Dr. Octavius stepped outside of his lab and blinked his eyes at the bright sunlight. He put his hand to his brow and surveyed the clear blue sky. There didn’t appear to be any clouds anywhere in sight.
“Hmm,” he thought to himself. “Now this won’t do at all. Maybe I made some sort of miscalculation somewhere along the way.” He put one hand on his hip and scratched the top of his bald head with the other.
“Uh, sir?” a small voice spoke up behind him and he felt a hand tugging gently at his lab coat.
“Ah, yes. What is it Maurice?” Dr. Octavius asked kindly.
Maurice was Dr. Octavius’ new lab assistant. He had been hired to replace the good doctor’s old lab assistant, Zeke, who had disappeared mysteriously one night several months before. Maurice had been lured away from his duties as an assistant to one Dr. Jonas Wentworth from down the street, who was a brilliant mad scientist in his own right and, as it just so happened, was also Dr. Octavius’ arch-nemesis.
Dr. Wentworth had been furious at the “betrayal” of his lab assistant and had duly sworn revenge. In addition to offering slightly higher wages, Dr. Octavius also won Maurice’s loyalty through his niece, the lovely Sarah. Sarah and Maurice had begun dating a few months back, shortly after Dr. Octavius had returned from his last interdimensional jaunt and a little before the unexplained disappearance of Zeke. Dr. Octavius couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory of an utterly flustered Dr. Wentworth, going out of his head with rage as Maurice had informed him of his intention to switch employers.
“Sir, you might want to come in here for a moment,” Maurice said with a note of anxiety in his voice. “The weather control machine seems to be malfunctioning.”
“Yes, I might have guessed that, considering it’s not raining,” Dr. Octavius rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I expected to at least see a few storm clouds once I cranked it to the ‘hurricane’ setting.” He sighed a bit as he stared again at the clear blue skies.
“Yes sir, about the hurricane setting,” Maurice said. “Things seem to be going a little haywire inside.”
At that moment the door to the lab blew off its hinges, sailed over their heads, and landed in the street with a thud, narrowly missing a group of yuppies out on a power walk during their lunch break.
“My word,” Dr. Octavius said in astonishment. “I’d better look into this.”
He was nearly swept off his feet as he tried to make his way back into the lab. Huge gusts of wind and an overwhelming downpour of torrential rain pounded at his body as he tried to avoid the mass of debris that blew scattershot around the room. Maurice, ever the faithful assistant, was right behind him.
“Try to reach the off switch!” Dr. Octavius shouted, although he wasn’t sure if his voice could be heard above the howling gales of wind, which seemed to be growing in strength by the second. Soon they were both clinging to the lab bench for dear life, their bodies stinging from little bits of debris that pelted them at massive speeds. Just when it seemed the lab was going to burst apart at the seams everything suddenly became deathly quiet.
“What’s going on?” Maurice asked.
“We must be at the eye of the hurricane right now. Quickly, now’s our chance!” He leaped to his feet and ran over to the large metal box-like machine situated against the wall and hit a conspicuous red button. “There, that ought to do it.” He let out a long breath and turned around to survey the damage. Papers were scattered everywhere and the floor was littered with various metal sprockets and gears as well as broken flasks. Truthfully, it didn’t look too much worse than normal.
Dr. Octavius did a quick survey among the overturned shelves and tables and deduced that nothing of too great of value had been broken. His most important experiments all seemed to be in relatively good shape. “Well, we’ll just chalk that one up to a learning experience,” he chuckled good-naturedly. “What exactly happened when I stepped outside?”
“Nothing at first, sir. But then the machine started trembling and sparks shot out of it. Pretty soon there was water dripping from the ceiling. I thought maybe you just had some leaks in your roof but then the machine started making this horrible buzzing sound and a bit of a breeze gusted up. That was when I went outside to find you.”
“Good work son,” Dr. Octavius said encouragingly. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind straightening the place up a bit, I think I’ll do some more tinkering on the weather control device. Not every experiment works perfectly the first time, I’m afraid.”
