"I'm sorry sir," she says with as much professional politeness as her years of work behind a hotel desk can muster (much more than I can put in print), "but there is a $25.00 per night service charge for keeping pets in your room."
Woofard lays out pretty much any time, the group stops on the way to the hotel. From where he is sprawled on the floor of the lobby as this exchange goes on, he blearily tries to glare and the desk clerk, and manages on the weakest of growls (probably can't even be heard more than a foot away), and loses interest.
Sam looks over at the lady with his usual "you talkin to me?" look and heads for the banks of phones. He dials up Cheri's number and leaves a message on her beeper to meet him at Cesar's in the bar.
The woman behind the counter is still waiting for some sort of response re: Woofard. For his part, Woofard seems to have gone to sleep.
Nigel raises his eyebrows at Sam. "Well? The dog does seem to belong to the child, and since you are the closest thing she has to an actual guardian, perhaps you'd like to take care of it?" Without waiting for a reply, Nigel turns to the receptionist. "Mr. Dart will be paying the deposit."
The woman looks expectantly at Mr. Dart. Sam digs out what money he has and pays the lady behind the counter. After this little investment he is as close to broke as makes no nevermind. He then says to the lady, "That should be enough to cover a new set of sheets. I'm not sure if the dog is house-trained or not."
The woman behind the counter gets pertinent information (like what room Sam is staying in) and then lets him go.
Marda looks at Woofard and then everybody else. She seemed perplexed at the term 'House-trained', although she grasped the context that it was something good to be. "I'm sure Ciine will behave," she protested, throwing her arms around the pooch. "He's really smart and ever so good."
Walking over to the bar Sam sits down, where he thinks no security cameras are catching him, with his back to the wall and scans the place. Around 45 minutes pass before Cheri arrives. She strides into Cesar's like she owns the place, spies Sam, and walks over. "Howdy Big Papa Smurf," she says jovially as she approaches. "What can I do for you?"
Sam smiles a big "Sam" smile, walks over and give Cheri a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He whispers in her ear, "I'll tell you what you can do for me as soon as we get a few minutes alone."
"Ask not what Cheri can do for you," Cheri replies, "ask instead what you can do for Cheri."
He motions for her to sit down and does so himself. Turning to Nigel he says "Nige, this is my lovely friend Cheri. You may remember her from the Airport hotel. I believe that she will be able to answer your questions." Sam leans back in his chair and starts making googoo eyes at the security specialist.
"Oh yes, I remember you," Cheri responds with a smile that is altogether predatory. "The jerk that wouldn't get the hell out of the doorway. Howzit been goin'?" she flops bonelessly into a chair and stares at Nigel with a quizzical expression on her face.
Marda peeks out from behind Sam's legs. She recognizes Cheri as the woman who helped her out in the beginning, but she has grown a certain level of distrust for Al-Amarjan Authority Figures as of late. "Hi, Lady," she murmurs out.
"Hello there Marda," replies Cheri cheerily. She nods in the direction of Woofard, "I see you have gotten a new friend."
Marda turns to Woofard and smiles, then turns back to Cheri, still very guarded. "Yes, Ciine's a very good Doggy. He saved my life. Or tried to, I think; there was also Mr. BugKiller who came to help."
"That's nice," replies Cheri. She seems to be devoting most of her attention to Nigel.
Nigel does his best to put on a disarming smile. "Yes I must apologize for that incident, I was completely out of line and I hope you can forgive me. Although I had a horrendous day, it was no excuse to treat you in the manner that I did. I am in need of some information, and Mr. Dart here says you may be of some assistance."
Cheri waves a hand dismissively. "Listen, if I took the behavior of every Burger who got in my face personally I'd have to spend all my time pursuing vendettas and I'd never get the bills paid. Whatcha need?"
Nigel gives a wan smile. "Well I'm looking for information on some of the seedier elements of the city. What do you know about the Satanists? That's as good a place to start as any..."
Cheri suddenly frowns. "Jesus Christ, not so loud you idiot!" she hisses, "are you trying to get us all killed?" She turns to Sam. "You got someplace more private than this to talk this out? I'm sure not going to talk about this in any Burger hotel bar."
