The cavern was dark, and filled with such a stench that even the lowly
slugs held their noses as they passed. Our Fine Hero, crept along, slowly
but confidently, not perturbed by the smell at all, he had walked these
paths many times. Ahead he saw a bright light and proceeded to enter the
main chamber of the dungeon. He squinted slightly but his eye only needed a
split second to focus on the horror before him, directly ahead tied to a
slowly crumbling stalagmite, suspended over a bottomless pit, filled with
piranhas, was Our Fine Hero's One True Love. Quickly he hurried over to her
aid, but was frozen when he heard his dreaded arch nemesis repeat a phrase
that only the truly black in heart could mutter,
"Have you finished those reports for me yet Lizzie?" Our Fine Hero looked up in disgust recoiling from those not so horrible words.
"Hey Lizzie, have you finished with those reports yet. you-who are you even listening to me Lizzie, man it's like I'm talking to a brick wall, HEY LIZ!"
Suddenly CIA analyst Elizabeth Cartwright snapped back into reality. As quickly as Our Fine Hero had dashed in to rescue his One True Love, Lizzie, as her friends or annoyers called her, had closed her favourite computer game and brought up the report she had finished hours ago.
"Umm yes sir, just putting the last details in now sir, you know how I get so caught up in my work sir, just doing the job right is all." Lizzie looked up at Lt. Bradford Shanigan, the department pest who insisted on being treated with respect, but at the same time was a constant bully and nag to all those beneath him.
"Oh and sir, I would remind you that you are to address me as Miss Cartwright in the future, this is after all a government organization," She smirked at him without looking up from the screen.
"Puh-lease Lizard Breath I only respect those who deserve it, now kindly hand over those reports and spare me your annoying presence any longer." Bradford shoved his face into Elizabeth's and grinned slyly. Elizabeth raised her head and looked past him pleased to see both hers and Bradford's bosses General Harold Grippa, head of reconnaissance and Beverly Mackin, head of intelligence coming down the hall.
"And one more thing," Bradford continued, his mind filled with mischief. "I'd like to tell you."
"Why on earth I ever considered hiring a buffoon like you into the defence department," General Grippa had now reached Elizabeth's cubicle and was peering down loathingly at Bradford.
Bradford stood as if all the angry women in the world were underneath him. Caught red-handed, he did his best to compensate for his extremely ignorant behaviour.
"Umm. good day sir just doing a little progress report and talking to Lizzie.umm I mean Miss Cartwright here," he started to sweat a little, fearing for his job.
"Lt. Shanigan I asked you a direct question, do you DARE have to cheek not to answer me?" General Grippa, a powerful man by reputation, now rose to his full height and stature, shaking the air as he did so.
"Umm yes sir, right away sir, just one thing sir, I didn't hear the question sir." Bradford shrunk under the full force of the General's piercing stare.
"I said LT. Why on earth would I ever, in a million years, entrust the state of this country's defence on a simpleton like you." The General's eyes dared Bradford to make a mistake.
"Umm. well sir, in your words, if you don't mind me saying so sir, I'm the best." Bradford looked sheepishly from side to side pondering his escape route.
"By George, you're right man, you are the best, and as the BEST you better start acting like it, because Miss Cartwright here is also the best, and that is precisely why the both of you are going to be working together on your next assignment." The General smiled through his smug defeat.
Elizabeth, on the other hand was both shocked and appalled. All of the genius in her mind couldn't fathom what cruel and twisted fate the General could possibly have in mind for her and her greatest annoyance. However it was Bradford who wound up protesting.
"General Grippa you can't be serious, I mean I'm sorry if I stepped out of line but what good could possibly come out of teaming an agent with an analyst," he sputtered without thinking.
"Did I just hear a complaint from a lesser officer!" The General was now fully enraged and tired of this whiny agent. "How dare you! Now you and Miss Cartwright have the next assignment together and that is FINAL. You will both meet in my office for briefing tomorrow at 0600 is that clear!"
"Yes sir," both Elizabeth and Bradford replied sheepishly as they watched the General depart triumphant.
"Now Miss Cartwright," Miss Mackin said from her place of observance.
"Yes Miss Mackin," Elizabeth replied immediately, ignoring entirely the sputtering of Bradford in the background.
"I know the idea of field work."
