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“Right. Great idea. We’ll send the yard gnome to ask for gas. No offense, Balder.”
Balder bows his head. “None taken.”
“Look, I’m going to knock on that door and ask for help. You can come with me or go back and stay in the car. Your choice.”
Gonzo sucks down a mouthful from his inhaler.
At the door, a black cat meows a hello and winds between my legs. “Don’t start,” I say to Gonzo.
“It probably feasted on human fingers this morning,” he whispers.
The door opens and the cat darts inside. A kid stands there, a bowl of cereal in one hand. He’s maybe about ten or eleven and wears a pair of small, round glasses. His wiry dark hair is sporting some serious bedhead cowlicks.
“Careful, he might be armed,” Balder deadpans.
“Let’s see if you end up keeping watch over a freezer of flesh, Gnome-Man.”
“Hi,” I say, ignoring them both. “Our car ran out of gas out on the road, and I was just wondering if maybe your parents have some we could buy off ’em?”
“I don’t have parents,” the kid says in a soft, high voice. Milk dribbles from his cereal-full mouth down his chin. “I’m an orphan.”
“Is there anybody else here, like an adult?” I ask.
The kid leaves the door standing open and we follow him into the dark house. The TV’s on in the living room. The kid sits down cross-legged on a beanbag chair with the name ED stitched on it and goes back to eating cereal and watching cartoons. “They’re downstairs in the basement.”
“Oh hell no,” Gonzo whispers.
“We’re not staying,” I remind him. “Just getting the gas and we’re outta here.”
“This way.” Balder opens the cellar door, and we climb down in darkness, following a short, dimly lit passageway to a pretty serious-looking door made of stainless steel. A sign beside it reads ENTERING MAGNETIZED ZONE, PLEASE REMOVE ALL METAL.
Gonzo holds his inhaler close to his chest. “This is the part in the movie where I would haul ass.”
We put everything with any metal into little plastic bags we find on a nearby table. I practically have to pry Gonzo’s inhaler out of his hands. There’s no bell or anything that I can see, so I just throw the door open.
“Whoa,” I say.
“Seconded,” Gonzo whispers.
Balder gasps. “What strange new world is this?”
We’ve stumbled onto what could be the world’s most gi-normous MegaMart, if the shelves of sweat-shop-produced T-shirts and cheap-ass plastic toys were replaced by masses of long blue and red tubes, big as waterslide tunnels and connected to an intricate maze of wires, gizmos, robotics, and computers. The place seems to stretch up fifty feet or more, like we’re in an airplane hangar inside a silo, and it’s got enough megawatts lighting it to give a space station lightbulb envy.
Dead center is a miles-long tunnel supported by metal beams stretching out on all sides like petals on a crazy daisy. And in the center of that is a strange, bumpy door that reminds me of a cross between a seashell and a pinwheel. Two guys and one woman in white lab coats and safety goggles are gathered around a table. A third guy is strapped to a chair, his head held by a steel band.
“I’m getting a serious dwarf-tossing vibe off these guys,” Gonzo whispers.
“Would you chill?” I whisper back.
“I’m just saying, if anybody goes airborne here, it’s not gonna be me.”
I don’t want to interrupt whatever experiment they’re in the middle of, so I clear my throat and hope they’ll notice. When they don’t, I say, “Um, hello? Excuse me?”
“Be with you in a moment,” calls an older man with a pompadour of white hair. “Ready, Dr. A?”
“Ready when you are, Dr. M,” the guy in the chair with his head immobilized says.
“Very well. Calabi Yau!” the white-haired man shouts.