Sam smiles broadly as he looks over at Cheri, "We could go to our room." He winks. "You wouldnt happen to have a bug sniffer, do you?"
"What do you think I am, an amateur?" responds Cheri sharply.
"Something you had better learn - no not, EVER talk about satanism in a public place like that again, particularly in Sunken. Some places maybe you can get away with it, but in case you haven't noticed the Peace Force is thick in Sunken. If you were paying attention during your time at C&I you might recall that satanism is illegal here on Al Amarja. Now you may be thinking that there are lots of things that are illegal here on Al Amarja that never get enforced, and you would be absolutely correct in thinking that, but let me clue you in - THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM! Her Exaltedness does not like satanists, and the Peace Force, ever eager to curry favor I might note, is more than willing to serve her up a regular helping of satanists 'shot trying to escape' or 'killed while resisting arrest.'"
Cheri flops into a chair.
"That having been said, I don't know much about satanists. I know that there's a gang that more or less runs Great Men Barrio that claims to be a bunch of Satanists. They call themselves the Glorious Lords. Their leader is a guy by the name of Avan Bloodlord. I hear that they're real mothers, but I don't know much first hand - Great Men isn't one of those places I hang out. Oh yeah - they have a patron too. A rich old guy by the name of Sir Arthur Compton. They act as his private army of thugs and goons, and he uses his not inconsiderable clout to make sure that Her Exaltedness doesn't sent in the Loyal Defenders and clean their clocks for good."
"Anything else?"
Strangely enough, it is Marda who chimes in with the next question. "Do you know what a Type 12 is?"
"Do you have any idea where how I can contact this 'Arthur Compton'?" asks Nigel. "I would be very interested in having a little chat with him."
Cheri opens her mouth with the obvious intention of saying something sharp, then reconsiders and closes it again. "I can think of three ways," she says after a moment. "They are, in order of effectiveness from least effective to most effective, a) call him up, b) go down to Great Men and ask the Glorious Lords to get you an interview, and c) to just go to Great Men and stop by his estate."
Blearily, Woofard opens his eyes once more with a groan. He seems somewhat confused by his surroundings. It doesn't take too long before the look of the room reminds him that they were going into a hotel before exhaustion overwhelmed him. He snuggles with Marda for a while, but his recent experiments with the local cuisine have left him with a nasty case of cotton mouth. He laboriously gains his feet and pads into the bathroom. He looks at the toilet for a long minute. He turns to the sink, and hops his front legs on to the sink. After several minutes of poking at the faucet handle, he gets the cold water flowing, and starts schlurping the cool water straight from the faucet.
Eventually satisfied in the thirst department, the dog turns the water off again and walks back into the room. His muzzle is still wet from the water. He hops onto the bed, lays down, and watches people talk.
Marda looks up at the security officer with a petulant stare. With a voice set to "whine", she repeats her question. "You haven't told me what a Type Twelve is yet."
As the sound of Marda's whining impacts sensitive dog ears, Woofard leaps to his feet, startled. He'd been about to doze off again, but this display has awakened him once more. He looks at the strange woman they are dealing with. He hops off of the bed, walks over to her, and lays his head in her lap.
"That's because I don't have the faintest idea what you are talking about," replies Cheri, who shrugs apologetically.
"You know." Marda states incredulously. She hadn't quite gotten the idea of differing levels of Security Clearance on Al-Amarja yet. "A Type Twelve Nonstandard. One of those," Marda pauses to think of the technical term in English, "thingies I was trying to make. You can't tell me that only the Bad Men know what they are. Someone's gotta be able to tell me."
Nigel waits for a moment... "Can you give me directions to this man's estate? I would like to have a word with him."
"Not personally - I don't hang around that neighborhood." Cheri shrugs and then turns to Marda. "Sorry kid, I've never heard of whatever it is you're talking about. It sounds like a toaster to me. Try Dmitri's Fix-It Shop. He might know what it is."
Sam looks over to Nigel and says, "Why don't you be a good chap and toodle along to Great Men? Do take Marda and the dog too. Cheri and I have a few things to... ahh discuss." Turning to the sexy security guard: "Don't we... dear?"
Woofard looks up from where he is trying to get some petting from the new lady at the suggestion they move out. He wags his curly tail as he looks towards Marda to see if she wants to go as well.