"Field Work! But I'm just an analyst! I can't handle the pressures of actual conflict," Elizabeth started to rave. "I mean I have a problem with direct confrontation I."
"I understood that when I recommended you," Miss Mackin interrupted, much as Elizabeth had. "But also understand that you are the best, and most qualified for this position and I have complete faith in you." Miss Mackin beamed down at Elizabeth who, never being one for direct confrontation, melted immediately.
"Yes Miss Mackin," Elizabeth said reluctantly.
"Oh wonderful, I knew you would, oh I told the General that you'd be the one who could handle this ever important assignment," and with that Miss Mackin turned and left Elizabeth to deal with a simpering Bradford.
"I can't believe that I am expected to work with a simpleton like you Lizard Breath," Bradford whined as he turned and started walking away. "Oh and you better not mess this up for me," and with that he turned the corner and left Elizabeth to ponder on the reality of her horrid situation.
The rest of the day passed relatively fast and it seemed like no time before Elizabeth was packing up and leaving for her small flat on the outskirts of the city. She went quickly, stopping only once to pick up the evening paper, which, judging by the large headline held nothing but more bad news. Slowly Elizabeth read the garish headline of the tragic news,
Tragedy Strikes New Cineplex Opening!
Tragedy struck at the opening of the new Imax cinema on Broad St. this afternoon. Local Patrons were shocked when a tall theatregoer picked up a
chain saw, mysteriously undetected and wielded it on an unsuspecting
spectator. Luckily the man left shortly thereafter and no other patrons were harmed. The owners of the establishment commented that things would go on, as planned and security will be stepped up for the premiere of the new Johnny Depp film Pirates of the Caribbean on it's giant four story screen showing this Friday. For more information on purchasing a ticket for this
grand affair contact your local Ticket Master. Local 2845-5677
While Elizabeth was disturbed by the unfortunate events she couldn't help but be excited that one of her new favourite movies would be playing on so large a screen.
"Will Turner would be twice the sexy pirate on a screen that big," she mused to herself as she entered her building and went up to her apartment for some well-deserved sleep. That is, after she revisited Our Fine Hero once again on her high speed computer.
The morning came to quickly for Elizabeth and all to soon she found herself rounding the corner to her office and spying General Grippa and Miss Mackin conversing softly. She held back a little, to make sure they were finished their discussion and then coughed in order to make herself known.
"Umm, Elizabeth Cartwright reporting for duty sir," she said sheepishly.
"Oh wonderful Miss Cartwright, so glad you could join us, now we're only waiting for the Lieutenant," General Grippa said warmly as Bradford came careening around the corner.
"Right here and reporting for duty sir, sorry the traffic was murderous," Bradford smiled as he saw Elizabeth, but any trace of happiness was disintegrated as he looked back at the General, who had lost any trace of happiness.
"YOU are exactly ten minutes late Lieutenant, now shut up with your sorry excuses and follow me NOW," The General than turned back to Elizabeth and smiled in an almost fatherly way. "You come along too, Miss Cartwright, don't dawdle now," Elizabeth followed, dumfounded as the General and Miss Mackin led them to the briefing room.
Miss Mackin motioned for all of them to take seats around the large conference table and dimmed the lights, drawing attention to a large screen on which the face of a surly middle aged man looked, grimacing down at them.
"This," said Miss Mackin smoothly. "Is the notorious gold merchant, Augustine Churchill. And this," she said changing the picture to show a dead man lying on the ground with a chain saw in the middle of his back. "Is the agent we sent to track his whereabouts."
Elizabeth had to look away, reminding herself that this was the main reason she was happy with her desk job. Then she remembered something that she has read the night before.
"Hey!" she spoke up before any tact was thought of. "That was in the paper last night! He was killed at the new Imax cinema wasn't he?" Miss Mackin looked down at Elizabeth slightly annoyed but continued on.
"Yes, Miss Mackin, as I was about to say he was trailing Churchill to the movies, when all of a sudden our transmission with him went dead and before we could respond he was dead. Unfortunately there has been a media leak lately that we have been trying to fix and that no doubt was the cause of Miss Cartwright's outburst."
"Sorry," Elizabeth replied sheepishly, but something was itching at the back of her mind.
"Quite alright, Miss Elizabeth. Now, as I was saying, before our agent was so fiendishly disposed of, he was able to relay back the plans of Churchill to regain his corner on the gold market."
