CHAPTER ONE
Maxwell Smart ran through the apartment getting ready for the opera as his wife was upstairs giving last minute instructions to her mother for the twins. He fumbled with one cuff link annoyingly and then the other. He wasn't in the mood for the opera, but he had been promising 99 for weeks to see this one show. Still annoyed, he realized he could not get out of it as he dropped one of his cuff links. Unable to find it, he dropped the other one and watched where it went.
"Great," he mumbled. "I lost that one too."
"Now, mother," 99 came down the stairs. "No candy for either of them, it gets them excited and wired."
"Oh, pish-posh," The woman ignored her. "I gave you candy and you turned out to be a beautiful little girl."
"Mother," 99 added. "I was a fat, little girl. It took forever to lose that weight!"
"Fat nothing, you were beautiful."
"Really, mom." Max hit his head under the desk. "Was she really fat once?"
"No, she wasn't."
"Mother, please." 99 insisted. "No candy. You won't believe how many babysitters we've gone through. Everyone thinks we're raising two little monsters."
"Monsters, nothing. They're little angels." 99's mother beamed ear-to-ear and reached down. "Oh, look, cuff links. Max, are these what you're looking for?"
"Yes, mom," Max hit his head again as he looked across the room at her. There was a knock on the door as he rose. Dropping the cuff links in his pocket, he opened the door.
"Yes," Max replied as the visitor stared at him a minute.
"Maxwell Smart?"
"That's right." Max sensed nervousness in him. "How can I help you?"
"I need help that is a matter of... Control." The stranger answered as 99 whirled around in the background.
"Mother," She turned to her. "Did I hear the twins?"
"I don't know, but I'll check." Her mother turned round. "Darling, if you want me out of the room, just say so. That or at least tell me it's your secret agent business." Max and 99 shot looks at each other over realizing she was not as ignorant of things as she once was. Max pulled in their visitor.
"Okay," he started. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Name's... Smith, Jason Smith." The man claimed. "I'm here to tell you that KAOS now has a time machine and they mean to use it to alter world events to their favor."
"But how can you be sure it works?" 99 asked.
"They completed it in 1995." Smith continued. "I'm a Control agent myself from the future. I was able to get inside it with one KAOS agent and travel back to this time."
"You're from the future!!" Smart looked him over and saw nothing unusual in how he was dressed. Smith wasn't wearing any of those silver bodysuits he had expected of time-travelers from watching television. He looked pretty much as any other agent of today. "99, this is one of the most exciting things to ever happen! I knew something good would happen to get me out of the opera!!"
"Max," 99 shot him a look before turning to look at Jason. "What about the machine? Could the KAOS of today still use it?"
"Not without the chief component I took." Jason produced a small circuit board with wires hanging from it. "This holds the command functions that run the dimensional drive in the device."
"Max, we better tell the chief!" 99 picked up the phone to call in the matter of emergency. "With a time machine, KAOS could alter world events, kill off the greatest world leaders and force the world into, pardon the pun, chaos."
"Best of all," Max grinned. "I don't have to sit through the opera!!"
CHAPTER TWO
The Chief was not in a good mood to return to Control headquarters a few hours after he left it, but it was a good chance to get away from his wife. Max and 99 expressed what they thought was a need for urgency as he listened to Jason Smith's account of how he hopped a KAOS time machine to this time.
"Fascinating," He was in awe. "This could be our most dangerous mission in years. Just thinking of the damage KAOS could do altering events in the past could be catastrophic."
"That what we thought." Max added.
"One thing that bothers me about this." The Chief added. "Our own Control scientists have also been discussing and trying develop a time machine themselves. How do I know you're a Control agent from the future? How do I know you're not the KAOS agent? Can I see your Control ID card?"
"My card?" Smith glanced to 99. "For reasons of my own, I don't see how my identity has a bearing on this. If I was KAOS, why would I come to you for help?"
"To drag us into a trap." The Chief remarked. "Your card." Smith looked at Max and 99 once more as he started to reach into his jacket, and then stopped. He glanced at them again and leaned across to the Chief.
"I can't." He stopped. "Not in their presence. I'm only going to disclose any details about the future of Control to the Chief himself."
"Well, of all the gall...." Max rolled his eyes.