Cheri turns to Sam. "Hey, whatever you want stud-muffin. You want to send your buds here off to talk to some insane and powerful satanist while we hang out here, its not my call. I'm gonna kind of miss the kid, though."
Nigel kneels down to talk to Marda. "Would you like to go to Dmitri's shop with me? Perhaps he can answer your questions..."
Woofard seems to get excited by this statement. He gets to his feet, his curly tail wagging excitedly.
After what seemed to Nigel like a loooong silence, he shrugs his shoulders. "Marda, would you take my hand? I don't know if tata is coming or not. The dog may certainly accompany us." He turns to Cheri. "Can you be so kind as to point us in the general direction of Dmitri's?"
Sam also stands up and says, "Thanks for the encouragement, Cheri baby. You really know how to hurt a guy. Care to join us for a trip to Dmitri's?" He winks.
"Hey lover, you know I only do that sort of thing on request - and I didn't bring my whips and thongs so you're out of luck in any event," Cheri grins in a surprisingly predatory manner. "Dimitri's is at 171 North-Northeast Court, Four-Points", she says to Nigel. "It's in the phone book. Sam got that kooky ping pong ball gun there. We can take my car."
Marda jumps up and down in excitement. "Yay! We're going on a road trip!"
Woofard hunkers down, tail going to beat the band. He looks as if he's about to start barking in excitement... but he doesn't. He moves to the door and waits for someone to open it. Marda looks at Woofard with consternation, her mood changing with the suddenness of a spring storm. "What is it, Ciine? Is something wrong?"
Looking vaguely embarassed, Woofard calms down. But his heavy
curl of a tail continue to thrash back and forth.
Turning south onto Pogrom Lane, however, the looks of the city begin to deteriorate, to the point that by the time Cheri turns east, just past the Plaza of the Four Cardinal Points, it is obvious to all that they are in a part of the city where a) the police don't go, b) the tourists don't go, c) nobody who can afford to live any better has any business being after nightfall. The entire area speaks eloquently of urban decay, high crime, and desperation. Traffic is light, and most of the vehicles along the road look to be nonfunctional.
After a few blocks of driving through the winding and narrow side streets, Cheri pulls up in front of a broken down and dilapidated store front. Through the grimy glass (covered with thick bars) can be seen all manner of tools, gizmos, doohickeys, widgets, gadgets, and thingamabobs - some strangely familiar, and others completely incomprehensible. There is a single stout wooden door, and above it hangs a sign which reads "Dimitri's Fix-It Shop".
"OK," Cheri says - "we're here."
Everyone disembarks and the group starts heading for the shop, when around the corner come - baboons! A group of six baboons to be exact, followed by a young man wearing leather pants, a black tee-shirt, a bomber jacket, and a jaunty looking police officer's hat. He's carrying some kind of cattle prod on his belt.
"Act cool," Cheri say under her breath.
"YOU THERE! HOLD UP!" the young man says, catching sight of the group.
Upon viewing the shop window, Marda freezes, transfixed in awe. After a few seconds of warning tremors, Marda explodes in excitement. She has that same kind of look that explains why most adults stay far away from Toys 'R Us whenever possible. "Canwegoincanwcanwecanwe Iwannagoinletsgoincanwe?" she continually and breathlessly pleads as she jumps up and down.
The Akita also seems fascinated by the "Fix-it" shop. Woofard is so caught up by his interest in the odd repair shop, that he is surpised by the arrival of the baboons and thug. His eyes go a little wide at the spectacle, but anyone familiar with dogs might find his silence in this circumstance a bit odd. He steps in front of Marda, and keeps a wary eye on the primates.
Sam ponders wether or not his pingpong ball gun will work on primates or should he go for the dork in leather... Tata takes his que from Cheri and "acts cool" for the moment.
Nigel looks at the man with the baboons, raises his eyes to the heavens, and mutters "what now?" under his breath... but decides that it is also in his best interest to remain 'cool'.
The guy with the policeman's cap saunters up. From a bit closer one can see that he has the word "Skab" written in where a name tag should normally go. He casually pulls the prod off his belt and points it in the general direction of Woofard. "Whose dog is this?" he asks nonchalantly.
