blue eyes were strong. Don't worry about me, they seemed to say. Whatever happens, be brave. I know you'll find a way to escape.

Every morning those determined blue eyes gave Gretel the courage she needed to face the horrors of the day.

"Girl!" the old crone bellowed. She was hunched over a cutting board, chopping gnarled, moldy carrots for stew. "Hurry up, or I'll have your kidneys for an appetizer."

Gretel hurried to the closet and retrieved a pail as the old woman hobbled over to Hansel's cage, waving her walking stick in a menacing fashion. "Hold out your finger!"

Hansel stuck a chicken bone between the bars. The cloudy-eyed old bat, who relied mostly on her keen sense of smell, grasped the bone briefly, then frowned. "Doesn't matter. Still as scrawny as a mangy dog, but I'm eating you anyway. I haven't had meat since my mule died three weeks ago."

Gretel went outside, tears streaming down her face. She felt the warm sunshine, and the grass under her bare feet; she smelled the wildflowers and the sweet, spicy aroma of the gingerbread house in which she and her brother were prisoners. She wondered, not for the first time, how someone so wicked could live in such a magnificent house. But Gretel dared not dawdle; she still carried bruises from her last encounter with the old woman's temper.

Gretel was so wrapped up in her little world of woe that she didn't notice the man and woman by the river until she was nearly on top of them.

"Hello," said the man. He had a handsome, weathered face that was not unkind, and he was dressed in clothes of a style that Gretel had never seen.

"Don't be frightened," the woman said, her eyes glittering beneath a tangled mop of hair. She was holding a strange metal box in her gloved hands. "We won't hurt you. What's your name, sweetheart?"

Gretel whispered her name, clutching the pail tightly.

"Nice to meet you, Gretel," the man said. "As I was saying, Sprocket my dear, the time machine appears to have trapped us not in another century, but in another dimensional reality altogether. I know it sounds ludicrous, but three bears living in a house and eating porridge is simply not something you would find in a normal —"

"Chase, she's scared to death," the woman interrupted, bending to one knee to get a better look at the terrified girl. "It's okay, Gretel. Don't be afraid. What's wrong?"

"My ... my brother," Gretel began, and then burst into tears. She hurled herself into Sprocket's arms, sobbing as she relayed her terrible tale ... about how she and Hansel had been abandoned by their stepmother ... about the house made of candy and gingerbread ... about its evil occupant, who at this moment was planning to cook Hansel in a stew. As she wept, Sprocket grew angrier and angrier.

"The poor little thing," she said. "We have to do something, Chase. This girl needs our help."

"I understand," Chase said. "Really I do. But need I remind you, Miss Smith, that we are lost in time and space, that we're completely out of uranium fuel, that you've been tinkering with that time-warp reactor coil for an hour and you're no closer to fixing it than when you began, and —"

"Chase Jackson!" Sprocket snapped admonishingly. "Need I remind you that you are a legendary action hero, and that saving little boys and girls from the clutches of villains is clearly outlined in your job description?"

Chase blinked. He looked at Sprocket Smith, who was tenderly holding the fragile, trembling girl, and shook his head as though clearing out moths.

"I'm so sorry," Chase said, looking chastened. "I don't know what came over me just now. How very embarrassing."

He knelt and brushed a strand of hair from Gretel's tear-streaked face.

"Please don't cry," he said. "I'll rescue your brother — you have my word. Tell me about this witch. Does she keep any machine guns in her candy house?"

"Machine guns?" Gretel said, sniffling.

"Hand grenades?" Chase ventured. "How about Stinger missiles — does she have any of those? Plastic explosives? Do you know of any laser-guided rocket launchers that I need to be aware of? Are there anti-personnel mines on the premises? Does she have an M4 Sherman tank at her disposal?"

Gretel frowned. "I ... I don't think she has any of those things. She has a hard stick that she hits people with."

"I see," Chase Jackson replied, rising to his feet and drawing a pair of .357 magnum Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistols from their holsters. "Well, let's go and have a little chat with her, shall we?"