"Max, 99, Leave the room."
"But Chief…" Agent 99 reacted upset.
"Please leave the room."
Max mugged a bit confused and upset like a young child sent to his room. He glanced to his wife a moment and stood up and stepped out the electronic sliding door. Once it shut behind them, Smith whipped out his wallet, pulled out his card and handed it to the Chief. Reacting complacently and centered, he flipped the card over and looked over it. The first thing he noticed was the holographic flashing image of Jason's face turning from side to side and electronic words moving across the bottom describing his vital statistics. It had the Control seal, the name of the President of the United States in 1995, a person by the name of William Clinton, and the name of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. It looked more advanced than anything of his time; it was futuristic and created with the technology of another time. Wondering how the images flashed and flickered on it, his eyes widened when he read the moving digital words that read "AGENT 86, REAL NAME: Jason Thaddeus Smart!"
"Smart?" He looked up even more surprised and pointed out the closed door. "And they are...?"
Jason nodded silently as his reasons for anonymity became obvious. The Chief gasped loudly, swallowed the stunned lump in his throat and hit the intercom.
"Max, 99! Get back in here!!"
"What is this?" Max mumbled re-entering. "Musical chairs?"
"I want you two to work with Agent... Smith." The Chief secreted back their son's card. "You're working under him, don't do anything without his knowledge."
"Chief, that's a little unorthodox, isn't it?" 99 asked.
"That's an order." The Chief added. "He's got the ball. Follow his leads."
"I won't do it." Smart turned his lip out.
"Then you're fired!"
"What's first, boss." Max turned to Jason.
"We head back to the time machine." Jason looked over this young temporal version of his father. "Our first directive is to get the machine away from KAOS." He answered as the three of them headed out. The Chief dropped to his chair and rubbed his forehead trying to accept what he had seen.
"God, I hope he takes after his mother." He mumbled.
CHAPTER THREE
The old shipping warehouse rested on the docks of the Potomac River. Max and 99 followed Jason asking him several questions about the future if they were still alive and if their children were happy, but he just remained tight-lipped to them. Most of his answers centered on they were not meant to know or that they would find out. Their course headed for the warehouse around large crates from other cities and places to the back facing the waterfront. The time machine sans the part he had removed had been left in one of the larger warehouses for storing exotic food. It was outside the back entrance that Max and 99 decided to pull out their guns for cover. He looked at them and rolled their eyes.
"Don't you carry a gun?" Max asked him.
"I try not to." Jason pulled out a Swiss Army Knife and jimmied the door locked against him.
"No guns?" Max looked to 99. "What's with this new generation?"
Pushing the bolt aside, Jason slid open the door opened silently wide enough for them to enter as they passed between high stacks of crates rising to the ceiling rafters. The place seemed deserted as they crept inside and eventually ended up near the offices off the wide work area of the warehouse.
"What does this time machine look like?" 99 asked curiously.
"About as big as the Apollo 15 capsule but round, stream-lined and compact."
"There were other Apollo missions?" Max looked up as Jason hastened for the burn spot in the floor. The seven foot wide black spot had been torched into the floor by his arrival, but the machine he had used to create the scorch pattern was missing. He looked up and around the warehouse for it.
"They moved it!" He glanced around. "They figured out if they couldn't use it, they could at least hide it from me."
"Right you are!!" A voice called at them.
"The Craw!!" Max recognized his old nemesis.
"Not the Craw, The Craw!!!" The Chinese criminal mastermind stuck out his dismembe with a magnet on it and ripped their guns from their hands with the magnetic force he welded.
"Very good," The Whip came out of another hiding place with his long mustache dangling down over his red robes woven into long whips. "Now, the command functions to the time machine for your life."
"And if I refuse." Jason stood his ground.
"Our men," Several guns were cocked into position from on top of the crates over their heads. "Open fire on you and the agents from Control." Jason glanced from the Craw to the Whip and then over to Max and 99. He grinned nonchalantly as he folded his arms.
"What if I told you I expected a double-cross and hid the component somewhere where no one could find it ?"
"You wouldn't do that." The Craw looked over to his KAOS ally known as the Whip. "These agents from the future must be getting better." He cracked.