The baboons grow quiet, and watch with obvious fascination.
Sam smiles politely but begins pulling the pingpong ball gun out of the waistband of his pants and asks, "Who's asking?"
Woofard's slowly wagging tail, slows to a halt. He shoots a quick, worried glance towards Nigel and Sam, but quickly returns to watch Scab's little monkey buddies' every move.
"I am," says Skab, with irritation, "and if you pull out whatever your diddling with your gonna be baboon chow. Now who's fucking dog is this?"
Marda turns from drooling in the window for a few moments. "Oh! Ciine! He's my dog. Isn't he a good doggie? But your monkeys are really cute too. Can they do tricks?"
Skab ignores the question. "Lets see your dog license," he says matter-of-factly.
Woofard looks vaguely embarrassed.
Marda looks very confused. "A dog what?" At the sight of Marda's consternation, even Skab softens a bit (she is really a cute kid after all). "Your dog license," he repeats, speaking in that oh-so-patient voice with which adults address children when they aren't screaming at them, "Dogs gotta have licenses. Where's your dog license? Fer that matter, where's yer mommy and daddy? Or are ya a pube? If yer a pube, ya gotta have papers ta prove it."
Marda points to Sam and says, "He's my Tata. Where do you get doggy papers? Why does Ciine need them if he's already house-trained? And what's a pube?"
Woofard makes a choked coughing sound, and his tail starts wagging again.
Skab turns to Sam. As Sam is not as cute as Marda he feels no inclination to be gentle. "Do you have a licence for the dog, or don't you?" he snarls.
"Shit, I was just looking at it. Must be around here somewhere." Sam stares the guy in the face while getting a good grip on the Whammo gun which is tucked in the waist band of his jeans.
"Well lets see it then!" snarls Skab. "And don't be dicking me around here! It's a $25.00 fine for not having yer dog licensed!" The baboons, as if sensing Skab's agitation, begin to pace about grunting and uttering low hoots.
Sam says, "Look pal, how do I spell this out for ya? That isn't my dog, I don't have a daughter, and these people have just attached themselves to me. I don't have $25 to give or I would, just to get your monkey-smellin' ass out of my face. So show how tough you are and beat the crap out of us or shove off... NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND, BABOON BOY?"
"Yeah, I understand," says Skab. "The dog ain't yours. Its just a stray mutt." He motions to the baboons. "Kill the pooch," he says simply. The baboons throw themselves with gusto at Woofard.
"Way to go, bonehead." sneers Woofard at Sam.
Simultaneously, Marda lets out a screechy "NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" that puts the baboons to shame and throws herself in front of the baboons, more or less drowing out Woofard's initial comment.
When Marda jumps in front, the dog calls out in horror, "No, Marda run! Hide!" The big Akita dodges way over to the right, getting clear of the little girl. "C'mon ya fuckin' monkeys. Woof! Step up and die!" he snarls.
Nigel stares in disbelief at the display before him. "WAIT!!" he yells.
The baboons stop. Skab stops. EVERYBODY STOPS! Six pairs of baboon eyes and one pair of human ones (at least) swivel to stare at the talkative Akita.
Grabbing on more tightly to the nice doggy and beaming with exhilaration, Marda squeals, "Ciine, you can talk!"
Desperate to avoid a renewal of hostilities, Nigel presses his point, talking quickly but with the smooth patter of an experience salesman. Stepping between Woofard and Skab (not without a degree of trepidation at the thought of those big baboon fangs), he makes himself look as relaxed as possible.
"Now I'm sure we can end this amicably my good man. I will pay the fine for the animal, and as far as I'm concerned, you can do what you want with the insane gentleman. As he told you, we have no connection with him, so whatever fines you wish to levy are his concern and his alone. I'm sure your superiors would want you to add an extra $20 for your time and trouble?"
"Hey!," replies Skab, still staring at Woofard. "That dog talks!"
Meanwhile, Woofard whispers to Marda. "Hold on tight, Marda, we're getting out of here," he says. "Woof," says Woofard quietly. And while everyone seems to be slightly confused, Woofard moves steadily towards the door of the Fixit Shop, hauling Marda along as well.