“I’m well aware of that, sir,” Maurice said as he picked up a broom and set to work.
The good doctor whistled a merry little tune to himself as he opened up the side panel and began turning some cranks this way and that. Soon he was interrupted by a polite knock on the door frame.
“Hello?” a high-pitched voice called out. “Is anybody in here? What happened to the front door?”
“Ah, Sarah,” Dr. Octavius smiled as his niece walked into the room. “You’re just in time to assist Maurice with the cleanup process! We had a bit of a mishap.”
“Oh my god!” Sarah said as her eyes widened. “Look at you two! You’re both soaking wet! What in the world happened to you?”
“Just a little spring shower, nothing to get worked up about. Although I do have to say the local weatherman did a lousy job predicting it.”
“Did something go wrong with your weather machine?” Sarah asked.
“Now I wouldn’t say ‘wrong’ necessarily,” Dr. Octavius said as he removed his spectacles and dried them on his lab coat. “More along the lines of ‘not quite as expected,’ I would say.”
“Hi, Snookums,” Maurice said as he walked up and gave her a little kiss on the lips.
“Hi there, Sweetie Bear,” she said as she kissed him back. “Are you all right? I know being a lab assistant is dangerous work.”
“It was nothing I couldn’t handle,” Maurice said, taking her hand and stroking her fingers.
“Indeed, he alerted me of the danger before it got out of hand. Young Maurice here is by far the best lab assistant I’ve ever had the pleasure of bossing around.”
“Well I know I like him,” Sarah said as she kissed him on the cheek.
“Aw, shucks, you guys are embarrassing me,” Maurice blushed.
“But really, Zeke wasn’t that bad, was he?” she asked. “I wonder whatever happened to him anyway?”
“He probably ran off with a gang of motorcycle thugs, embarked on a reign of terror raping and pillaging his way across the Eastern seaboard, and is now lying dead of a drug overdose in some inner city street slum,” Dr. Octavius said thoughtfully.
“Oh come on, you don’t really believe that do you?” Sarah asked.
“Actually, I do. I ran the question through my probability calculator and that came out as the most likely explanation.”
“I don’t know. I just never pictured Zeke in that sort of capacity.”
“It just goes to show you never really know people’s inner selves,” Dr. Octavius pushed his glasses up as he resumed tinkering with his machine. “Why, my best friend of over thirty years turned out to be nothing more than a figment of my imagination.”
“That’s… tragic,” Sarah said with a puzzled expression on her face.
“It certainly was. Now I have difficulty believing in anything. It’s hard to have great faith when everything around you might disappear into a puff of smoke at any moment. I do find it makes me particularly suited for the mad science industry, however.”
“Wait a minute, I’ve heard you express belief in things before. I know I have. You believe in your scientific theories, don’t you?”
“Yes, I have tossed the word ‘belief’ around rather casually from time to time,” Dr. Octavius agreed. “But that’s not to say I hold anything as absolute. I find it’s easiest to accept my current reality, whatever it may be, and work within it. After all, it doesn’t do you any good to question everything all the time. You’d never get anything accomplished that way. No, I much prefer to accept my interpretation of what’s going on around me as real and carry on with life. Although I am very aware that reality could change drastically at any given second. You should know that, Sarah. You’ve traveled to another dimension.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But I didn’t just imagine Quartzwater City, did I?”
“Who’s to say you didn’t?” Dr. Octavius shrugged. “Who’s to say you’re not imagining this moment right now? After all, given sufficient time the universe will eventually implode upon itself and everything within it will be gone. After that who’ll be around to say that it ever existed in the first place? Unless you believe in a higher power.”
“Do you?” Sarah asked.
“Actually I do,” Dr. Octavius smiled. “But of course, it could just be another figment of my imagination.”
“This is all very ‘existential’ and whatnot,” a strangely familiar voice said from the open door behind them. “But I’m afraid Quartzwater City is very real and in need of your services immediately.”
