Drinking a corona and eating a bowl of cicerones, Carlos Estevan Juan Deleraga III sank into the black leather LaZboy, turned on the new 58" flat wide screen, and watched the local news. What he saw next made him spit out the lime wedge he had been working on with his teeth and spill beer from his nose. "Carlito, mi hijo call the boys in here now!!!" yelled the still spluttering Carlos Estevan Juan Deleraga III, "Grande Oso" or "Big Bear" as his underlings called him. "Damned Chinos!!! Puta de Madres," he yelled in syncopation with his fist pounding the coffee table next to the LaZboy. The scar on his left cheek right under his eye was a livid white as the muscles in his jaw ground in anger. There would be hell to pay, and if the Japanese wanted to play hardball… he would play their game. His new source of income, Zombie Dust, had made him a wealthy man, and no one would be threatening his means of livelihood. As his men entered the room, they quietly waited for their boss to inform them, for now they watched as he raged quietly. At 6’ 9" and a muscular 275 lbs of muscle, Carlos Estevan Juan Deleraga III looked like the angry bear he was named after. "Men, there is a situation occurring and it displeases me greatly," said "Grande Oso" in a calmer mood. "They have come into our business, La Bodega, and killed everyone." He amended quickly, "Juan I am truly sorry, those bastardos had no mercy for anyone. They shot your sister Carla in the back." His right hand man nodded, and the glare that came from the hate-filled eyes told him that he had Juan’s full cooperation. "Take care of this and prepare for our business in Mexico, these Chinos must be aware of our dealing south of the border," Carlos said in a tired voice. "My son, please call our associates in Bolivia and inform them that it is to be war with the Chinos." Carlito, or "Junior," nodded, started the speed dial on his cell phone, and carried out his father’s wishes. Someone would be paying the bill, and it was going to be painful.

Part 11 by Mike (X-Files)

   In his head, Melvin Frohike counted down from ten.
   Slowly.
   In Yiddish.
   He switched to Russian and was trying to remember what eight was in Japanese when he just gave up. He wasn’t getting any calmer. Langly and Byers weren’t going to see reason, so it was time to change tactics.
   Langly was gushing on about the A-Team’s underground exploits until their even more mysterious disappearance over ten years ago. Byers was already figuring out ways to incorporate Templeton ‘Face’ Peck and this Frankie Santana into their investigation.
   Neither one of them had paid any attention to what he had told them.
   "Benedict," he said simply. Langly and Byers stopped talking to look at him in confusion.
   "Benedict Arnold," Frohike said, now that he had their attention. "He's just as bad as Benedict Arnold. He'll betray us the first chance he gets. Hell, he did it to the men he served with for years. Why would he treat us any better?"
   "You're not going to tell me you believe what happened in that court, are you?" Langly snorted. "Since when have you trusted the government?"
   "I'd trust the government before trusting Peck. He'll sell you the shoes off your feet and have you thanking him when he does it."
   Byers shifted in his seat slightly before answering, "We may not be able to trust him, but there's no reason we can't share information with him. Considering he's in this country illegally, there's not much of a chance he'll go to local officials to report on us. With his background in intelligence he's better suited than any of us to gather the information we need. Or do you really think any of us can slip past a dozen guards armed with machine guns?"
   "I say we should wait until I hear more from my source," Frohike muttered.
   "The teen witch?" Langly chuckled. "You're hoping that between episodes of 'Charmed' and 'Sabrina' she'll manage to dig up any useful information on this Deflunno Prophecy?"
   "RedQueen's come through for me before, she'll do it again," Frohike said, using Willow's screen-name. "Besides, who watches the WB anymore?"
   "In the meantime," Byers interjected, "there's no reason we can't use Mr. Peck and his associate to gain information on the Meranguilla cartel."
   "I thought all the major drug cartels were in Colombia," Langly popped a handful of Spree into his mouth, chewing loudly. "What self-respecting crime lord sets himself up in a country with two capitals and a lake that sounds like a lame elementary school
punchline?"
   "All right," Byers held a hand up to stop Langly from rambling further. "Why don't we compromise? The three of us can continue our surveillance of the compound tonight. In the morning we check in with Frohike's contact to see if she's found any clues for us about this so-called Prophecy. We meet up again with Mr. Peck and Mr. Santana and share what information we have. From there we can decide what to do next."
   Frohike reluctantly agreed. He would have preferred it if they could do this themselves, but even he had to admit this was too big for them to take on. They could really have used Mulder, if Bolivia hadn't been so far out of the FBI's jurisdiction.