Sam makes a move to back up towards the door of the fix-it shop. With his hand still firmly attached to the ping pong ball gun in his waist band. "Tata" is also quite confused but after his experience at the restaurant, nothing seems to phaze him. "Okay, good. Now the little terror can talk to the dog instead of me."
Skab shakes his head slightly, and seems to focus a bit at the mention of money. His attention turns towards Nigel like a heat seeking missile locking on to a jet engine. "Twenty five bucks ought to do it," he says, then turns back in the direction of Sam, "But I am telling you for the last time - take your hand out of your pants or I'm gonna feed you to the baboons, Scarab!"
Meanwhile, Woofard and Marda have managed to creep over to near the doorway of the Fix-It Shop. Marda tries the door in an effort to change the appropriate directional preposition from near the doorway into THROUGH the doorway. A magical land beckons her inside.
Woofard wishes for thumbs. When Marda works the doorknob Woofard pushes forward, strolling into the shop with her. He gets his nose working as well as his eyes and ears, looking for signs of more trouble.
At about this time Nigel and Sam notice that Marda and Woofard seem to have slipped into Dimitri's Fix-It Shop during the commotion. Cheri wearily pulls out her wallet. "Here's $20.00" she says to Skab, shaking her head.
Skab pockets the money. "Thanks sister," he says with an evil grin.
"You're welcome," replies Cheri evenly.
Skab departs, whistling, taking the baboons with him. Cheri watches him go, then rounds on Sam. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED OVER $20.00? WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT ARE YOU ANYWAY? IN THE FUTURE COULD YOU AT LEAST TRY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS WITHOUT GETTING US ALL SHREDDED BY BABOONS? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"
Nigel fold his arms as a wry smile creeps to his face. For once he and the lady agree completely...
Sam looks back at Cheri. He smiles, looks into her deep blue eyes and says, "Nice try, sis, but a couple things for you to remember." He holdsup his fingers. One: I'm the burger here. If money was the issue then you should have said something before the guy got up in my face about the dog. I didn't know I could just pay the jerk to go play somewhere else. Two: I havnt got twenty five bucks for every monkey butt that wants it. Three: this little expedition was more your idea than mine. I had other plans but you had to get all misty for little Marda and pet Woofy in there," thumbing towards the fixit shop. "I'm sick of pulling her white little behind out of trouble and now I'm getting it from you too. Thanks for the advice but BACK OFF a little, ok ?"
"Fine!" snaps Cheri in reply, "but might I suggest that in the future if you are thinking of suicide you might want to shove your head under a passing automobile and save us the aggravation and risk of being associated with you!"
With that she stomps off into the store in a huff.
Inside it is everything Marda ever dreamed of... and more! There are doodads, gewgaws, bits, pieces, remnants, reconstructions, new productions, experimental prototypes, parts, thingamabobs, and whatsises, to name only a few. There is enough raw material here to keep her busy for weeks (or until her ADD kicks in, whichever comes first).
For Woofard, its a little shop full of junk that smells like machine oil and metal.
An old man of around 65 comes out of a back room at the sound of the door closing. He is wearing a black work shirt and black jeans, and his long white hair is secured in a hairnet. He is large, but with amazingly delicate hands (albeit amazingly delicate grimy hands) and a kindly smile. When he speaks it is with a pronounced Russian accent. "Good afternoon leetle giral. Velcome to my shop." he says pleasantly.
Marda answers the man with vigor and, incidentally enough, an accent thick enough to mirror the proprietor's. (So it was probably a good thing that Woofard had the time to get used to Marda's speech patterns by now.) "Wow! You get to make stuff like this? That is so cool! Oh," she blushed, "I'm Marda and this is Ciine, my doggy, or I guess not. He doesn't have papers or anything.
Woofard, seeing that Marda is now safe. Turns his attention back towards the outside. He looks out the window to see what is going on out there. He sees Nigel paying off the creep, and Sam arguing with the woman cop. He wished he hadn't done that, spoke up, but he had been pretty sure he was done for. He regreted that the creep was getting away, but with all those damn monkeys, there was no way to stop him. Woofard sighed, his best hope would be that nobody would believe the punk, and the story would ebd there... Of course it only took one wrong person to hear it, and he'd wind up in a Thai bar-B-Q lunch special.
