New York City may have been the Big Apple, but for an intelligent agent as Maxwell Smart, he was going to find the worm. The address he had took him to a tavern called The Keg. His only other instructions were to sit at the counter, order a drink and wait for his contact.

"What'll you have?" The barmaid was blonde, cute and pretty with a short skirt and white blouse.

"A brew."

She gestured to the bartender. He slid the drink down as it shot by Max and shattered on the floor.

"Uh, that one went too fast." Max looked up. "Another one?" Max reached out as another one slid past him and hit the floor.

"Well," He clapped and tried again. "Let me have another one." The bartender carried this one over and wrapped his hands around it.

"Thanks." Max grinned. "Nice place you have here."

"Keeps me out of trouble." The bartender was tall and brown-haired with a thick mustache. He looked very serious as he stared at Max.

"Yep," Max sipped his beer. "It's the American dream to get and run your own business."

"We also have hamburgers and French fries."

"Can't get more American than baseball."

"Football's more the American past time."

"I love having a hot dog when I'm watching sports."

"I prefer steak and a milkshake."

"But nothing's more American than baseball and applesauce."

"Wait a minute," The bartender made a face. "Don't you mean baseball and apple pie?"

"No," Max repeated himself. "Baseball and applesauce."

"I'm baseball and apple pie." The bartender whispered. "You've got the wrong spy."

PART 2

Returning to Washington D.C. Maxwell Smart returned directly to headquarters. The Chief was popping aspirins as he entered and waved him into the office.

"How'd New York go?"

"That was some weird agent you sent me to." Max sat on the corner of the desk. "She smoked cigars and drank like a fish."

"Max," The Chief squeezed his nose as his headache became worse. "MacTavish is a male agent from Scotland. That was a kilt."

"Really??" Max looked confused. "No wonder he was offended when I told him to start shaving his legs." He noticed a new object on the Chief's desk. "Oh, what a cute model of the Washington Monument..."

"Max!!!"

"What, what...?"

"That IS the Washington Monument."

"That's the Washington Monument?!!!"

"Yes, Max this is highly secret mission."

"Well," Max looked back. "Shouldn't we be talking under the Cone of Silence?"

"No, Max." The chief winced. "Not the Cone of Silence!!"

"Well, why not?!"

"We did away with the Cone of Silence."

"You did away with the Cone of Silence??!!" Max couldn't believe it. "Why would you do away with the Cone of Silence?"

"Because some dumb boob kept insisting we pull it out for every to secret meeting!!!!" The Chief snapped, calmed and continued unabated. "Last month, KAOS stole the Langley Circuit, an invention of Professor Langley's that actually works by creating short-circuits. KAOS then used it to create an invention that can increase or decrease the size of anything. To prove they had it, they shrank the Washington Monument here with the threat that the United States Government pay them one billion dollars or else they will shrink another landmark."

"Incredible, why can't KAOS do something else to keep busy? Like collect stamps or build ships in bottles?" Max glanced over the shrunken monument as struck a match off it for a cigarette. "Wait a minute, Chief, I passed the Washington Monument on the way here!"

"That was a Styrofoam copy we threw up to not panic the public." The Chief added. "Max, what I want you to do is infiltrate Bigg's Garage on Fourteenth Street. Agent 99 is already working upstairs undercover in the aerobics studio. I believe both are KAOS fronts. Your job is to find the invention and bring it to us."

"Not a problem." Max drew back on his cigarette. "You can count on me."

"I wish you wouldn't say that."

"Nothing can happen with me on the case."

"I wish you wouldn't say that either."

PART 3

Max stood outside Bigg's Garage and stared up at the three-story structure. Located at the corner of the block, it was surrounded by delicatessens and small shops and businesses. It seemed to do good business with the aerobics studio upstairs above it. Several of the customers seemed to leave their cars for tune-ups as they went up stairs to tune up their bodies. Max scanned the building and finished his cigarette as he started to toss his snuffed cigarette butt in the trash.

"Hey!!" A voice screamed in the trash.

"Thirteen, is that you?" Max looked down.

"No," Agent 13 rolled his eyes. "I'm Oscar the Grouch; who do you think?!"

"I'm sorry." Max apologized. "Seen anything suspicious yet?"

