"Jesus," Jack said, jolting in surprise when I ran into the room behind him and Susan. They were standing in front of the door, facing the machine.
"You left like thirty seconds ago," he said.
"Well, I came back at the exact moment I left," I said. "You won't believe what I saw – "
"Save it for later, Professor. We still have to find the robots."
After we left the room Jack closed the door with one hand and opened the final door in the hallway with the other at the same time.
He stuck his head in and turned it side to side. Then he turned on the light, showing a room just like the last one except instead of the time machine chained to the floor it was a Viking longboat.
"We'll have to remember to tell Alfred and Eric about that," Jack whispered.
"Tell us about what?" Alfred's deep, humorless voice bellowed from behind us.
"About this," Jack said as he pointed to the boat.
Alfred stepped forward slowly, somberly, and dropped to his knees in front of the boat. He raised his arms into the air.
"Praise to Oden, our ship has returned," he said.
"Have the rest of you found anything?" Jack asked.
Alfred turned his head to look over his blue shoulder at Jack impatiently, as if Jack were interrupting him.
"Yes. We found your robots. They're in a room down the hallway on the right side of the second floor," he said curtly.
"Thanks a million," Jack said sarcastically, but it seemed to bounce off the back of Alfred's muscular neck, because he had already turned back to continue worshipping the machine. He bowed to the ground again and again, muttering something under his breath in a guttural language.
We left him there and cautiously walked up the stairs to the second floor. There was a row of long-ignored dead plants with brown wilting leaves along the wall of the stairway and the hall above.
We came to the room Alfred mentioned. The No-Good Greasers, the Quitters and Lori, the Proud Mother were already there. The Greasers were examining a jukebox the Corrupt Cops had stolen from them. The Proud Mother was going through a box of papers presumably having to do with the success of her children. The Quitters were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, resting.
Our twenty robots were in a jail cell at the far end of the room. They were standing in an eerily perfect square, staring straight ahead at us. Tiberius stood in front of them like a sergeant in front of his troops. He was grasping one of the bars with his functional hand and gazing out the cell longingly, or as longingly as a robot can.
"Jack! Susan! Dan! The Professor!" he yelled emotionlessly, as if reading the names off a list.
We walked to him. He stuck his arm out of the bars and Jack shook it absently, lifting the lock with his other hand to examine it. It was the size of an alarm clock, the metal loop on top as thick as my index finger.
"Damn it," he said before slamming the lock against the door. "Does anyone have something that could cut through this lock?"
The Proud Mother and the Quitters shook their heads.
"Sorry Jack, can't help you," Tony said before turning back to the jukebox.
Jack cursed under his breath. Then his face lit up and he took a step toward Tiberius, stroking his mustache anxiously.
"Tiberius, can you or any other robot cut off this lock?"
"I can't Sir," he said, "but maybe one of the other robots can."
"Well, why don't you get those robots?" Jack fumed out his tightly clenched jaw.
"Yes sir," Tiberius said. He walked back to the square of robots calmly.
"Carl! Tibs! Come out here!"
The formation of robots stirred with the sound of clicking plastic and then righted itself as two identical robots walked out the right side. They were short and hefty. Unlike with most robots, I didn't feel that I could lift them up. I doubted I could even have pushed them over. They were striped yellow and black, with orange helmets on their heads and orange triangles on their chest and back. They had no neck, their square heads popping right out their shoulders. Their arms grew thicker and more layered near the end. As one of them walked he extended his arm, each layer sliding out successively until it was almost as tall as he was.
He stuck this arm out the bars to Jack, who ignored it.
"Tibs," the robot said.
"Carl," said the other.
"We used to be construction workers," Tibs said.
"Can you cut through this lock?" Jack asked.
Tibs retracted his arm, moved it over a few bars then re-extended it and picked up the lock.
"Looks like a twenty millimeter stainless steel bar," he said to Carl, his mouth hole lighting up slightly on every word.
"I'd say more like twenty-five," Carl said. His voice was more raspy than Tibs'.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure that's a twenty," Tibs said. He rotated the lock with his arm. "Yeah, that's definitely a twenty." His blockish head moved up and down in a nod.
"Can you cut through it?" Jack yelled.
"Yeah, we can do it," Tibs said. "Just give it some time."
"We don't have time," Jack said.
"Well, we can't work miracles here," Tibs said. "It'll be at least three minutes."
"OK, just get it started." Jack was becoming more nervous, looking over his shoulder and yelling more.
Tibs retracted the last extension of his arm and a new one popped out. It had a sharp-bladed saw at the end. He turned it so the saw was perpendicular to the steel loop. It spun loudly with the high-pitched sound of scraping metal. Sparks spun off the blade as it sliced into the bar.