Sarah turned around to see a human-sized green toad in a loud Hawaiian shirt standing in the doorway. Oddly enough, he also appeared to be dripping wet.
“Max!” she shouted in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was sent here to fetch Dr. Octavius,” Max said as he strutted into the room confidently. “Jeez, what a fuckin’ dump. I figured you’d be living in the lap of luxury with your intellectual prowess, Doc.”
“Why are you wet?” Sarah asked. “Did you get caught in the same storm that hit here?”
“Storm? What storm?” Max asked. “No, I just took the old pond-to-septic-tank passageway to get here. It seems to have left me a little damp. You got a towel around this joint, Doc?”
“Yes, I believe I do,” Dr. Octavius said as he offered forth a ratty old blue cloth. “Who sent you to fetch me?”
“Oh, you know, your scientist buddies,” Max replied as he hastily patted himself down. “They’ve got a problem that’s baffling them and they figured you were the only one who might know how to solve it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Well, it seems some strange and mysterious force is slowly causing the color green to disappear. The process is so slow that it was barely noticed at first, but now it’s spread enough as to have caught the attention of the scientific community. Being of the emerald persuasion myself, you can see whereas this is somewhat of a concern to me as well. That’s why I volunteered to come get you. Now let’s be on our way, chop chop. No time to lose.”
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to do that,” Dr. Octavius said.
“What?” Max sputtered. “What do you mean? This is no joking matter! I’m in very real danger of losing my beautiful hue if we don’t hurry!”
“I’m afraid Zeke managed to destroy the only doorway I know of that existed between here and Quartzwater City.”
“You mean I’m stuck in this backwards little shit-hole of a world?” Max gasped. “Damn that Zeke! Always the troublemaker! Where the hell is he anyway?”
“We don’t know,” Sarah said somewhat sadly. “He disappeared several months ago and nobody’s heard anything about him since.”
“Disappeared? After all the trouble I went through to hook you two up I would have thought he’d stick around for awhile. Then again, knowing Zeke, he probably screwed it up somehow.” He paced back and forth across the room a couple times and then leaped backwards in surprise as he seemed to notice Maurice standing in the corner for the first time.
“Hello there,” Maurice waved sheepishly.
Max landed in a karate stance and glared at him suspiciously. “And who the hell might you be? Answer quickly and stay back! I’m warning you!”
“Don’t worry, silly,” Sarah said as she grabbed Maurice’s hand and gave it a little kiss. “This is my boyfriend Maurice.”
“Maurice?” Max asked incredulously. “Wait a minute, I agreed to back off so Zeke could take a crack at you, not some pasty little lab rat named Maurice. Well, all bets are off now, sister. My imminent seduction of you is back in the books. Count on it.”
“Would you give it up, Max?” Sarah frowned. “I’m not going to have sex with you, okay?”
“I think the lady protests far too much,” Max winked.
“I’ll thank you to kindly stop talking to my girlfriend like that,” Maurice said.
“Yeah, I’m quaking in my boots. Why don’t you go perform some serial dilutions or something, you freak? So anyway, Doc, what’s the problem? How’s about you just repair that door so we can get back to Quartzwater City?”
“I’m afraid it’s not so simple,” Dr. Octavius frowned. “You see, the original discovery occurred quite by accident. I was just walking across the room carrying a door when it mysteriously got stuck in mid-air. I’ve managed to purchase an exact replica of the original door I used and I’ve paced back and forth numerous times without any luck.”
“Was there anything else you were doing besides walking and holding the door?” Max asked. “Think, man! This is important!”
“Well, gee, it was so long ago. Too bad my time machine television is still in its prototype stage. Have I told you about that? It’s a marvelous device. You simply turn on the TV, switch it to the proper channel, and you can watch events from the past unfold as if they were part of an actual television program. Unfortunately the only station that gets decent reception involves an endless loop of Attila the Hun attempting to pop an ass pimple. Its got a few kinks to be worked out still, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all well and good, but it’s not getting us any closer to solving this door dilemma,” Max said as he chewed on his lower lip in frustration. “There has to be something different about that first time you carried the door that you haven’t replicated since!”