************************

   "Can you see anything?" Langly hissed from beside Frohike. The black Moxy Fruvous shirt he wore was turned inside out to avoid reflection. A black knit cap covering his overly long blond hair added to the attempt at camouflage.
   "I can see lots of things," Frohike replied. The night vision lens on the digital camcorder worked like a charm. The compound in front of them looked like a cross between country mansion and military compound. Men with machine guns walked a perimeter on top of a wall that surrounded the house. Two guards stood at doors at each of the smaller buildings on the side grounds. One of those buildings appeared to be a small hangar. When the doors had been opened earlier they had spotted a single engine Cessna. The Gunmen assumed this was the cartel's method of transporting their product.
   Knowing the function of the first building led them to speculate that the second building had to be the production facility. It had to be where the drug was manufactured. If they could confirm their suspicion tonight then they'd need to get a sample next. That would be where Templeton Peck and Frankie Santana would come in handy.
   "There's someone coming up the road," Byers said from his vantage point.
   A black car made its way down the dirt road. Two guards approached the vehicle from the compound. The driver's side window slid down. Frohike zoomed in with the camera to see a face he never expected to see again.
   "Krycek!" he exclaimed.
   "What?" Byers asked.
   "The driver of the car is Alex Krycek. I'm sure of it."
   "I thought Mulder said he was dead." Langly tried to get a look at the viewfinder.
   "Well, it wouldn't be the first time Mulder thought someone was dead and they weren't," Frohike put in, shouldering Langly back.
   "The question is, what is he doing here?" Byers crept over to where the other two Gunmen were staked out.
   Before they could speculate further on Krycek's appearance, the sound of rustling leaves caught their attention.
   "Get the gear!" Byers hissed, scrambling to stuff some of their surveillance gear back into a case.
From out of the bushes two men strode forward stiffly. They walked as if in some sort of daze. They each held a machete upright in one of their hands, showing no intent to use it on the brush they were wading through. One of them caught sight of the Gunmen and let out a strangled, wordless cry. 
   "Run for it!" Langly shouted, grabbing two duffel bags as he made a break for their van.
   Byers and Frohike were close behind him. The two dazed Bolivians were chasing them, moving nowhere near as stiffly as before. Frohike desperately fumbled through the pockets of his vest until his hands landed on the satellite phone. He whipped it out and pressed one of the auto-dial buttons.
   "Please pick up," he urged the phone on the other end.
   "This is Mulder," Mulder’s voice came in with a slight static crackle. "Please leave a message so I can get back to you."
   "Damn it, Mulder, what's the point of having a cell phone if you don't have it with you?" Frohike shouted in frustration. "Listen, we're being chased by zombies with machetes in Bolivia."
   Frohike gasped for breath while running downhill towards the van. Langly was already there, hand on the door.
   "Get to my email. Go Through the Looking Glass. You'll know what I mean when you get there. This line is probably not secure. We need your help. Hurry, or it's off with our heads."
   Frohike slammed the phone shut, just as he and Byers reached the bottom of the hill.
   The zombies, for all their shouting, couldn't have been very good runners if they couldn't have caught up. Frohike couldn't believe it. They were going to get away. Langly was already inside the van and...
   If Langly had made it to the van, why hadn’t he started the engine?
   Frohike reached a hand out to stop Byers, but it was already too late. Frohike mumbled a silent curse, unsure if any of them would survive the night.

******

Part 10 by Ashley (Nancy Drew)