Chase came through the portal gun in hand and immediately tripped on a stray branch. He tucked and rolled coming up with his back firmly planted against the trunk of an immense tree.

There was no one around which was just the way that Chase liked it. He took a deep breath and relaxed. The air smelled funny. He didn't like it, but then Chase didn't like anything about this mission. His contact was someone named Red. She was supposed to take him into town to meet a group called Three Pigs.

He heard singing which got louder and more out of tune. He peeked around the tree and groaned silently. This was worse than he thought. She was obviously his contact, but she was just a kid.

“Pssst, Red,” he whispered. She turned and looked at him with wide eyes, then relaxed.

“Don't do that,” she said, “I thought you were someone else. Let's go before he does come along.”

Chase followed the kid in the red cloak. She carried a large basket and skipped along the road. Red started singing again. Out of tune again.

“Relax,” Red told him, “If you keep skulking around like that people will notice.”

“And they don't notice a kid in a red cloak singing badly?”

Red grinned up at him. “They're used to it.”

A little farther on she turned and looked at him again.

“Don't skip,” she said, “People will think you're nuts.”

“You're skipping.”

“I am a little girl. I am supposed to skip. Let's get going.”

They arrived in a small clearing with three odd houses.

“Oh no,” muttered Chase, “first children and now animals?”

A pig stuck his head out of the door of the straw house.

“Over here,” he waved at them to hurry.

“No one saw you?” the pig said as he closed the door.

“Just the trees,” said Red. “Here's your man. I have to get moving. You know how Grandma gets if you keep her waiting.”

“Yeah,” said the pig, “She'll bite your head off. Watch out for B.B. I heard he's in the area.”

“Great,” said Red, rolling her eyes. “That's all I need.” She swung her basket around and skipped out of the clearing.

“Cute kid,” said Chase as he followed the pig into the house.

“I'm a pig.” his host replied, “What do I know?”

“Right,” Chase shrugged, “So lets get down to business, Porky”

“Call me Straw,” grunted the pig.

He led Chase to the back of the house where two more pigs waited for him.

“Sticks and Bricks, I'm guessing,” said Chase. They just nodded.

“Did you bring it?” asked one. For an answer Chase handed over a small heavy box. Straw opened it to reveal a gun and a row of silver coated bullets.

“B.B. is in trouble now,” gloated one of the pigs.

“Quiet,” hissed Chase, “Someone's outside.” He put put his eye to a crack in the wall. “There is a big bad wolf out there.”

“B.B.” said the pigs, “How did he find us?”

“No time for that,” yelled Chase, “He just lit some dynamite! Take the gun and get out of here. I'll try to hold him off.” He scooped the box toward the pigs then drew his own gun. Chase crashed through the straw walls and sent three shots at the wolf. The wolf growled and threw the explosive at the house, then loped into the woods. Chase ran after him. The house behind him erupted in flame.

“I hope the pigs got out, or they're toast.” muttered Chase.

“Don't you mean roast?” said Red. She pulled a gun out of her basket and pointed it at Chase. Her shot hit him dead centre in his chest. Blackness descended.

Chase woke slowly. Gritting his teeth, Chase pushed himself to his feet. The vest had saved his life. He slipped back toward the edge of the clearing. Two houses were gone, and the wolf had just thrown dynamite at the brick house. It barely left a mark on the house.

He spotted Red watching from the sidelines. It only took a moment for him to grab her. He soon had her tied and gagged. He wasn't shooting a kid, not even a bad one.

Back to the wolf. Chase got a couple of good shots before the wolf spun and threw dynamite at him. The spy threw himself to the side and shot the wolf again, but his bullets didn't seem to hurt the beast.

Silver, thought Chase as he dodged another explosion. He ran toward the house with the wolf on his heels. The door opened just long enough for Chase to slip through before the pigs slammed it shut and barred the door.

“Why didn't you shoot him?” said Chase, glaring at the pigs.

The pigs just held up their feet.

