In command of the flashlight, Max led the way along the corridor. He began quietly opening doors and looking into the rooms, searching for either Lucky Bucky or Guru Optimo.
“Nothing,” he continued to report.
“Max-”
“Shhh-”
“But, Max-”
“99, please don’t talk unless you have something important to say. Lucky Bucky could be in any of these rooms, and he might hear you.”
“Would it be important if we’d lost V. T. Brattleboro?”
“Mmmmm. . yes, I think that would fit the category.”
“Max, we’ve lost V. T. Brattleboro,” 99 said.
“What!” Max responded, startled.
“He was right behind me just a moment ago, but now he’s gone.”
“That means he gave us the slip. He knows where Guru Optimo’s room is, and he’s headed straight for it Quick, 99! Follow him!”
“I don’t know which way he went.”
“Look for that pinpoint of light!”
“I see it, Max.”
“Where. . where?”
“In your hand, Max. You have the flashlight.”
“Oh. . yes, I forgot about that.” He put out the light. “There, now, we won’t make that mistake again.”
“I’m sure that will be a big help, Max. What do we do next?”
“We’ll just have to backtrack, 99, and look in every room until we find Brattleboro and Guru Optimo. Let’s go.”
They retreated along the corridor, opening doors, looking into the rooms. But, again, Max kept reporting nothing, nothing, nothing.
Then they came to a door that was standing partly open.
“This has to be it,” Max whispered. “Careful, 99!”
He peeked into the room.
“Is it, Max?”
“Yes!”
“What do you see?”
“Guru Optimo. He’s asleep in his bed.”
“And Brattleboro?”
“I can’t see him, 99, but I know he’s in there. I can sense his presence. Evidently he has clouded my mind and is making me think he’s something else. We can’t let that stop us, though. We’ll have to go in there, wake Guru Optimo, and attempt to persuade him to rejoin Control.”
“Won’t Brattleboro try to stop us?”
“Undoubtedly. But there’s nothing we can do about it until he shows himself.”
“All right, Max. .”
They crept into the room and crossed toward Guru Optimo’s bed. Max’s eyes darted to the right and left, looking for some sign of Brattleboro. And, preoccupied, he bumped into a chair, then stepped back, surprised.
“Ouch!” a voice said.
Max flew into action. He leaped to the window, yanked the cord from the drapes, and quickly wrapped it around the chair, binding it.
“Max,” 99 asked curiously, “why did you do that?”
“99, I’m very surprised that you can’t figure it out. That chair is V. T. Brattleboro.”
“Is it?” She inspected the chair. “How do you know, Max?”
“Didn’t you hear it cry out when I bumped it?”
“Max. . that was me.”
“You, 99?”
“When you stepped back from the chair after bumping it, you stepped on my foot. I cried ‘ouch!’ ”
“99, didn’t I ask you to keep quiet unless you had something important to say?”
“Ouch seemed sort of important at the moment, Max.”
Max unwound the cord from the chair. “Well, it was still a good move,” he said. “If we can’t talk Guru Optimo into rejoining Control, we can tie him up and force him to put in with us again.”
Max motioned to 99, and once more they crept across the room toward Guru Optimo’s bed. Then suddenly, when Max was only a step away from Guru Optimo, the floor opened up beneath him and he went hurtling downward. He landed in water, disappeared below the surface, then bobbed up. Treading water, he looked around. Facing him, treading water too, was V. T. Brattleboro.
“Oh, so there you are!” Max said.
“I see you found Guru Optimo’s room,” Brattleboro replied. “Wasn’t that a little sneaky? What about our agreement? You were supposed to look for Lucky Bucky Buckley’s room.”
“Let’s call it even,” Max said. “You cheated too, you know.”
“How?”
“You were supposed to have been a chair.”
“I wish I were a chair,” Brattleboro said. “I’d stand on myself and climb out of here. Look where we are! This basement, or whatever it is, has no doors and no windows, and the water is approximately ten feet deep. In a very short time, we’re going to become too tired to tread water and then we’re going to drown.”
“Brattleboro,” Max replied, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my many years as a secret agent, it’s this: If there’s a way in, there’s a way out.”
“We fell in through that trap door,” Brattleboro said, pointing upward.