"Sorry about the noise," Tibs yelled, turning his head as much as he could toward us. "Been a while since I greased my gears, you know?" A superficial sounding recording of a chuckle issued from his mouth.
Jack strode nervously around the lock, leaning forward and back to get a better view of their progress. With the constant fear of a Corrupt Cop waking up and finding us, the minutes seemed to stretch on forever. Our sense of hearing was obscured by the metallic squeal so we watched the door warily.
I turned around when I heard some yelling over the noise of the saw. Tony, the No-Good Greaser leader, was stomping around their jukebox. When he reached the wall he kicked it with his boot, leaving a dent. The other Greasers were sitting on the jukebox with their hands wedged as far as they could go into the tight pockets of their jeans. One of them freed his hand from its pocket and used it to comb his hair slowly, mournfully.
"What's wrong?" Susan asked.
"There's a crack on the jukebox, that's what's wrong," Tony said. He was bouncing up and down with anger. "If I run into a Corrupt Cop on our way outta here he might get a crack or two himself," he said, pointing at Susan menacingly.
I was justifiably exhausted after my oxygen-deprived trip into the very distant future. It was still the early morning but my legs had the tired stiffness I usually associate with bedtime. I considered sitting on the floor but decided not to because sitting Indian-style is uncomfortable for me and the floors in the Corrupt Cops' Station were not exactly sparkling.
So I leaned against the wall with my palm as I waited for Tibs to finish cutting through the metal.
A quarter-sized black dot appeared next to my hand and immediately swelled into a massive screen.
It was Redd Rescue. Redd was running out of a cave holding the hand of a child; when he emerged from the entrance he hugged the child and jumped to the side. The cave exploded as they rolled down the weedy hill.
It sounded like the room was being firebombed. The Corrupt Cops must have set the volume to its highest level. The Proud Mother curled into a ball on the floor, plugging her ears and screaming, and the Greasers ran out the door.
I instinctively covered my ears with my hands, but I could still hear the muffled, booming yells of Mr. Redd and the pulsing of a helicopter blade. A few seconds later the sound stopped and I removed my hands.
"God damn it, Professor!" Jack yelled, so loud it was as if he were competing with the wall. Susan whispered something to him and he hissed something back.
Redd was still on the screen, running the child further down the hill away from a severely burnt man with a machine gun who was chasing them. The film was eerily silent as the villain emptied a round of machine gun bullets into a forest Redd had just run into.
A door slammed on the first floor. Jack flashed his palm at Tibs as a signal to stop the saw. It was so quiet in the room now I could hear a ringing in my ears from the earlier noise.
"What idiot decides to watch the wall at eight thirty in the frigging morning?" the Chief roared from below. It sounded like he was standing in the open center of the first floor, near the desks. "Come out now or I'll kick your stupid rookie ass even harder."
We stood there silently, terrified.
The Chief waited for an answer. I could hear him wheezing through his nose.
"Fine!" he yelled. "You don't want to come out? That's it. You're dead. You're done with this band." The floor creaked under his giant body as he walked to the stairs and climbed them to the second floor. Soon I could hear him gasping for air in the hallway outside the door.
"Make me climb up the stairs..." he groaned. "You're dead."
Then the footsteps resumed, getting closer and closer to our room.
There were sounds of more doors opening on the first floor, and a cacophony of chattering and immature laughter.
"What's wrong, Chief?" yelled the dopey rookie Leroy.
"Come up here, boys, and help me beat the pus out of the sorry sucker who thought watching Redd Rescue before noon on full volume was a good idea."
Leroy snorted maliciously. Soon there was a new chorus of footsteps as the rest of the Corrupt Cops followed the Chief's trail up the stairs.
The Chief's half-naked body appeared in the doorway, almost filling it. He was wearing only boxers, as he was when we stumbled into his bedroom, but now he accompanied them with suspenders looped over his burly shoulders.
When he saw our terrified faces he laughed, exposing a row of yellow teeth with a golden one near the front that almost blended in with the rest.
"Boys, you are goin' to love this. Special treat."
"Can't wait, boss," said an anonymous Corrupt Cop sycophant.
The Chief snapped his suspenders excitedly, uncovering two lines of matted down chest hairs.
More than a dozen other Corrupt Cops entered the room practically climbed over each other to get inside the room. One of them fell down in the doorway coming in, and two others walked over his back. He got to his feet and pushed one of the offenders, who pushed him back before their friends broke up the fight.
Otherwise the rookies smiled and found a place on the wall when they walked in. Soon the wall was lined with sneering Corrupt Cops of various stages of obesity, baldness, and mustache growth.
It's over, I thought. I'll never get back to my home time now. How stupid of me not to go back when I had access to my machine! I even wondered if I would make it out of that room alive. The Chief was practically licking his lips in anticipation of hurting us.