"But why kill him with a chainsaw at a Jason movie I mean that has nothing to do with gold!" Elizabeth blurted out once again.
"AS I WAS SAYING, Miss Cartwright," Miss Mackin was losing a bit of patience and silenced any further outburst or apology from Elizabeth with an icy stare.
"Augustine Churchill has built a machine, a machine capable of creating matter out of a picture. Or in our agents case, a chainsaw out of a movie screen" Miss Mackin paused in order to let the matter sink in. She had scarcely done so when the outcries of both Bradford and Elizabeth reverberated off of the briefing room walls.
"Are you crazy?!" was Bradford's cry.
"That's impossible!" was Elizabeth's.
"You've gotta be kidin me, I mean what kind of idiot do you."
"You'd better not finish your sentence Lt. Shanigan because I'll answer it most bluntly, now sit down and listen to Miss Mackin," General Grippa yelled from his seat.
Miss Mackin composed herself and continued. "Yes you heard correctly, utilizing the most modern in digital imaging technologies Churchill has managed to create matter out of an image. Now as far as we have learned it only applies to inanimate objects, so instead of unleashing the psychopath Jason, he was only able to steal his chainsaw and use it to send us a message. This note was attached to the corpse," Miss Mackin said as she projected an image of a torn piece of paper on the screen. "It states that any further attempt by our defence department to slow his plans further will result in the brining about of far worse weapons." Miss Mackin made to continue, but Bradford interrupted before she could.
"How do we know that this maniac even has this technology? I mean why use a machine that makes weapons out of pictures, in order to get more gold? I mean why steal weapons from movies when they're pretty easy to access anyway? I mean I don't mean to sound negative but any fool could walk into Wal-mart and purchase an Uzi?" Bradford just stared dumbfounded by his own questions.
"Because he's not a murderer stealing weapon's," Elizabeth spoke up, finally realizing the motivation behind this greedy merchants crazy plot. "He's a pirate stealing treasure."
"What?" Bradford yelled incredulously.
"It's almost brilliant in it's insanity, Pirates of the Caribbean is playing this Friday at the Imax centre. There's more gold there than in a lot of places I've seen. He goes, creates it using his strange machine, and then claims that he got it from some secret source. Since the natural gold in the soil has deteriorated over the years, no doubt people will want to survey his land, but he can bribe or kill them if necessary. And suddenly he's at the top of the food chain again, no competition, no nothing, he stands to make a lot of profit out of it." Elizabeth finished and looked around her, Bradford was still dumbfounded, but the General and Miss Mackin were smiling at her.
"That's correct Miss Cartwright, or at least that is what we suspect, given our information. That is why we want you two. Bradford because it's his job to be invisible, and you Elizabeth because we want to know how Churchill came to have this technology, how it works and how we can stop it." The itching worm came back into Elizabeth's mind and she interrupted again before Miss Mackin could continue.
"But why, the Imax? Why risk doing it out in the open where there are witnesses? And for that matter, why a movie at all? Why not just scan a picture from the internet or something?" Elizabeth looked up expectedly.
"These are all questions we asked ourselves too, and it seems that in order for the matter to come out the right size, the image needs to be many times bigger than intended in the end. And if an image was blown up the quality of image would be compromised and the matter would be unstable. Luckily it just so happens that the only screen suiting the right dimensions is this new Imax."
"So," Elizabeth said finally catching on. "The only place where Churchill can carry this out, is at the Imax and now we know the date and time he's going to do it. What do you want us to do?" Elizabeth looked up with renewed determination and excitement in her eyes, there were bad guys trying to steal from her favourite movie and she was going to stop them.
"Elizabeth we want you to get that machine and see how it works, it must be fairly small because Churchill was able to smuggle it in before, and he will again. Bradford we want you to stop and capture Augustine Churchill and bring him back to us, we need to know who else has this technology. You've been told and now I expect both of you to check in with our department of technology and get yourselves properly outfitted."
"That's right," continued General Grippa. "And be proud that in a society in which it is increasingly hard to find dedicated solders, you two are doing a vast service for your country. Dismissed." He concluded by puffing out his chest as if to make the moment even more important.
Both Bradford and Elizabeth stood and started for the door, but Elizabeth hung back. "Do you think I'm really capable of doing this Miss Mackin?"