"So," continues Marda, "I'm doing this really great project, but some Bad Men took my stuff away. Can you help me?"
"It depends on the project," the man says with a smile. "Perhaps you could tell me what you had in mind?"
Marda again finds herself in the predicament of knowing what she wants, but not quite knowing what it is. "Well it's a... sort of a... you know kinda like." She turns to her raggedy, yet dependable stuffed bear. "What is it, Teddy?" After a minute or so of in depth consultation, she finally arrives at an answer. "He says that the bad men call it a 'Type Twelve Nonstandard.' I can draw a picture of it for you if it'd help."
Being satisfied that trouble wasn't following them indoors, Woofard wanders over to see what the Hell Marda is up to... and has to admit to himself that he has no clue.
The man quirks one snowy eyebrow in the direction of Teddy, but declines further comment. "Certainly," he replies. "That would be best I think. Do you know how to use OrCAD or Protel?"
Marda squeals with joy. As far as she is concerned, she has just walked to the North Pole (only warmer) and Dmitri is Santa Claus. "Wow! You gotta CAD/CAM system? CanIPlayWithIt?PleasePleasePlease?"
Dmitri actually looks vaguely like Santa Claus, incidentally... The old repairman smiles. "Of course you can, little girl," he says pleasantly, indicating a door marked 'Employees Only.' "After you," he says.
At that moment Cheri bursts into the store in a huff, closely followed by Sam and Nigel. Seeing the others entering, and suspecting that there might be a question or two coming his way in the near future, Woofard nearly pushes Marda through the door Dmitri indicates as he joins her.
The back room is even more filled with junk than the front area of the shop - everything is either half disassembled or half assembled (its hard to tell which). Just barely visible at the far end of the room is a cluttered desk upon which sits some sort of computer-like object (clearly scratch built)
"Down there leetle giral," says Dimitri. "Please not to be reformatting the hard drive or deleting of the files." With that, he hurries back to the main shop.
Propelled by the considerable momentum of a dog which doesn't want to answer any delicate questions right about now, Marda jumps into the chair by the computer and begins clacking and clicking on the mouse and keyboard with reckless abandon.
While this computer does have a CAD/CAM system, it isn't connected to anything other than a printer, so it doesn't actually have any CAM capabilities. Apparently Dimitri just uses it to make blueprints and the like. There is certainly plenty of manufacturing equipment lying about (lathes, drills, etc.) but it is all manual stuff.
Slowly, but surely, the amorphous blob on the CAD/CAM takes shape into the device which she had seen when her "friends" left within the inner recesses of her mind at the airport. To Woofard, however, the design doesn't seem quite right, though. It's almost as if Marda had somehow programmed the computer to output its results in scrawled crayon font.
"So, whaddaya think, Ciine? It's really cool, isn't it? Now if I could only figure out what it does."
"Um, w..where did you see this thing?" ssks Woofard in a quiet voice still rusty from disuse.
"Oh, I met some friends at the airport," comments Marda nonchalantly. Then she revises a bit. "Actually, I never actually met them, they sort of called me in the head but I couldn't get to them before they went away. But they told me to build this thing. "Who knows, maybe if I build it, they will come."
Woofard laughs, "And they'll be a bunch of old time baseball players."
"Why, Ciine, do you know what it is?"
"Uh....... nope. I got no clue." He thinks a moment, "Do you think you can build that thing? With the junk in this dump? I'd guess that would be the only way to find out."
Marda nods assertively. "Oh, yeah. I can build it. Actually, I made some of it already with the stuff in our hotel room, but the Bad Men kept it when they took me to the Bad Place which Tata just got me out of when I met you. They were real scared of it and wanted to do Bad Things to me for making it.
Here, however, she got some sort of determined glint in her eyes. "But I wanna make it real bad so I can meet my friends in person. And Teddy wants me to make it too - he helps me with the details in my work."
Woofard gives her a suspicious look, but then does the equivalent of a doggy shrug. "I don't know who your friends might be, but if the 'Bad Men' don't want you building it... well then, you'd better get to work building one now, before they can catch us again."