Max looked, “Mmmm, yes, I see. . it closes after the victim passes through it. Well, that certainly proves one thing.”
“What?”
“Sometimes the things you learn during your many years as a secret agent aren’t worth a hill of beans.”
But at that moment the trap door was suddenly pushed open and 99’s face appeared. “Max! Are you down there?” she called.
“Shhh! Don’t wake Guru Optimo!”
“All right,” she whispered. “But are you down there?”
“I can’t hear you, 99. Speak a little louder.”
“I don’t want to wake you-know-who.”
“When you shake what, it glows blue?”
“You-know-who!” 99 shouted.
“Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!”
“He’s down here!” Brattleboro called up.
“Max, why are you imitating Brattleboro? And who’s down there?”
“I am. He is. We both are. Now, look, 99, I think I’ve figured out a way to get us out of here. I still have that cord. I’m going to toss it up to you. You catch it. Then you can pull us out.”
“I don’t think I’m strong enough, Max.”
“99, in times of extreme peril, a person can summon an extra strength that he didn’t know existed. You can do it!”
“I’ll try, Max.”
Max tossed the cord up to her. She caught it.
“Ready, Max?”
“Just a second.”
Max looped the cord around his wrists. “All right, now, 99-pull!”
“Here goes nothing, Max!”
There was a sudden splash. Then 99 bobbed up beside Max and Brattleboro.
“Something apparently went wrong,” Max said thoughtfully. “I wonder what it was?”
“Max, you were the one who was in extreme peril,” 99 said. “So I guess you summoned an extra strength that you didn’t know existed and out-pulled me.”
“Well, I’m glad to know, at least, that the theory is still valid.”
“It’ll be a nice thing to die knowing,” Brattleboro commented.
“All is not lost quite yet,” Max said. “We still have the cord. Maybe I can lasso something up there in Guru Optimo’s bedroom. If it’s firm enough, if it holds, we can pull ourselves out.”
“Boy, would I like to be in a position to take bets,” Brattleboro said.
“Try it, Max,” 99 urged. “It’s our only chance.”
Max made a loop in the end of the cord, then slung it up through the opening. It did not return.
“Max! You caught something!”
“Don’t get your hopes too high, 99. I’ll give it a little tug, and-”
“What, Max?”
“I did catch something!” Max said excitedly.
“Will it hold us, Max?”
“Let me give it another little tug. We’ll-”
The chair came tumbling down through the opening, narrowly missing them. A moment later it popped to the surface and floated.
“Well, there’s that chair you were wishing you were to stand on,” Max said to Brattleboro.
“No help. I was talking about a highchair.”
“Try again, Max,” 99 said.
Max tried again.
He got a floor lamp.
“Once more, Max.”
This time he got a drawer from a chest of drawers.
“Don’t give up, Max.”
Next time, when he tugged on the cord, it held firm.
“Success!”
“Too bad,” Brattleboro said. “I was beginning to like it down here. The place is nicely furnished.”
Max climbed the rope, then pulled himself up through the opening. 99 followed. Then Brattleboro emerged from the trap.
Max peered into the dimness. “I wonder what I lassoed?” he said.
“Max, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, I’d like to know. When I tell this story to my grandchildren. . here I’ll turn on a light.”
He flicked on the switch. His eyes followed the cord.
“Oh. . hello, there,” Max smiled.
Guru Optimo was sitting up in bed looking at them curiously. The cord was looped around the large toe of his left foot.
“Thanks for the hand,” Max said.
“Foot, Max,” 99 corrected.
Guru Optimo grinned broadly. “No, Sergeant Preston, in the Royal Mounted Police we sit on the horse facing front,” he replied.
“Speaking of that,” Max said, “there’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I have something to say too,” Brattleboro said.
Guro Optimo beamed. “I don’t care what your mother says, the light bulb is not an impractical invention-it will keep little children from sticking their fingers in empty sockets.”
“Yes, well, that’s very interesting,” Max said. “But what I’d like to discuss is renewing your agreement with Control. You promised, you know, that you would join us in our fight against the forces of evil. Now, as we look at it, a promise is a promise. So-”
“Don’t listen to that gush,” Brattleboro broke in. “A promise isn’t a promise. A promise is a tactic. You didn’t know what you were doing when you made that agreement with Control. They tricked you. Besides, you have a later agreement with KAOS. You promised you would join us in our fight against the forces of good!”