"Elizabeth I know you are, and if you succeed in regaining this technology, think of the good we can do, world hunger solved, plenty for all," Miss Mackin wore a strange look of satisfaction on her face, but Elizabeth was none the less moved.
"I'll do my best Miss Mackin," she said as she walked through the door.
"I know you will," and then when Elizabeth was out of earshot, "I'm counting on it."
"Have you finished those reports for me yet Lizzie?" Our Fine Hero looked up in disgust recoiling from those not so horrible words.
"Hey Lizzie, have you finished with those reports yet. you-who are you even listening to me Lizzie, man it's like I'm talking to a brick wall, HEY LIZ!"
Suddenly CIA analyst Elizabeth Cartwright snapped back into reality. As quickly as Our Fine Hero had dashed in to rescue his One True Love, Lizzie, as her friends or annoyers called her, had closed her favourite computer game and brought up the report she had finished hours ago.
"Umm yes sir, just putting the last details in now sir, you know how I get so caught up in my work sir, just doing the job right is all." Lizzie looked up at Lt. Bradford Shanigan, the department pest who insisted on being treated with respect, but at the same time was a constant bully and nag to all those beneath him.
"Oh and sir, I would remind you that you are to address me as Miss Cartwright in the future, this is after all a government organization," She smirked at him without looking up from the screen.
"Puh-lease Lizard Breath I only respect those who deserve it, now kindly hand over those reports and spare me your annoying presence any longer." Bradford shoved his face into Elizabeth's and grinned slyly. Elizabeth raised her head and looked past him pleased to see both hers and Bradford's bosses General Harold Grippa, head of reconnaissance and Beverly Mackin, head of intelligence coming down the hall.
"And one more thing," Bradford continued, his mind filled with mischief. "I'd like to tell you."
"Why on earth I ever considered hiring a buffoon like you into the defence department," General Grippa had now reached Elizabeth's cubicle and was peering down loathingly at Bradford.
Bradford stood as if all the angry women in the world were underneath him. Caught red-handed, he did his best to compensate for his extremely ignorant behaviour.
"Umm. good day sir just doing a little progress report and talking to Lizzie.umm I mean Miss Cartwright here," he started to sweat a little, fearing for his job.
"Lt. Shanigan I asked you a direct question, do you DARE have to cheek not to answer me?" General Grippa, a powerful man by reputation, now rose to his full height and stature, shaking the air as he did so.
"Umm yes sir, right away sir, just one thing sir, I didn't hear the question sir." Bradford shrunk under the full force of the General's piercing stare.
"I said LT. Why on earth would I ever, in a million years, entrust the state of this country's defence on a simpleton like you." The General's eyes dared Bradford to make a mistake.
"Umm. well sir, in your words, if you don't mind me saying so sir, I'm the best." Bradford looked sheepishly from side to side pondering his escape route.
"By George, you're right man, you are the best, and as the BEST you better start acting like it, because Miss Cartwright here is also the best, and that is precisely why the both of you are going to be working together on your next assignment." The General smiled through his smug defeat.
Elizabeth, on the other hand was both shocked and appalled. All of the genius in her mind couldn't fathom what cruel and twisted fate the General could possibly have in mind for her and her greatest annoyance. However it was Bradford who wound up protesting.
"General Grippa you can't be serious, I mean I'm sorry if I stepped out of line but what good could possibly come out of teaming an agent with an analyst," he sputtered without thinking.
"Did I just hear a complaint from a lesser officer!" The General was now fully enraged and tired of this whiny agent. "How dare you! Now you and Miss Cartwright have the next assignment together and that is FINAL. You will both meet in my office for briefing tomorrow at 0600 is that clear!"
"Yes sir," both Elizabeth and Bradford replied sheepishly as they watched the General depart triumphant.
"Now Miss Cartwright," Miss Mackin said from her place of observance.
"Yes Miss Mackin," Elizabeth replied immediately, ignoring entirely the sputtering of Bradford in the background.
"I know the idea of field work."
"Field Work! But I'm just an analyst! I can't handle the pressures of actual conflict," Elizabeth started to rave. "I mean I have a problem with direct confrontation I."
"I understood that when I recommended you," Miss Mackin interrupted, much as Elizabeth had. "But also understand that you are the best, and most qualified for this position and I have complete faith in you." Miss Mackin beamed down at Elizabeth who, never being one for direct confrontation, melted immediately.