"I want Jack right here in front of me," the Chief said. The rookies on the wall glanced unsurely at each other, waiting for one of them to take the lead. I noticed that an especially short, thin one had his eyes locked on the Chief's giant stomach. Maybe he was admiring, as I was, the way the Chief's boxers curved down and finally disappeared near his crotch to accommodate the massive roundness of his belly.
"NOW!" the Chief screamed. He grabbed a baton from the belt of the rookie nearest to him on the wall, who squealed, to the delight of his companions.
The rookie recovered himself, grabbed Jack by the arm and lead him so that he was in front of the Chief.
Jack stood there calmly, his back straight, his jaw clenched, a head taller than his adversary.
"Hey, old buddy, how've you been?" the Chief asked.
Before Jack's lips could break apart to form an answer, the Chief dropped the baton and punched Jack in the face so hard droplets of spit shot out his mouth and splattered on a rookie on the wall.
Jack collapsed to the floor, holding his cheek with his hand, coughing. He curled into a fetal position right before the Chief kicked him in his stomach.
"You shouldn't have dropped outta the band," the Chief said. He shook his head while circling around Jack, who was whimpering in pain. "Then you would be in my position right now, and not in yours. You would be a winner, not a pathetic loser."
William, leader of the Quitters, happened to be standing next to Jack. The Chief gestured for the same terrified rookie to bring him over, and soon William was standing in front of the Chief, shaking visibly. He looked ready to topple over.
"I don't have anything to say about you," the Chief snarled. He punched William on his unshaven cheek. He collapsed to the floor, where he lay unconscious. Drool oozed out his mouth to form a puddle on the cement. Susan gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Get pretty old Susan over here," the Chief said. "She can join her stupid boyfriend here on the ground."
The rookie obediently grabbed Susan's arm, his hand wrapping around it easily, and jostled her over to the Chief.
The Chief raised his arm to punch her but before he even drew it back all the way a savage, throaty roar arose out of nowhere and Alfred broke through the line of rookies in front of the door. He was twirling his arms up over his head like the axles of a windmill, his hands clenched into fists.
"Cold Steel, what are you – " the Chief began, but he stopped when he realized Alfred was about to collide with him.
He lifted his arms in front of his face in a futile attempt to protect himself. The rookies crowded around him but they were too timid to fight Alfred. I couldn't see the collision; I could only hear Alfred's fists smacking the Chief's skin.
"God damn it! Help me!" he yelled. The rookies finally tried to restrain Alfred, but his thick arms threw them off like they were squirrels. One of them flew into a wall and dropped to the floor as limply as a rag doll. Some kept their distance, pretending to make a charge every once in a while but staying out of range of Alfred's swinging arms.
When it seemed like the sheer number of rookies attacking Alfred might overpower him, the rest of us joined the fight. I pulled a skinny rookie off Alfred's back, who then started fighting me. He was wearing only boxers, long socks, a gold cross necklace and wife-beater, with sweat stains under the armpits, of course.
I blocked most of his punches - one of them brushed against my head and left a nasty bruise - before Alfred unintentionally smashed his elbow into the rookie's face when he was pulling it back to punch someone else. My man dropped to his knees, then toppled face-first onto the floor.
It was a melee, little skirmishes on the outside and a big giant battle between the Chief, the rookies and Alfred in the center. I worked on peeling a new rookie off Alfred's back, prying his fingers off the Viking's shoulders one by one. When he fell off, he fought me like the last one did.
I grabbed my opponent's fist and tried to twist it behind his back when I saw the blow that ended the fight. Alfred's right arm came down over the Chief's head, his fist smashing into the peak of the Chief's bald scalp. The Chief's neck disappeared into his body like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. His limbs went limp and he started swaying. The rookies around him scattered this way and that to keep from being pinned under his falling body.
Finally the Chief collapsed, and the tons of stolen objects in the room bounced up slightly from the floor and smashed back down.
The rookies headed for the doorway in a panic, pushing each other out of the way to get through first. It made no difference; the first to get to the door was only the first to meet Alfred and Erik's Viking wrath.
The Vikings mowed down the rookies like they were medieval English villages. After a few sweeps of their arms and jabs with steel pipes they apparently found somewhere in the building – or smuggled in – all that was before them was a groaning pile of pasty, chubby men in their underwear.
"Let's get out of here," Alfred said calmly, as if he hadn't just seriously injured or killed a dozen men. As soon as he said it he was out of sight, and the sound of their footsteps came from the stairwell next to the room.
A new set of footsteps joined the Vikings' on the stairway, and I could hear the two groups' muffled greetings. Soon the No-Good Greasers were in the doorway, laughing and pumping their fists.