   "And I would be the one to hold you down--" Sarah McLachlan warbled from the radio.
   "Ned," Nancy Drew Nickerson sobbed from the backseat. "Ned used to sing this to me--"
   "Oh God, when is she going to shut up?" George Fayne asked from the front seat of the car as she glanced back to check on her friend. Nancy was sprawled out, curled as near to fetal as she could in the confined space, and had a tissue crumpled in her shaking fist.
   Bess Marvin Hardy rolled her eyes but quickly returned them to the freeway ahead of them. "I don't know. What's the next name in the book?"
   George flipped open Nancy's contact diary. "Senator Matheson. He--I think this says he has contacts in the FBI but I'm not sure."
   "Anyone else in Washington? We can knock out two or three birds with one stone and get this all over with."
   George flipped the book shut, keeping her thumb in to mark the place. "Bess... do you think we're going on a wild goose chase?"
   "What do you mean?"
   "Well, Nancy's tangled with some scary people. That chick Paula in the woods, that Tommy Rhodes guy... those international jewel thieves... and raise hands if you don't remember those giant African spiders..."
   Bess shuddered. "Don't. Dear God. I still have nightmares. And remember those guys in hula skirts who wanted to throw you into the mouth of that volcano?"
   "Exactly. Who saved us? Ned. Who got kidnapped? Ned."
   "What, this is a cosmic-revenge-of-the-gods sort of thing?"
   In a rare burst of lucidity, Nancy leaned forward to join the conversation in the front seat. "Are you saying it wasn't the Bolivians? That they didn't steal my husband?"
   "Are you positive it was them, Nan? I mean... it could have been a coincidence. Think of all the people you've pissed off through the years."
   Nancy sniffed and started digging through her purse. Due to the amassed sleuthing devices, it weighed at least forty pounds and had a reinforced strap. After a few minutes, she found a piece of paper and threw it into George's lap.
   "Um... this appears to be a threat. A badly-spelt one, at that. Saying that unless Ned calls off his dogs in the USDA, the Bolivians... oh, how nice of them to even give their nationality... are going to retaliate."
   "I don't know why they didn't take me. I'm his woman, after all."
   "Nancy... can you keep crying, please? The words that are coming out of your mouth just aren't making much more sense." Bess checked her rearview and set her mouth.
   "Damn, girl." George shook her head and refolded the note.
   "Well, we're gonna get him back. Her whining about it isn't going to help."
   "What are we going to do now? We've already talked to..."
   "Talking isn't getting him back. I'm going to the big guns now.
   "I'm going to the President."

Part 9 by Snicker (Scooby Doo)