Guru Optimo looked from Brattleboro to Max, from Max to Brattleboro, confused.
“I would like to point out,” Max said, “that with us you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you were making the world a better place to live.”
Guru Optimo brightened.
“What’s that in comparison to the satisfaction of knowing that you were making the world a better place for you to live? Fooey on everybody else!” Brattleboro countered.
Guru Optimo glowed.
“You’re losing him, Max,” 99 warned.
“Speaking of old movies,” Max said to Guru Optimo, “remember last year’s famous Academy Award loser-‘A Beach Bunny Skins Her Shins at Jones Beach’? Recall what handsome, muscular, high-minded pre-med student Seth O’Scope said to gorgeous, blond, empty-headed apprentice beautician Spray O’Hara when she came staggering up onto the beach with her surf board wrapped around her neck? He said, ‘What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and flunk social responsibility?’ Think about that.”
Guru Optimo looked blank.
“I don’t think that’s an old enough movie, Max,” 99 said.
“Maybe not. I’ll try again. Speaking of old-”
“What’s going on here!” a voice behind them roared.
Max, 99 and Brattleboro turned and found Lucky Bucky Buckley standing in the doorway.
“You’re just in time,” Max said. “We were playing a game of Trivia, with old movies as the subject. Your question is: In the movie ‘The General Died at Dawn,’ what time was it exactly? We know it was dawn, of course. But at what time exactly did the sun rise on that day?”
“Guards!” Buckley shouted.
Max shook his head. “That isn’t even close. Try 5:17 A.M.”
“5:17 A.M.?” Buckley guessed.
Again, Max shook his head. “You were closer when you said ‘guards!’ ”
“Zop’em!” Buckley screamed at Guru Optimo.
A flash of light exploded over Max’s, 99’s and Brattleboro’s heads.
“Well, that ends the game,” Max said.
He dived under the bed.
99 followed him.
Brattleboro ducked behind the chest of drawers, one drawer of which was missing.
“Don’t just sit there! Zop!” Lucky Bucky shouted at Guru Optimo.
Guru Optimo’s head, upside down, appeared over the edge of the bed.
“Hide your eyes!” Max warned 99.
There was a flash of light.
But Max and 99, their eyes shielded by their hands, were unaffected.
“Grab’em!” they heard Lucky Bucky cry.
Peeking out, they saw that the guards had arrived.
The guards dived under the bed after them. Max and 99 crawled out on the other side.
A flash lighted the room.
But it was aimed at Brattleboro. And, looking out through the opening where the drawer had been, he caught the flash full in the eye.
Brattleboro jumped up, then began roaring around the room, throttle wide open.
The others stared at him.
He knocked over a table, a floor lamp, the chest of drawers, then roared out of the room and down the corridor.
“What was he?” 99 asked.
“A motorcycle cop,” Max replied. “And I think he’s after that hit-and-run driver who ran that traffic signal earlier tonight.”
“Zop’em!”
Max and 99 ran for the doorway. But a guard had stationed himself in the opening.
A flash of light exploded inches away from them.
They dived back under the bed.
The guards followed.
Max and 99 crawled out from under the bed, and, hand in hand, galloped across the top of it-and across Guru Optimo in the process.
Guru Optimo aimed.
“Zop! Zop! Zop!”
But at that instant the guards emerged from under the bed and stomped across it in pursuit of Max and 99, tromping Guru Optimo beneath their boots and spoiling his aim.
Max and 99 dashed for the doorway again.
The guard still barred their way.
“Zop!” Buckley shouted wildly.
A flash of light.
The guard in the doorway-hit-dropped to his hands and knees. “I’m the George Washington Bridge!” he cried happily.
Max and 99 clambered over him and out through the doorway. They raced down the corridor, turned a corner, raced down another corner, then jumped back just in time to keep from getting hit by a motorcycle cop who roared by and then disappeared around a different corner.
“Poor Brattleboro,” 99 said sadly.
“Don’t waste your sympathy on Brattleboro, 99,” Max said. “I suspect that he’s putting on an act.”