"All right, guys! This is all right!" Tony said. He hopped over the pile of rookie bodies and walked energetically to the Chief, who was lying unconscious on his back.
"Here's for scratching our juke box, you fat prick," Tony said. He kicked the Chief in his round head. I heard a snap.
He turned around and casually sauntered back to his cheering group. They each lifted a corner of the jukebox and carried it out the room.
Dan was sitting on the floor on the wall to catch his breath. Susan was kneeling beside Jack, crying. I was exhausted myself, with a splitting headache from being punched in the face. The Quitters were checking on their teammate, William, who was also passed out on the floor. The Proud Mother took a bottled water out of her purse and drank it eagerly. A trickle of water ran down her cheek.
As my breath slowed I thought I could hear something from behind me, where the robots were still in their jail cell. The sound was so muffled I could only hear brief bass pulses of it. I stood up and walked nearer to the bars. There was a locked door next to the robots that I hadn't noticed before.
Now I could hear the noise clearly. Someone was groaning in there.
I tried to open the door to the jail cell but it only clanged against the lock.
"Finish cutting this through," I ordered Tibs. I found it strange that he had no expression on his cube face after all that he just witnessed.
"Yes, sir," he said. He switched the blade on immediately and jabbed it into the lock, sparks flying so close to me I shielded my eyes.
In only a few seconds the lock broke off and he swung the door open for me. I rushed to the locked door on the left side. The formation of robots turned their heads to me curiously. This close, I could hear word breaks in the groaning. Whoever was yelling behind the door was being stifled.
The doorknob wouldn't turn; the door was locked.
"Can you get through this lock?" I asked Tibs.
"No, boss," he said apologetically before stepping back into the formation.
Susan walked into the jail cell.
"Professor, what are you doing here? We need to get Jack and William out of here. There might be some Corrupt Cops left in the building."
"There's someone in here," I said.
She tilted her head and listened to the muffled yells.
"You're right." She tried the doorknob. "It's locked? Where do you think the key is?"
"I don't know. Maybe the Chief has it, or maybe it's with the guards."
Susan ran to the Chief's recumbent body and searched it for keys, then stood up and shook her head at me.
"Maybe it's in the Chief's room," I said.
"Good idea."
I followed her as she ran out the room, down the stairs and to the end of the dark hallway, where the Chief's room was.
She opened the door and switched on the lights but immediately recoiled from the smell.
"What could that smell possibly be?" she asked.
"I don't know. Let's just get out of here as soon as we can," I said. I tried to pull the collar of my Cold Steel uniform over my nose but it wouldn't stretch that far. I couldn't tell if the rotten smell was from food or some human excretion.
The room was a mess of parachute-sized wrinkled shirts and trash. Despite the almost fanatical protests of my hygienic mind, I started picking up these objects and searching the slightly damp carpet under them for a set of keys. Susan did the same thing on the other side of the Chief's giant, circular bed with white silk covers.
"I'll get the closet," Susan said. She ran down a hallway behind the bed.
I finished searching my side of the room and walked to a corner with a hot tub and a well-stocked bar.
There were two garish paintings on the wall: one of a red sport car parked in front of a glittering city skyline, and another of a half-naked woman painted to look like a leopard, with spots all over her skin and whiskers by her nose. Her lip was curled like she was growling. I pulled these off the wall but no key was waiting behind them.
I swept the empty liquor bottles off the bar and searched the marble counter for the keys. One of the bottles turned out to be half full and rum spilled onto the floor.
There were no keys there. I checked all the shelves in a black refrigerator under the counter, with no more luck.
"This guy had a lot of clothes for someone who dressed up like a cop everywhere he went," Susan yelled from the walk-in closet.
I ran to the hot tub across from the bar. There was a white crust on the insides up to a certain height, and I guessed it hadn't been used for a long time. A bathing suit and a pink towel hung off the side, stiffened so they bent with the contours of the machine. I lifted them up and threw them onto the floor.
There, below the towel, was a ring with three golden keys.
"I got it! Found the key!" I yelled and sprinted out the room. Susan followed, laughing excitedly. As we ran through the lobby Alfred and Erik were carrying their Viking longboat out of the room across from the Chief's. Alfred yelled at Erik to lift his side higher.
Alfred fumbled his grip when he saw Susan. "What are you two doing down here?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be bringing your stuff downstairs?"
"There's another hostage!" Susan yelled as we entered the staircase.
We ran up the stairs so fast I jumped two steps at a time. Then we sprinted to the locked door and I stuck in the first key. It slid in easily, and when I turned it the doorknob followed.
"Yes!" Susan cheered.
When I saw what was in the room I yelled in surprise. When Susan saw him a moment later, she shrieked so loud it hurt my ears.
It was Hammer.