“The gun is for Grandma,” said one. “Time for you to get out of here. B.B.'s gone for now, but he'll be back. He always comes back.”

Yeah, I was a kid once, name of Hansel. Tell anybody that and you will disappear. You can call me Chase like everybody else. I won’t tell you my last name to protect my relatives.

I had a rough home life, dad was a woodcutter, pretty good at his job, but there isn’t much in the way of advancement opportunities in that line of business. Mom was OK too, until she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and went into a coma. Another woman moved in real quick, name of Esmeralda, and I had my suspicions about her at first sight.

Dad, who wasn’t the sharpest axe in the shed of course married her.

Now at the time I was already with the agency, and they had me on assignment looking for a coven of witches. I figured I had found one, but I needed proof. So I stuck a bug in my dad’s bedroom, and listened in. Step-mom dearest was already trying to lose his two brats, that would be me and my sister Gretel, and she wasn’t wasting time with it. She finally convinced him to lose us in the woods. I wasn’t too worried, I had hidden a GPS in the attic of the house, and I was carrying the tracker. Gretel had her own idea and picked up a bag of stones. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I went along with it.

So dad takes us into the woods on a log cutting mission. I am pretty good with an axe myself and between the two of us; we had the cart loaded by noon. Dad takes off with a promise “to be back for another load,” so we sat and waited.

Toward dusk Gretel started getting the idea that maybe he might not be coming back, and began following her trail of stones. She was pretty good at it too. I kept track with my device, but there was no need to correct our course and we ended up home in time for dinner. Dad mumbled about having something important come up. Poor guy, old Esmeralda was going to give him a tongue lashing, she didn’t need any help from me.

I listened in again that night. Yeah, Esmeralda was at it. Apparently Gretel and I were eating them out of house and home. Funny thing she never mentioned those packages of food she was always taking with her. She talked dad into abandoning us again. Only this time, she told him where to do it. I found that interesting. I spent the rest of the evening sharpening my axe.

Morning came and we were marched out again. Gretel had run out of stones, and pilfered a loaf of bread instead. Since it didn’t matter, I didn’t point out the obvious problem with that to her. Dad took us even deeper into the woods in an entirely new direction, circling around once or twice to really throw us off. When we got to the place to cut down the trees we were about 10 miles from home... 9.657 to be exact... NNE.

We made short work of the cutting; dad loaded up the cart, and without a backward glance took off again. Gretel at this point had figured out what was going on, and started crying. I had to calm her down before we proceeded.

We started down the breadcrumb trail when we came across a flock of birds feasting on bread crumbs in our honor. So much for the trail. I could have taken us straight home, but I wanted a look around there first.

We wandered around aimlessly for a bit, and came across a gingerbread cottage - trimmed in icing and candy canes. Either we had blundered into the north pole, or this was the place for which we were looking.

Gretel grabbed a piece of the house and started nibbling. I took a piece and sniffed it, something didn’t smell right. Then Gretel’s eyes started dilating, and she began talking to invisible fairies. Yep, this was the place.

A voice from inside the cottage said “Nibble nibble like a mouse, who’s that nibbling at my house?”

Gretel, still completely out of it, chanted something stupid about the wind. An old hag came out - one who bore remarkable resemblance to Esmeralda. I hid behind Gretel so she couldn’t see my eyes were not dialated and she marched us in.

She opened the oven, and indicated I should check out the goodies inside. I was always taught “ladies first” and pushed her in instead, slamming the door shut, and wedging it with my axe. The banging from the inside didn’t last long.

I searched the cottage, finding some very incriminating papers, money that looked suspiciously like dad’s retirement savings, and a little vial of red liquid marked “Spinning Wheel Antidote.”

I put a locater in the cottage, notified the office I had found their coven, and started back toward home. Gretel snapped out of it about half-way there. We made a brief side trip to where mom still lay comatose, and I gave her the antidote. She awoke immediately, and we set off for home to tell dad the good news.