“An act, Max?”
“It’s my guess that when Guru Optimo zopped him, trying to make him think he was a motorcycle cop, Brattleboro also zopped Guru Optimo back, making him think he was making him think he was a motorcycle cop.”
“Then you think Brattleboro isn’t really a motorcycle cop?”
“Right, 99. I think he’s just a crazy kid on a hopped-up Harley Davidson!”
“But-”
A flash of light exploded behind them.
“Run, Max!”
They turned the corner and ran down the corridor. At the next corner they turned right. Racing along corridors and whipping around corners, they turned right, left, left, right, left, right, left, right, right, left, left, right, left, left, right-and plowed head-on into the guards.
Max and 99 were the first to emerge from the pile-up. They raced back the other way, left, right, right, left, right, right, left, left, right, left, right, left, right, right-and plowed head-on into the heap of guards, who had not yet regained their feet.
Once more, Max and 99 were the first to arise. They dashed around the corner-and plowed head-on into Lucky Bucky and Guru Optimo.
All four of the accident victims arose at the same moment.
“Zop!” Lucky Bucky commanded.
Max and 99 ducked.
The spell hit a guard who was coming around the corner, pursuing Max and 99. The guard made a gun of his index finger, pointed it at Max, 99, Lucky Bucky and Guru Optimo and snarled, “Awright, youse guys, stick’em up!”
Eight hands flew into the air.
“What is he, Max?” 99 asked.
“Well, he’s- Wait a minute! That last zop canceled out his previous zop! He isn’t hypnotized any more. He’s an actor again, and he’s doing his Edward G. Robinson imitation!”
“Then-”
“Right, 99! That finger is only a stage prop! Run!”
Max and 99 darted past the guard-or actor-raced around the corner-and piled head-on into the rest of the guards.
Lucky Bucky Buckley, Guru Optimo and Edward G. Robinson came running around the corner an instant later and piled head-on into Max and 99.
There was a wild scramble.
Max squirmed out from the bottom of the pile. “99! Where are you!”
“Here, Max!”
An arm reached out.
Max grabbed it by the wrist and galloped down the corridor.
“Max! Wait for me!” a voice far back along the corridor called.
He halted. He found that he had Edward G. Robinson by the wrist.
“Awright, youse-”
Max dropped him with a karate chop. “Sorry about that,” he said. “But you’ve had it coming a long time, you know, going around ordering everybody to stick’em up.”
99, who had freed herself from the spaghetti of arms and legs, caught up with Max.
“Let’s go, Max!” she said urgently.
“All right, 99. But no more lefts and rights. The next set of stairs we come to-down. Agreed?”
“Anything you say, Max. Just-”
There was a flash of light.
Max dashed along the corridor, with 99 close at his heels. They reached some stairs. But there was only one flight, and it ascended.
Max ran on.
“Max, why didn’t we take those stairs?” 99 asked.
“It’s against the rules to go down the up staircase, 99.”
“Max. . would it have hurt, just once?”
“That’s how bad habits start, 99. You go down the up staircase once, then, the next thing you know, you’re going up the down staircase. And after that you think nothing of it. It’s up the down staircase and down the up staircase all day long. And the nights are even worse.”
“Max, that doesn’t sound so terrible to me.”
“99, that’s only the beginning. Pretty soon, staircases don’t satisfy you. You need elevators!”
“Max, I still say-”
“Up ahead, 99! A down staircase!”
They reached the stairs, then dashed downward. When they reached the next floor, they stopped. Max looked back.
“Oh-oh!” he said, alarmed.
“What, Max?”
“Look, 99-that’s an up staircase we just came down.”
“Only from here, Max. From where we were it was a down staircase.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “That’s what we tell ourselves, 99,” he said. “But who’s to say? Who really knows the truth, 99?”
Lucky Bucky Buckley and the guards appeared at the head of the stairs.
“Halt!” Lucky Bucky shouted.
Max and 99 took flight, running down a corridor.
“There-up ahead!” Max pointed. “Another staircase!”
“Max, do you think we should-the way it effects you?”
“I have no choice, 99,” Max replied, wild-eyed. “The worst has happened! I’ve got the habit! I’m hooked!”