“Well, let me think for a moment,” Dr. Octavius murmured as he rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Wait a minute! I do believe something’s coming back to me now! Yes! There was this delightful little commercial jingle that I had stuck in my head and I was singing it to myself that night as I walked across the room.”
“Well grab the door and start singing, for fuck’s sake!” Max shouted.
“Very well,” Dr. Octavius replied as he opened up his bookcase revealing his secret room behind it. He retrieved the door from its resting place in the corner and began to pace across the room while singing to himself. “Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.”
Astonishingly enough, about halfway across the room the door stuck in place at the precise spot where it had been before.
“It worked!” Sarah shouted in amazement.
“Indeed it did,” Dr. Octavius beamed. “Although in a way, it’s almost a shame. I could have used this door to replace the one in the front that just blew off its hinges.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Max asked. “Let’s blow this dump!” He threw the door open and leaped through. He emerged on the other side and landed on his face on the floor of the lab. “What the hell happened? Why am I still here?”
“It has to be hooked up to the proper electrical configuration before it will transport us anywhere, I’m afraid,” Dr. Octavius shook his head.
Max let out a sigh. “Please tell me you remember how to do that.”
“Oh I still have the plans meticulously plotted out on a sheet of graph paper; it’s just going to take awhile to rig up the actual hardware.”
“This is no good. With every passing second Quartzwater City is losing more of its precious supply of green. How long is this going to take?”
“Well, if I work through the night, we should be able to be on our way sometime tomorrow morning.”
“In that case there’s no two ways about it. I’m going to have to hit some sort of drinking establishment.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Sarah admonished him. “I know all about you and your drinking. You’re going to get into some sort of trouble.”
“I’m not going to get into any trouble,” Max rolled his eyes. “I swear I’ll be on my best behavior. I’ll be polite to everyone I meet. The perfect gentleman in every way, shape, and form.”
“Speaking of ways, shapes, and forms, you can’t venture out looking like that,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Max said with an offended tone in his voice. “Are you suggesting there’s something wrong with my appearance?”
“It’s just that people in our world aren’t used to seeing giant walking talking toads. They might freak out a little.”
“So? That’s their problem, not mine. I need a drink and I fully intend to get one.”
Sarah sighed. “If you insist on going to a bar-”
“I do,” Max interrupted.
“I’ve got some makeup. I suppose I could paint your face and hands in a flesh color. It might help you blend in a little better.”
“If that’s what it’s going to take to get some booze around this joint, then I’ll do it!”
“You know, we could just pick you up some beer at a grocery store. That way you wouldn’t have to go out,” Sarah suggested.
The look on Max’s face made it clear he wasn’t too enamored of this idea.
“No, Sarah, we probably should get him out of the lab for a bit,” Dr. Octavius said. “It won’t do to have him drunk and stumbling around while we’re working.”
“I don’t know. I still don’t trust him not to cause a scene in public.” She looked at the floor thoughtfully for a moment before suddenly looking up with a gleam in her eye. “Say, Sweetie Bear?”
“Yes, what is it, Snookums?” Maurice replied.
“Why don’t you go along with him to the bar? Give him a ride, keep an eye on him, and make sure he stays out of trouble?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” Maurice said. “Won’t Dr. Octavius be needing my assistance on the project?”
“I can help him out,” Sarah said. “Go on, you deserve a night off anyway.” She gave him a little kiss on the lips.
“Well, okay,” Maurice said uncertainly. “I don’t go out very often though. Are there any bars nearby?”
“The Watering Hole’s not too far away. I know Zeke used to like to go there.”
“The Watering Hole it is then!” Max said excitedly.
“Go get your car while I get Max presentable,” Sarah said to Maurice.