A young Chase Jackson stood in the shadows waiting to make his move. Turning the axe over in his hands he knew exactly what to do. He had rehearsed this scene over and over for the past few weeks and now it was time to put it into motion.

He watched as the girl approached the cottage. She wore a hooded red cloak which obscured her face from his vision and clutched a small wicker basket covered with a red plaid cloth. Her walk was one of pure confidence, more like that of a catwalk model than the innocent gait of a young girl delivering baked treats to her sick grandmother. She slipped through the doorway silently without so much as a knock to alert anyone inside of her presence.

From his vantage point the could clearly see into the bedroom of the old building. The dark room housed a large ominous wooden bed, the presence of which was matched only by its occupant. In the bed sat a horrific creature dressed in a woman's nightclothes.

The girl entered the room swiftly closing the door behind her causing the wolf to look up, his eyes widening with expectation.
“Grandma!”, “What a big nose you have” she said, but under her breath with pure venom she whispered “Spying within my father’s company, he trusted you! How dare you betray him like this!?”.
Chase noted how the wolf shifted uneasily.
“What a big Mouth you have!” she cried. “Reporting back to your bosses, naming every person within our company. Well look where it got you. Nasty stuff when spilt on naked skin isn’t it?!” she spat. “As you know, we've been working on this formula for quite some time now. It was created to cause mutations and judging by your sorry face I see it works well, nice bit of hair growth too I see”. She laughed manically, a laugh that would make a witch’s cackle seem cheery.

Scrabbling with the sheets the wolf tried to make a pounce for her but his contorted body impeded him. Red reacted quickly, snatching the revolver from the basket. With a well trained aim she fired at the mutated spy, the bullet passed straight through his skull and his body fell limply to the floor.

“Get well soon Grandma” she smirked and turned to leave.

Chase threw himself at the window using the axe to break the glass before his body touched it. On seeing him, the girl turned and ran. Collecting himself from the floor without time to brush off the shards of glass Jackson pursued the girl as she fled the cottage into the woodland outside. He emerged from the cottage just in time to see her disappear into the trees. To his left he heard a soft whimpering. He turned to see two bound bodies hidden in the bushes. As he stooped to untie them he noticed the boy was wearing a large fur coat and the girl a familiar red cloak. To the side of them rolling back and forth was a large hollow wolf head. A mask.

The sound of splintering wood grabbed his attention. Chase looked up to see a huge painted tree plummeting towards him. He rolled to the side. It hit the floor with a thud. It was then that he heard the same dry chuckle.
“Well well, what do we have here? Another Jackson I presume?” she said drawing back her red hood to reveal her face.
“Ursula!”, he recognized her instantly from the endless records his father had shown him in hopes that he would follow in his footsteps. Chase however had dreams of becoming an actor but his debut performance in the school play was taking a dramatic turn. Ursula was the daughter to the president of a huge weapons company and a trained assassin, she laughed at his confusion.

"He played the part of the wolf wonderfully don't you agree? Didn't even need a costume. I was puzzled to see that he was hiding here, a school play of all places! But now I see his logic. He knew Chase Jackson was to play the part of the woodcutter and sought protection. I don't think he knew that you shared the name with your father. I doubt he thought YOU could help him!" she taunted as she stepped out in front of the fake cottage once more. Behind her chase caught a glimpse the rope used to hold the set in place.

"Any last words before I kill you, Chase Jnr.?"

Chase tightened his grasp on the axe handle.

"Oh Mr Jackson, what a big AXE you have!" she sneered

"All the better to BEAT you with my dear!" he roared and swung the blade at the rope.
The wooden cottage creaked as the rope snapped. She turned as the huge structure hit her in the face and knocked her to the ground.

The curtain fell and the audience applauded awkwardly, unsure of what they had just seen.
Of course a cover had already been prepared as they would find out when they read the newspaper the next day which would be titled:
“Artistic Genius: A Classic Story With A Modern Influence”

Chase looked up to see his father whose face was a beacon of pride amongst the bewildered crowd.

Perhaps he might enjoy the family business after all.