"But it won't help them." The Whip gestured to some men who had taken the floor. "Take them captive. Bring him for interrogation. Maybe you will speak openly after we've gone over the bamboo shoots."
"Sorry, but I've already eaten." Jason glanced to his parents as he was lurched through another door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Transposed in time, Jason Smart, alias Jason Smith, looked up to the KAOS agents holding him and continued to be annoying as they interrogated him over the missing component to the time machine. A few unnamed henchmen watched from the other end of the room as the large and overweight Whip allowed the Craw to ask the questions.
"Where is the missing component?"
"Have you been eating onions?" Smith cringed from his breath. The Craw stood up straight and checked his breath a second while Smith's wisecracks and lack of attention was getting to be a problem.
"I'm tired of this," The Whip stopped swaying the long end of his mustache. "We'll use the truth serum."
"No, not that!" Smith reacted. "I'll tell!"
"Good, where is it?" The Whip reacted with a twisted sense of Chinese honor.
"In a mail box at the corner of Fifth and Second."
"Fifth and Second Streets do not intersect!" The Craw revealed.
"Sort of makes it harder to find, doesn't it?" Smith grinned connivingly as he kept them confused. The Craw just grew even more aggravated and started to swing at him, but the Whip stopped him.
"Why ask me all these questions?" Smith looked at them. "Why not ask the KAOS agent that came with me?"
"He tried ordering us around. We had to kill him for making demands." The Whip admitted.
"Makes it sort of hard to get answers that way, doesn't it?" Smith rolled his eyes condescendingly toward them. The Craw turned to his criminal ally.
"Throw him in with the other two to cool his head." He suggested. "Maybe he be more cooperative if he was half-frozen." He gestured to his men who reached and dragged Smith from his chair. Smith analyzed the situation as he secreted his Swiss Army knife from the table to his pocket. Dragged to a freezer with his wrists and knees tied together, he was tossed without mercy in with his potential parents. Max tried to fight his way out, but Jason was pummeled into him as a weapon. They then looked up through the smoky freezer lit by a solitary light bulb.
"Jason, are you okay?" 99 came to his attention on the floor as the door slammed shut. With the doors closed, the lights went out in the large walk-in freezer.
"Fine, you two?"
"Almost got my restraints off." Max spoke in the dark as the lights went out on them. Smith was already unbound while he flipped on the light switch. He turned his blade toward them as his knife cut them free.
"Well," Smart added, "I loosened them for you."
"What next?" 99 asked.
"You got your shoe phone?"
"No, they took it along with everything in my pockets." Max looked him over.
"How did you know he had a shoe phone?" 99 asked as she rubbed her arms trying to keep warm. Smith removed his jacket and draped it over her.
"What?" He looked at her. " I, uh, remember your dossiers." He turned and looked up at the light bulb and felt it to see how hot it was.
"If only we could get out..." Smart looked around for something to use as Smith ripped the cover off the fixture and then loosened a shelf.
"Take my knife." He handed his Swiss Army knife to 99. "Use the screwdriver on it to loosen the plates on the back of the door. Dad…" He paused realizing what he had said. Max looked up barely paying attention as 99 looked up with a gasp. "I want you to help me with this."
"What are you doing?" Max watched as Jason broke a piece of ice from a frozen crate of fish and melted it against the light bulb. The melted ice began dripping to the removed shelf and running down inside the loosened plate on the door.
"Water's kind of funny." Smith explained. "As it freezes, it expands."
"Refreeze it inside the door and the door will buckle off its hinges." 99 realized his creativeness. "Brilliant!!"
"Exactly."
"That's incredible!" Max reacted at his ingenuity. "Do all you Control agents in the future work like this? You know, using your wits instead of guns?"
"Well, I do." Smith held the metal shelf against the hole his mother had created. She looked upon him proudly with a slight beaming grin filling her face.
"There are so many questions I have." 99 stood up. "Are we still in Control? Is the Chief still around? How much has changed?"
"Well," Smith grinned as his breath turned to fog. "All in due time..."
CHAPTER FIVE
One of the Whip's men walked up to the freezer door and stared at it. He watched the front of it icing up and scratched his head trying to figure out what was causing it. Stepping closer, the door popped open suddenly without warning and hit him in the head as he crashed to the floor.