From what Woofard sees on the screen, the thingy that Marda is trying to build actually bears a vague resemblance to Sam's Whamm-o gun, although with some sort of parabolic dish mounted on the front instead of the plenum chamber where the ping pong ball normally goes. It has a hand grip and some sort of complex electronics making up the body.
Putting this thing together by hand will likely take Marda the better part of a week - the electronics are tricky, and miniaturizing the HYDAMP (High Density Anion Matrix Plasma) generator from something the size of, say, Manhattan, down to something that will fit into the handle of a portable gizmo using current technology is going to be - well -a challenge to say the least.
"Marda," says Woofard still talking quietly, "I get a feeling that we aren't going to have time to put that... thing together here. Do you think maybe you can get the parts you need here, and put it together when you get time back at the hotel?"
Marda eyes her proposed creation carefully. This is the one place on this island where she can procure the parts, but there is also the problem of securing time and a sufficient workspace to build the device. "Yeah, Ciine, it's gonna be a lot of fun, I, uh mean work. But I dunno if I wanna do this in the hotel again. The Bad Men could come back. We need a... a... I got it! We'll make a Secret Clubhouse! Ciine, do you know anywhere we could get one of those?"
Woofard laughs quietly, "Punkin, if I knew where to get one of those, I'd have gone there long ago and pulled it in after me. Maybe the mad scientist that runs this dump knows of a good hidey hole we can use."
"Or maybe the old geezer knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows where we could hideout and build this gizmo of yours."
"What a good idea, Ciine! I'll do that right now." Without
further delay, Marda skips out to the main "showroom".
Sam looks around for Marda (out of instinct), then back at Dmitri. "Here," says Mr. Dart reaching into his front pocket and pulling out his miniature lava lamp. "I don't think I'll be needing this for a while. Besides, the thing makes me nervous."
While Sam is in the room, he looks around carefully trying to spot things that he isnt supposed to see. He has a suspicion that there is more to this shop than meets the eye. Finally, his gaze falls on Cheri and stays there. He grins.
Sam isn't certain if he sees anything that he is not supposed to see or not - certainly Dmitri doesn't seem to be particularly worried about hiding anything. What Sam does see is lots of stuff that he doesn't understand.
Dmitri takes the proffered "lava lamp" grenade back without comment.
Cheri continues to look miffed, but seems to be softening somewhat.
Nigel extends his hand in greeting. "The name is Nigel Timmons. I'm pleased to meet you, Dmitri. This is quite a shop you have here. What do you specialize in?"
Dmitri shrugs and smiles, obviously pleased with the compliment. "Oh, a little of this and a little of that," he says. "Mostly I fix broken things for people - toasters, blenders, telewisions. Some stuff I buy from Garbage Men and repair, then sell. Also sell hardware and tools."
Dmitri's shop is so full of junk that it is difficult to even see what all is in here.
At this point, Marda pops out of the back room and walks up to Dmitri, stopping him and Nigel mid-conversation. "Hello, Mr. Technology-Guy, sir, but I wanna make my Type Twelve Nonstandard Thingydevice, and I'm going to need a real quiet place to work. Do you know anyplace like that?"
Dimitri smiles down indulgently at Marda, but shakes his head. "I have only my little shop," he replies.
Woofard follows along behind the little dynamo. He stands beside Marda watching Mr Technology-Guy. He sneaks a look at the people he rode in the cab with, but doesn't meet their eyes.
Nigel walks past Marda and gives her an affectionate little pat on the head. He walks over to the dog, and with a slight smile on his face kneels down to his eye level. "All right, my canine friend, what exactly is your story, and don't you DARE say 'woof'."
Woofard reluctantly looks at Nigel. He sighs, and opens his mouth. Then he looks at the shop owner, and closes his mouth again. He looks toward Nigel, and kind of nods towards Mr Machine-man-store-owner-guy. Sighs again, and says clearly and a little apologetically: "Arf?"
At this intense intellectual conversation, Sam stops snooping around the shop and moves toward the back room. "Hey pooch, I've got one for ya... Who was the greatest baseball player of all time?"
Woofard lapses into a coughing fit, that sounds suspiciously like there might be laughter lurking deep inside it.
As the group stands chatting with Dimitri the door to his shop opens
and a decidedly odd figure ambles through the door.
To Be Continued...