"Yes Miss Mackin," Elizabeth said reluctantly.
"Oh wonderful, I knew you would, oh I told the General that you'd be the one who could handle this ever important assignment," and with that Miss Mackin turned and left Elizabeth to deal with a simpering Bradford.
"I can't believe that I am expected to work with a simpleton like you Lizard Breath," Bradford whined as he turned and started walking away. "Oh and you better not mess this up for me," and with that he turned the corner and left Elizabeth to ponder on the reality of her horrid situation.
The rest of the day passed relatively fast and it seemed like no time before Elizabeth was packing up and leaving for her small flat on the outskirts of the city. She went quickly, stopping only once to pick up the evening paper, which, judging by the large headline held nothing but more bad news. Slowly Elizabeth read the garish headline of the tragic news,
Tragedy Strikes New Cineplex Opening!
Tragedy struck at the opening of the new Imax cinema on Broad St. this afternoon. Local Patrons were shocked when a tall theatregoer picked up a
chain saw, mysteriously undetected and wielded it on an unsuspecting
spectator. Luckily the man left shortly thereafter and no other patrons were harmed. The owners of the establishment commented that things would go on, as planned and security will be stepped up for the premiere of the new Johnny Depp film Pirates of the Caribbean on it's giant four story screen showing this Friday. For more information on purchasing a ticket for this
grand affair contact your local Ticket Master. Local 2845-5677
While Elizabeth was disturbed by the unfortunate events she couldn't help but be excited that one of her new favourite movies would be playing on so large a screen.
"Will Turner would be twice the sexy pirate on a screen that big," she mused to herself as she entered her building and went up to her apartment for some well-deserved sleep. That is, after she revisited Our Fine Hero once again on her high speed computer.
The morning came to quickly for Elizabeth and all to soon she found herself rounding the corner to her office and spying General Grippa and Miss Mackin conversing softly. She held back a little, to make sure they were finished their discussion and then coughed in order to make herself known.
"Umm, Elizabeth Cartwright reporting for duty sir," she said sheepishly.
"Oh wonderful Miss Cartwright, so glad you could join us, now we're only waiting for the Lieutenant," General Grippa said warmly as Bradford came careening around the corner.
"Right here and reporting for duty sir, sorry the traffic was murderous," Bradford smiled as he saw Elizabeth, but any trace of happiness was disintegrated as he looked back at the General, who had lost any trace of happiness.
"YOU are exactly ten minutes late Lieutenant, now shut up with your sorry excuses and follow me NOW," The General than turned back to Elizabeth and smiled in an almost fatherly way. "You come along too, Miss Cartwright, don't dawdle now," Elizabeth followed, dumfounded as the General and Miss Mackin led them to the briefing room.
Miss Mackin motioned for all of them to take seats around the large conference table and dimmed the lights, drawing attention to a large screen on which the face of a surly middle aged man looked, grimacing down at them.
"This," said Miss Mackin smoothly. "Is the notorious gold merchant, Augustine Churchill. And this," she said changing the picture to show a dead man lying on the ground with a chain saw in the middle of his back. "Is the agent we sent to track his whereabouts."
Elizabeth had to look away, reminding herself that this was the main reason she was happy with her desk job. Then she remembered something that she has read the night before.
"Hey!" she spoke up before any tact was thought of. "That was in the paper last night! He was killed at the new Imax cinema wasn't he?" Miss Mackin looked down at Elizabeth slightly annoyed but continued on.
"Yes, Miss Mackin, as I was about to say he was trailing Churchill to the movies, when all of a sudden our transmission with him went dead and before we could respond he was dead. Unfortunately there has been a media leak lately that we have been trying to fix and that no doubt was the cause of Miss Cartwright's outburst."
"Sorry," Elizabeth replied sheepishly, but something was itching at the back of her mind.
"Quite alright, Miss Elizabeth. Now, as I was saying, before our agent was so fiendishly disposed of, he was able to relay back the plans of Churchill to regain his corner on the gold market."
"But why kill him with a chainsaw at a Jason movie I mean that has nothing to do with gold!" Elizabeth blurted out once again.
"AS I WAS SAYING, Miss Cartwright," Miss Mackin was losing a bit of patience and silenced any further outburst or apology from Elizabeth with an icy stare.