"Plenty." Thirteen continued. "The garage and aerobics studio seems to have a multi-purpose. There seems to be a fencing racket in there as well a depository for sending and picking up messages. There could be a larger headquarters in the basement. There are some eight cars that seem to return often, maybe once or twice a week. There's one, a Rolls Royce, which comes everyday, probably the owner. It could be the mastermind behind the whole front. Most of the agents coming in and out seem to be female KAOS agents. 99's been working here for a week without incident. I don't think they're suspicious of her yet. How are you getting in?"

"The unemployment agency got me in." Max confided. "My cover is Sam Maxwell from Missouri."

"Good luck, Max." Thirteen gave him a thumbs up. "You're going to be in a lot of danger in there."

"And loving it." Max smirked and crossed the street. Pulling his folded papers from his shirt, he confidently walked in off the street and glanced around for the one guy giving the most orders then presented himself.

"Hi," He grinned. "I'm Sam. The agency sent me."

"What? Oh yeah..." The guy scanned him over. "I'm Edgar Winter, the boss. Call me Ed. So, you know a lot about cars."

"I know everything. There hasn't been anything invented about cars that I do not know." Max boasted as Ed looked over the employment papers. "In fact, I've been taking care of cars since I was a kid. I was fine-tuning my baby carriage when I was born. I was souping up my tricycle when I was in kindergarten. When I was in...."

"Okay, okay..." Winters rolled his eyes. "Two rules: don't goof off and don't be checking out the ladies going upstairs - not that we actually follow the rules around here. You can get started by draining the oil out of the convertible. You're starting in the pit."

"Right!" Max grinned and shook the guy's hand. He turned to give Agent 13 across the street a thumbs up and just noticed the garbage truck pulling away and leaving an empty waste receptacle at the curb.

"I'll have to send flowers to him in the hospital." He mumbled to himself and turned to work. "Okay, now, which one's the convertible?!!"

PART 4

Max was hard at work confirming his cover as a mechanic. He had picked on changing oil from watching the other guys and was just following the flow of the other guys, but as yet he had not been able to do much looking around the garage for clues KAOS might have left for him. The other mechanics, however, watching him had picked on things that did not seem right.

"Ed," One of the mechanics called the boss over. "There's something screwy about this new guy."

"Like what?"

"Watch him a minute."

They looked over as Max worked under a small hatchback. Pulling a bolt out, he survived unfazed as the entire framework of the car fell down around him out of the chassis. Looking around the steel frame still holding the engine and interior, Max looked up as the exterior body of the car was still up on the lift. He looked around confusingly as Winters came up around him.

"Sam," He knew him by his cover name. "Why don't you take a break? A long one."

"Thanks, boss." Max grinned cheerfully as he stepped over the bottom of the car. He headed for the break room as a few guys came out and scanned the empty room. It was bare but simple with a soda machine, sofa and table with chairs. Checking to see if he was being watched, he sat down on the sofa and removed his shoe before dialing the mechanism in it for Control Headquarters.

"Chief, this is Max."

"Max, how are you doing?"

"Great!" Max continued. "I'm really learning a lot. I've fixed a transmission and installed a belt and removed an engine on to a rack. Some these fellows I'm working with are great guys!"

"Max! The case!!"

"What? Oh yeah," Smart remembered the agenda. "Haven't had much time to look around with the boss looking over my shoulder. Haven't even made contact with 99, but Agent 13 told me to watch out for a Rolls. How are things there?"

"KAOS just got the Lincoln Monument and upped the ransom to two billion." The Chief reported. "You have to find the invention they're using!"

"The Lincoln Monument!!" Max couldn't believe it as he checked to see if he was being watched. "I can't believe it. I passed it on the way to work this morning."

"That was made out of Styrofoam." The Chief reported. "Max, this is getting serious. We're running out of Styrofoam!"

"Don't worry, Chief." Max signed off. "I'm on the ball." He secured his shoe and returned it to his foot. Standing up, he clocked out and waved to his boss as he headed to lunch. At the same time, he looked up and saw Agent 99 coming down the inside stairs to the upstairs studio. They acknowledged each other as he went to meet her.

"Hi, would you like to join me for lunch?" He spoke out loud.

"Well, I'd sure like that." Agent 99 was still in her leotard and tights under her long coat as they walked down the sidewalk.

"What have you learned?" Max whispered.

"Enough." She whispered back. "The aerobics studio is definitely a KAOS front, but the main headquarters are in the basement and I can't get down there. How about you?"

"Winters is always around." Smart replied back. "I'd need a diversion."