"86," Jason looked out. "Find a way to call the chief. Agent 99, I'll need you to cover and help me find the time machine."
"Right," Max hesitantly took the orders from the younger agent, but he had to admit that Jason had conviction and confidence he saw in no one else. Retracing his steps, Jason stopped and looked back out into the open warehouse. Without her gun, 99 was following his lead and hoping they weren't discovered as they moved slowly behind massive crates. The voices of the Whip and the Craw emanated from the upstairs office above them plotting events in the past they could alter to the benefit of KAOS. Agent 99 turned and watched Jason checking the burn spots in the concrete floor his arrival had created and looked around the vast warehouse once more.
"What do you think they did with it?" She asked.
"It's too heavy to move." Jason straightened up as he traced the drag marks. "I think..."
A shot ran out as they ducked back. Dropping behind some crates, they saw three of the KAOS agents in their black and blue uniforms starting to head for them. Jason grabbed the top of a trashcan, tossed it like a Frisbee and knocked one of them free as their gun hit the floor and skidded toward them.
"A gift for a lovely lady..." He handed it to 99.
"What about you?" She started covering him with bullets.
"I can't stand them." Jason admitted as 99 returned fire. The Whip and the Craw came running to the spectacle as they watched their men firing on the two agents. In their absence, Maxwell Smart slipped into the upstairs office and hastened for the radio set.
"Smart to Control headquarters…"
"Herman?" A woman's voice came from the radio. "Are you trying to get those Martians again?"
"Sorry," Max rolled his eyes. "Wrong line…" Max started changing the frequency as bullets riddled through the warehouse roof and walls. One window of the office shattered into tiny fragments from a stray shot.
"Stop firing you fools," The Whip ordered. "Take them alive!!"
"Why would he order them to do that?" 99 wondered.
"I don't know..." Jason turned and pulled the board off the package they were backed up against. He saw the familiar gold shimmering shape of the machine packed in the crate behind them and reached to lurch off the side of the crate enclosing it.
"That's why," He pulled the component out of the lining of his jacket. "They don't want it damaged. Cover me."
99 began shooting as the Craw emerged down on the main floor. He whipped out his prosthesis to take 99's gun as before, but attracted instead several pounds of canned tuna Max emptied from over his head. The Craw's heavy mounted magnet fell on the end of the Whip's mustache. Agent 99 heard bullet fragments hit the curved window of the time machine's shatterproof glass. She looked inside as Jason scrambled to restore the removed board and compute his arrival time back to his time.
"Jason," 99 leaned in to him inside the machine. "I just want you to know how proud I am of you." She kissed his cheek.
"What?" He reacted stunned. "You know who I am?" He looked up as Max covered them from the top of the shelves.
"A mother knows her little boy." She answered beaming as the shooting stopped. She beamed as a proud mother as the round gold and glass encased device lit up brilliantly. The KAOS agents started firing their guns with renewed urgent hostility. Agent 99 whirled out of the way of the time machine growing brighter and transparent and covered her adult son's return to his place in the future. The Whip and the Craw stopped where they were as the Chief and Control agents behind them stormed in the warehouse to seize it. Max grabbed a chain hoist from the ceiling and dropped down riding it to the floor as the stand off between Control and KAOS came to an end.
"You're through, Craw." Max stood a little smug.
"Not Craw!! Craw!!!!" The Oriental mastermind insisted as he tried to lift his arm from the floor. The warehouse was filled with squealing high-pitched whistles and floating particles of light as the images merged around Jason in the time machine. A mild burst of light and he looked out to his would-be parents with a grin and faded out of the time stream to renter in the future. The Kraw and the Whip moaned in unison defeatedly at losing that wonderful device.
"Chief, you're here already?" Max looked up to his superior.
"Well, Larabee got a flat tire nearby bringing back the lunch orders." He pulled his gun and joined them. "I heard the shots and came running." Agent 99 stopped where she was and looked back wistfully to the man her son would be.
"99," Max wandered over as the Kraw and the Whip were seized and lead away in restraints. "Did I see you kiss him?"
"Oh, Max, it was nothing." She answered proudly reflective.
"You think we'll ever see him again." Max asked her.
"Oh," She stood a little smug herself. "I'm pretty sure of it."
END