   The van bounced along the dark trail, not even good enough to call a road, causing the man in the middle of the van to spill some water from the bong he was carefully loading.  He frowned as he looked up at the driver, "Like, be careful man!  Can't you find a smoother mule path?  I feel like a martini back here - shaken, not stirred."  A woman in a short skirt sat next to the long-haired hippy who was now stuffing the bowl of the bong with some prime Tijuana Gold. A large great dane lay on the floorboards, sleeping until a particularly large bump caused him to startle.  Someone close enough might even have heard a mumbled, "Rikes!", but would have dismissed it as road noise, or something.  In the very back of the van two hispanic men looked on uncomprehendingly.  A third hispanic, a woman, huddled by herself holding a small baby to her chest.
   The driver, dressed in a light green "Save the Whales!" t-shirt and khakis whistled thoughtfully as he peered through the dusty windshield at the darkness beyond as they drove without headlights under a full moon.  Shapes loomed up in the darkness, and ruts and holes in the road were indeterminate puddles of shadow.  Even at 20 miles per hour, there was no way to dodge everything, and everyone suffered through the jolting in relative silence.  "We're almost to the highway, Shaggy. From there, it's just another ten miles to the border."
   "Thanks, Fred," Shaggy replied, then continued in a lower voice, "Well, then, we'll just have to finish this quick, won't we, Daphne?"  The girl nodded and giggled, obviously a little stoned already.  Shaggy lit the bong, placed his hand over the top and inhaled deeply.   The burning weed glowed brightly as smoke poured into the bong, filtered through the water, and then disappeared through the glass tube into the skinny man's lungs.  He held his breath for a moment as a peaceful and relaxed expression slowly spread across his face.  Slowly, he let out the smoke with a final pleased sigh. "Like, wow, man.  That's real Gold."
   Impatiently, Daphne took the bong from Shaggy's hands and took a rather large hit herself.  Thoroughly stoned, she passed the bong back to the hippie, and leaned against the window, watching the mesquite bushes and cactus plants pass by.  Thoughtfully, she commented, "Do you suppose people get reincarnated as cactus?  And if you killed a reincarnated cactus, would it come back as a cactus ghost?"
   "Zoinks!  Don't say that word, Daphne - there've been enough ghosts without you talking about them - you know how they always show up shortly after you say something like that."
   A muffled voice came from beneath their seat as the great dane pushed itself up and moved to the front seat, "Ro roy.  Rere re ro arain."
   "Hey, Scoob.  Keeping me company, eh?  That's nice." Fred said as he tried to dodge another of the larger ruts in the seldom-used path.  Sniffing disdainfully at the pungent aroma coming from the rear of the van, he continued to talk to the dog.  "Keep it clean, Scoob.  That's what I always say.  The body is a temple.  And if your head's not clear, you can't think straight enough to solve mysteries, or rescue helpless creatures."  Finally he spotted a fence ahead, with a section torn down for just this reason.  As he pulled through, and onto the highway beyond, Fred checked his rearview for signs of other drivers.  Seeing nothing but darkness forward and back, Fred flipped on the headlights, and pushed the accelerator to the floor.  "Ten minutes to the border, ladies and gentlemen.  Please have your identification ready." Switching fluently to Spanish, he continued, "Diez minutos a la frontera, damas y caballeros. Tengan su identificación lista por favor." 
   The immigrants who were about ten minutes from being illegal looked startled for a moment, before Daphne looked back and giggled.  "Es una broma.  No se preocupe, todo va estar bien." ("It's a joke.  Don't worry, we'll be fine.")  Speaking Spanish had come in handy over the last few years, and they all understood it well enough, even if Shaggy couldn't concentrate long enough to get beyond "tamale" and "chimichanga, por favor."   Even Scooby spoke some, not that anyone could understand it.  Shaggy capped his bong and stored it in the secret compartment with his stash and the box of Scooby Snax he kept for emergencies.  Taking a blanket out from under his seat, he tossed it back to the villagers in the back, while Daphne instructed them to cover themselves, lay flat and keep quiet.  Swapping seats with Scooby, the hippie rolled the window down and sprayed some air freshener to clear out some of the smell, and put some drops in his eyes to clear the inevitable redness.  Daphne made sure just enough cleavage was showing that no one would pay any attention to her eyes, and double-checked their cargo one last time.
   "Ready back here, Fred."
   "Good, because we're almost there."
   As the van rounded a corner, lights flared on the horizon, rapidly growing closer.  "This is it, everyone.  Silencio, por favor.  Let me do all the talking."  Fred slowed down as he approached the border patrol checkpoint.  He had discovered this remote checkpoint a long time ago during a case involving illegally transported Mexican artifacts.  They were being run through this area, and the smugglers were paying off the guards to keep them quiet.  For some reason, security was never improved, and this particular place remained a busy thoroughfare for illegal traffic - providing you could afford the toll.  As Fred came to a halt, a man in a United States Border Patrol uniform came out of the tiny border station and approached his window.  Fred rolled his window down and smiled disarmingly at the guard.  "Hiya!  How's it going?"
   The officer's head swiveled as he looked inside the van, his eyes invisible behind the his sunglasses, taking in the three people and their large dog.  "Just the three of you and the dog?  All American citizens?"
   "Yes sir" "Yes, just us." "Yup" "Rup!"  The last just enough like a bark that the officer didn't blink, just asked for identification.  Daphne passed hers up to Fred as Shaggy grabbed his from the visor.  Fred made a big deal of fumbling with his wallet, pulling out his identification and surreptitiously folding a $100 dollar bill in with the ID cards.  Taking a cursory glance at the ID cards, the officer stared at the money for a moment, then looked hard at Fred.  Looking back into the van, he appeared to stare directly through the three people, causing them all to smile nervously. Finally, the officer handed the ID cards back to Fred, tucking something into his pocket as he walked back to the office and pressed a button, raising the bar to let them through.
   "Drive safely, and welcome back to the United States of America," the officer said as he waved them through.  As Fred pulled out, the three of them heaved a big sigh of relief, thankful to have gotten through yet again.  No matter how many times they ran the border, they never knew how the guards would act.  One of these days, they were going to get caught - but not today.
   As they drove down the highway, Fred reassured their passengers, "Damas y Caballeros, habla su capitán. El signo de la faja de seguridad se ha apagado, y ustedes pueden ir libremente a la cabina. Esto es un vuelo directo a Los Ángeles, California, y nuestro tiempo de la llegada es 7:30." ("Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  The seatbelt sign has been extinguished, and you're free to move about the cabin. This is a non-stop flight to Los Angeles, California, and our ETA is 7:30.")  He reached forward and flipped on the radio spinning the dial until one station started to come in.
   "... was Pink with "Get the Party Started," coming in at number four on America's Top Forty.  Number three on the countdown comes to us from a band that was discovered literally by accident.  A hometown trio from sunny Riverdale, they've recently dropped their major label to be represented by their own hometown manager, Alexander Cabot who-"
   "Like, wow, man - that's my cousin!" Shaggy exclaimed excitedly.
   "-success," the radio continued, "this group recently skyrocketed to fame with their number one hit, "Pretend to be Nice."  Now, they're climbing to number three with their cover of the Beatles' "Money (That's What I Want)."  I'm Casey Kasem, and this is Josie and the Pussycats!"
   "Funny," said Fred, "My cousin Alan is from Riverdale, and he's dating a girl named Josie..."
   "The best things in life are free...
but you can tell me 'bout the birds and bees.
Now gimme money THAT'S WHAT I WANT..."