"Maybe not," 99 replied back. "Our air-conditioning is out. Maybe you could use that to get down there."

"Perfect."

"Max, where are you going?" She noticed him tugging her toward a buffet restraunt.

"I'm taking you to lunch, 99." Max added. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving!!!"

PART 5

Max returned to the garage after lunch and spotted the Rolls Royce almost immediately. 99 was going to be carrying her part to get him downstairs as Winters spotted him and called him over.

"I need you to help me replace the carburetor in the boss's car." He told
him.

"Really," Max looked around and then down under the hood of the car. "Uh, oh, yes. It sure looks like it needs to be replaced."

"That's the distributor."

"That's right." Max looked back. "I was just testing you."

"Get started pulling it out." Ed looked at him. "I'm going to go get the new one."

"Right!" Max knew he was on the spot. Watching Ed leave him to get started, he turned back to the engine of the rolls and picked up a pair of pliers. Thinking fast, he looked around as he waited for 99 to return for him.

"Uh, um, Ralph." He distracted another worker. "Does this carburetor look bad to you?"

Ralph set aside the flat tire he was patching and leaned into the car. He unscrewed the air filter and lifted it out of the way and looked down through the top of the car.

"Yeah," He replied. "It looks like it's been run a bit hard."

"So, that's it!" Max exchanged the pliers for a ratchet. "Good to have another opinion." Max began working on it as he pulled wires and starting undoing bolts. Ed was coming up from the pit with the replacement part as he saw him at work. Looking over, he saw Max hard at work just before the explosion.

The huge burst of smoke had thrown Max back several feet. Ed and several of the guys rushed to pick him up as Ralph grabbed the extinguisher and sprayed the flames out.

"What happened?" Max stood up.

"You crossed these wires with the battery and ignited the gas fumes." Ralph looked past the damage. "You created a short-circuit."

"I did?" Max saw a strange woman come down from the aerobics studio. 99 stayed behind as her aerobics teacher came near Max.

"You told one of my girls you know air-conditioning." She replied. "Want to look at ours?"

"I know them about as well as I do about cars." Max glanced at the still smoldering engine. "Sorry about that, boss."

PART 6

The aerobics studios above the garage were hotter than the garage itself. As the owner showed Max where the air-conditioning unit was, he stooped and looked around it as if he genuinely knew what he was doing. He fiddled with some attachments and ran his hand around it as he looked around the room of women in leotards and saw a room of what looked like physically perfect women. Not a normal shaped woman in the business, he felt like Odysseus in the land of the Amazons. Suspicion crossed his mind as he realized he was on the right track. 99 had left to change clothes before heading home as he inspected the AC unit and turned round.

"I don't see much around here." He replied. "Maybe you got a bad fuse. I assume your fuse box is in the basement."

"Yes." The owner crossed her arms as she looked down on him. Her eyes narrowed curiously as she folded her arms. "It's this way.........."

"Fine," Max clapped the dust and cobwebs off his hands. "If you show me the way, I'll get it cold enough to hang meat in here."

"Right," The owner shot a look to one of her instructors as they led Max into the hallway and down to the door at the far end. The girl leading the way took a card from the end of her sleeve, scanned it through the magnetic lock and released the door. Max rolled his eyes nervously.

"Wow, what a strict regiment you have here." He turned and saw the gun aimed at him. "I'm sorry. I'm not interested in joining. I'm thin enough as it is."

"Get going." His abductors had her assistant search Max and take his gun from the pocket of his cover-alls. "I'll take him down, go get the other Control Agent."

"Yes, Mrs. Xena."

99 ducked back into the ladies locker room and jammed the door shut with a chair under the doorknob. She pulled the spring-loaded button from the cuff of her sleeve and put it to her ear as she spoke to her brooch.

"Chief," She started. "Come in, Chief."

"I have you, 99." The Control Chief flipped back the receivers on his stapler phone. "What's happening?"

"Lucille Xena just got Max." 99 continued transmitting. "I'm sure she's coming for me next."

"99," The Chief began. "Don't panic. We have Agent 36 backing you up. Get her to cover you, but get that device!"

"Right, Chief." KAOS agent Magenta spoke into 99's brooch as she was laid out across the floor. Her partner, Agent Chartreuse, completely slipped through the locker she had entered through and lowered the pistol that she had used to head-butt the Control Agent.

"That was easy." She replied. "What next?"

