The thirty-first century, I'm walking the crime ridden streets of South Lake. I am in search of the only person who possesses the unique combination of sound and smell that can defeat the malevolent spirits tormenting our world and prevent a gruesome war. How did I end up here with the fate of the world depending on me?

A very large muscular arm came out of the shadows and grabbed me pulling me off the sidewalk and into the alley. I recognized that arm. It belonged to the Martian Mauler.

"Do you have a death wish?" she asked me as she spun me around to face her.

Was she threatening me? The Mauler was the fighter I had bested in an underground arena match two weeks earlier. She was easily twice my size. I was only able to beat her because of my magic talisman. I only fought her because I needed some information on her ex-lover Lana Lovelock, the head of New Life Labs. New Life was the lab responsible for all the zombies now roaming the streets. We believed Lana was behind a plot to plunge the world into war. It turned out that Lana was possessed by evil spirits and that the spirits were the ones trying to plunge the world into a war. For the last two weeks, The Professor and I had been on a pirate ship trying to find out more about these spirits. We learned that the spirits were actually refugees from another world and that they had a plan to take over Earth. We learned they had a sensitivity to certain smells and sounds, but more importantly, we learned there was one human who could generate the unique combination of sound and smell that would drive them off. We were searching for that human.

As to why the Mauler had grabbed me. I didn't have any idea. I thought we had pretty much ended on good terms; so, what was this about? "What are you talking about?" I asked her.

"Don't you know how dangerous it is to be out on the streets now that war has broken out everywhere?"

"War? What war? Who is fighting whom?" I had hoped we'd be in time to stop the war. Apparently, we weren't. Our mission was no longer about preventing war. It would be about ending the war.

"Where have you been?" she asked incredulous that I didn't know what was going on in the world. "I've been looking for you ever since our match."

"It's a long story," I answered. "Why were you looking for me?"

"I wanted to thank you and ask you what you did to Lana. She is a changed person now. We may be getting back together. You know, I miss her and I even kind of miss that squally little stinky-pants she adopted."

This was interesting. "As far as I know we didn't do anything. I did steal a couple of her memories, but that shouldn't have changed anything. She was still possessed by the evil spirits when I left her."

"Well, something with her has changed. Wait, you say she was possessed by evil spirits? Maybe that's it. Maybe the evil spirits have left her. That bratty kid of hers could drive off the devil himself with his screaming and stinky pants." She laughed.

"Maybe," I speculated. "I think that The Professor and I should check it out."

"I'll go with you. You really shouldn't be walking around unprotected. The street gangs are all at war with each other not to mention all the zombies on the loose."

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Lana opened the door to her apartment and was no doubt puzzled to see The Professor and I standing next to her girlfriend. "Hey Marsha," Lana greeted the Mauler. "Who are your friends?"

"Wait a minute," I said not being able to resist asking, "Your name is Marsha?" I grinned.

The mauler responded, "Yeah, yeah, I'm Marsha the Martian Mauler. Don't bother to add anything clever, I've heard them all. Alliteration is only funny the first time you hear it." Then she turned to Lana. "Hey Lana, good to see you. This is The Professor and Ethereal. They have a very interesting story to tell you."

Lana turned toward The Professor and asked, "What exactly are you a professor of?"

The Professor replied, "Chronometrics."

She then turned to me smiling, "I'm not sure what Chronometrics are, but I must say you certainly are Ethereal." I've heard that line many times before, but this was the first time from a woman and I still blushed.

She invited us in and telling her our story was exactly what we did. We caught her up on everything we knew about the malevolent spirits trying to destroy humanity and take over Earth. We explained that she had been possessed by one of these spirits, but that Marsha believed that was no longer the case. I asked her if I could enter her mind and see if that was true.

She agreed, telling us that she was aware that she had been possessed. She had been for several years. It wasn't until she got her adopted son that the spirit began to lose control of her. The spirit told her she had to get rid of the boy and for the first time since she had been possessed, she was able to fend off the spirit's control. The spirit was becoming weaker every day. She remembered my coming to her door two weeks ago and stealing some of her memories. She figured that was the final straw for the spirit because it was shortly after that the spirit left her completely.

I checked in her memories, and she was right. It was gone. Did my invasion of her mind or somehow the boy's presence have anything to do with it? The Professor suggested we try an experiment.

We asked Lana if I could accompany her to one of her board meetings with the other New Life directors. We believed all the directors were possessed. I would bring her son with me. She could introduce me as her son's nanny and explain our reason for being there was because today the child was throwing a fit whenever his mom was out of sight.

With both the child and myself in the room with the possessed directors, maybe we could figure out which of us had the power to drive the spirits out.

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Halfway through the board meeting the child had a horrendous smelling bowel movement and began screaming. The scream had a pitch I had never heard from any other child before. I apologized, but all the directors got up and as quickly as they possibly could left the room as if their lives depended on it. The child's smell and screams no doubt followed them into the hallway. After less than a minute they all returned laughing. They were clearly in a good mood. I checked their minds and found all the malevolent spirits were gone. The child had driven them all away. Apparently, his screams and odors were the exact combination the spirits could not tolerate. We had found the ultimate weapon to use against them.

We were soon rid of all of the spirits, and they were most likely on their way to find another planet. I'm sure they hoped it would be one without toddlers