"Augustine Churchill has built a machine, a machine capable of creating matter out of a picture. Or in our agents case, a chainsaw out of a movie screen" Miss Mackin paused in order to let the matter sink in. She had scarcely done so when the outcries of both Bradford and Elizabeth reverberated off of the briefing room walls.
"Are you crazy?!" was Bradford's cry.
"That's impossible!" was Elizabeth's.
"You've gotta be kidin me, I mean what kind of idiot do you."
"You'd better not finish your sentence Lt. Shanigan because I'll answer it most bluntly, now sit down and listen to Miss Mackin," General Grippa yelled from his seat.
Miss Mackin composed herself and continued. "Yes you heard correctly, utilizing the most modern in digital imaging technologies Churchill has managed to create matter out of an image. Now as far as we have learned it only applies to inanimate objects, so instead of unleashing the psychopath Jason, he was only able to steal his chainsaw and use it to send us a message. This note was attached to the corpse," Miss Mackin said as she projected an image of a torn piece of paper on the screen. "It states that any further attempt by our defence department to slow his plans further will result in the brining about of far worse weapons." Miss Mackin made to continue, but Bradford interrupted before she could.
"How do we know that this maniac even has this technology? I mean why use a machine that makes weapons out of pictures, in order to get more gold? I mean why steal weapons from movies when they're pretty easy to access anyway? I mean I don't mean to sound negative but any fool could walk into Wal-mart and purchase an Uzi?" Bradford just stared dumbfounded by his own questions.
"Because he's not a murderer stealing weapon's," Elizabeth spoke up, finally realizing the motivation behind this greedy merchants crazy plot. "He's a pirate stealing treasure."
"What?" Bradford yelled incredulously.
"It's almost brilliant in it's insanity, Pirates of the Caribbean is playing this Friday at the Imax centre. There's more gold there than in a lot of places I've seen. He goes, creates it using his strange machine, and then claims that he got it from some secret source. Since the natural gold in the soil has deteriorated over the years, no doubt people will want to survey his land, but he can bribe or kill them if necessary. And suddenly he's at the top of the food chain again, no competition, no nothing, he stands to make a lot of profit out of it." Elizabeth finished and looked around her, Bradford was still dumbfounded, but the General and Miss Mackin were smiling at her.
"That's correct Miss Cartwright, or at least that is what we suspect, given our information. That is why we want you two. Bradford because it's his job to be invisible, and you Elizabeth because we want to know how Churchill came to have this technology, how it works and how we can stop it." The itching worm came back into Elizabeth's mind and she interrupted again before Miss Mackin could continue.
"But why, the Imax? Why risk doing it out in the open where there are witnesses? And for that matter, why a movie at all? Why not just scan a picture from the internet or something?" Elizabeth looked up expectedly.
"These are all questions we asked ourselves too, and it seems that in order for the matter to come out the right size, the image needs to be many times bigger than intended in the end. And if an image was blown up the quality of image would be compromised and the matter would be unstable. Luckily it just so happens that the only screen suiting the right dimensions is this new Imax."
"So," Elizabeth said finally catching on. "The only place where Churchill can carry this out, is at the Imax and now we know the date and time he's going to do it. What do you want us to do?" Elizabeth looked up with renewed determination and excitement in her eyes, there were bad guys trying to steal from her favourite movie and she was going to stop them.
"Elizabeth we want you to get that machine and see how it works, it must be fairly small because Churchill was able to smuggle it in before, and he will again. Bradford we want you to stop and capture Augustine Churchill and bring him back to us, we need to know who else has this technology. You've been told and now I expect both of you to check in with our department of technology and get yourselves properly outfitted."
"That's right," continued General Grippa. "And be proud that in a society in which it is increasingly hard to find dedicated solders, you two are doing a vast service for your country. Dismissed." He concluded by puffing out his chest as if to make the moment even more important.
Both Bradford and Elizabeth stood and started for the door, but Elizabeth hung back. "Do you think I'm really capable of doing this Miss Mackin?"
"Elizabeth I know you are, and if you succeed in regaining this technology, think of the good we can do, world hunger solved, plenty for all," Miss Mackin wore a strange look of satisfaction on her face, but Elizabeth was none the less moved.
"I'll do my best Miss Mackin," she said as she walked through the door.
"I know you will," and then when Elizabeth was out of earshot, "I'm counting on it."