"Take her down to Mr. Bigg." Magenta spoke. "I'm sure we won't see her again either."

PART 7

Agent 99 woke up and looked around as she and Max found themselves in an obviously grand office with Victorian furniture and expensive furnishings. She noticed herself handcuffed to her chair, much like Max, by both her wrists and ankles and looked up as Lucille Xena and her superior entered the room through two huge oak doors.

"Good to see you two again, Agents 86 and 99." He was a tall powerfully built man with gray receding hair. Garbed in a sinister gray suit with a red tie, he looked like the Devil himself. "And please, stop rattling those cuffs, you'll chafe my expensive mahogany chairs."

"You know us?" Max shot a look.

"When we last met," The KAOS Mastermind leaned down into Max's face. "I was a mere three feet tall."

"Mr. Bigg!" 99 realized he was once the midget agent that led part of KAOS. "I can't believe it!!"

"Believe it," Bigg gloated as he sat at his chair. His Mrs. Xena at his side, he pulled out a cigarette as she lit it for him. "I tested the demoleculizer myself on myself and became the fine physical specimen you see now. Months of exercise and weight lifting gave me more size and physical prowess. With my invention, I will shrink down all the monuments of Washington and then enlarge KAOS installations everywhere until they'll be so many of us, the whole country will bow before us."

"You'll never get away with it." Max spoke. "Right now our back-up agent upstairs has notified Control and they'll be storming in any second."

"One problem," Mrs. Xena replied. "We caught that agent last week and shrank her out of existence. She's probably too small to be found with even the most powerful electron-microscope."

"That's inhuman!"

"Thank you." Mrs. Xena grinned proudly.

"You also destroyed my Rolls, Mr. Smart." Bigg scowled as his eyes flared with anger. "By time we're through with you, the two of you will be floating in a world between the atoms of this one."

"Don't panic, 99." Max looked over. "As soon as they unlock us, I'll overpower our captors and fight our way to freedom." Max grinned cockily as two female KAOS agents controlled by Mrs. Xena entered and dragged their chairs with them in them out of the room.

"I've got to remember to stop announcing my plans." He mumbled out loud.

PART 8

Max and 99 found themselves dragged into what seemed to be many of the several labs deep under the garage. Mrs. Xena had left to retrieve the gun, but she had left one of her girls to stand guard over them. 99 looked around for a way to escape in the room as she noticed Max admiring the figure of their captor.

"Max!!"

"What?" He snapped to. "Oh, uh, sorry, 99, but despite being a KAOS agent, she's a very pretty girl."

"Thank you." The girl beamed with a rosy glow to her cheeks while 99 rolled her eyes.

"You know," Max grinned. "I bet you've won a lot of beauty contests."

"I sure have..." The female guard swayed her long blonde hair. "I was Miss Homicide for three years running and I was almost Miss KAOS except I lost out to Miss Counterfeit. And believe me, not everything on her was genuine."

"I bet." Max flirted as 99 rolled her eyes again at the spectacle. "Why I think you'd make the best Miss KAOS ever. Darn these handcuffs, they're chafing my wrists."

"Let me loosen those bad old things." The blonde guard talked baby talk and pulled out the handcuff key. She undid Max's right hand as he grabbed a metal tray and cracked her over the head with it.

"Blondes." Max mumbled as he lifted the key up on the magnetic sole of his shoe. "Dumb as a brick."

"Max, that was brilliant!" 99 grinned. "I knew you really didn't like her."

"99, are you kidding?" He looked back at her as he released himself and then Agent 99 herself. "She's a dirty despicable KAOS agent."

"How do we get out of here?" 99 looked at the door. "This base is swarming with KAOS agents."

"Easy," Max grinned. "We get the moleculizer and we start shrinking them all to three inches high if only for one tiny problem"

"Sounds like a great plan, Max, but how do we find it?" 99 had handcuffed their captor to the wall.

"That's the tiny little problem."

PART 9

Max strolled down the corridor in plain sight past one of Mrs. Xena's girls standing guard outside the door at the end of the hall. He grinned at her and tipped an imaginary hat to her.

"How did you get loose?" she asked.

"Oh," Max shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "I just thought I'd go for a walk." He replied as 99 snuck up and cracked the metal tray into the girl's head. The female agent rolled her eyes to her and fell to the floor.

"Good work, 99." Max analyzed the door and its magnetic lock. "This is the only guarded door down here. The moleculizer must be in there. If only we could get in....."

"Max…" 99 checked the sleeve of the KAOS agent she had knocked cold and found a security card. Slipping it through the lock, there was a sound of gears turning and a mechanism moving as the door popped open. 99 looked up excitedly as they slipped into the long laboratory lined with counters and mechanical equipment everywhere. In the opposite wall, Mr. Bigg and Mrs. Xena's voices came out a door as they chose another site to shrink. She wanted the Jefferson Memorial to give to her niece as a dollhouse. He wanted the Pentagon because it would make a great paperweight.

"Max," 99 and Max had ducked behind the counter. "Which of these things do you believe is the demoleculizer?"

"I don't know." Max answered. "I don't even know what it should look like."

"Maybe it's this thing." 99 pulled closer a huge cumbersome thing almost cylindrical with screened openings at both ends. Covered in switches, knobs and gauges, it was as long as a baseball bat and as wide enough to fire a bowling ball.

"What makes you think that?" Max asked.

"Because it's stamped demoleculizer." She pointed at an engraved plate on it near the bottom. Max started sliding the huge cumbersome thing to him as 99 locked eyes on Mrs. Xena coming out.

"Hey!!" The Amazonian aerobics teacher screamed. "The Control agents are loose!!"

"Run 99!" Max heaved the demoleculizer up on his shoulder and followed her down the length of the hall. Somewhat slowed down, they ducked through a far door as 99 slammed it shut. Noticing a hallway leading deeper into the complex, they raced down it as the door behind them crashed open. Mr. Bigg and Mrs. Xena were coming close with two male agents and three female agents from upstairs. Max and 99 ducked into the room at the end of the hall as she slammed the door and locked it.

"Max," 99 screamed. "There are no more doors!!" She locked at the nearly barren storeroom.

"99," Max fiddled with the switches and settings on the cumbersome KAOS invention as he heard it kick on. "Stand behind me and help support this thing. The second they knock that door down I'm going to shrink them down to the size of action figures."

99 listened to the pounding on the door as she helped to aim the thing. Someone was kicking at the door as Max thought he felt the trigger. He noticed the door vibrate just before the doorframe snapped and the door flew open. Mrs. Xena lowered her shapely long leg as she allowed Mr. Bigg to enter.

"Good chase, Mr. Smart." He grinned. "Now hand over the demoleculizer."

"I don't think so." Max narrowed his eyes distrustingly. "Take another step and I'll make you three inches tall!" He squeezed the pressure trigger underneath.

"I don't think so, Mr. Smart." Mr. Bigg looked worried and stepped back. "For one, you've changed the controls to enlarge, and two, you're holding the damn thing backwards."

"I am?" Max looked at 99 behind him. She looked at her wrists as her sleeves started retreating then felt her blouse growing taut. Mr. Bigg was the first one to rush for cover as 99 saw one her buttons fly off and felt the back of her jacket rip wide open straight up her spine from her increasing stature.

"Max!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Oh boy," Agent 86 put his fingers to his head as if he had a headache. Left alone as his partner grew through the ceiling above him, he couldn't see much as wiped the dust from the shattered plaster from his eyes and clutched the demoleculizer hard to his chest as the structure caved in around him. The room filled with smoke and dust and falling debris around him. "She and the Chief are really going to let me have it this time..."

PART 10

Max glanced to Larabee and crossed himself for luck before entering the Chief's office. Saying a little prayer, he strided forward ready to face the music. The spectacle of Agent 99 coming up through the roof had terrified and scared the daylights out of people for ten blocks. Traffic jams had blocked cars from D.C. into Baltimore as the shaking and collapsing garage drove all the KAOS agents out into the waiting hands of Control. According to the news broadcasts, the garage had exploded because a billboard of a woman had been shot up through the roof. On a side story, a record number of gay men were scared into going straight!

"Hi, Chief," Max grinned nervously. "I guess I screwed up........... Big."

"No," The Chief started. "Not really, ARDVARC told us that the voice on 99's radio wasn't her. We arrived in just the nick of time to round up all the KAOS Agents as they came running out."

"And the guys in the garage too?" Max sat on the desk.

"No, Max." The chief answered. "They really were mechanics, and since we couldn't bear to put them all out of work with the unemployment crisis now, we commandeered the building to rebuild it and put them under the Control Employment Agency. By the way, you're fired as a mechanic."

"So," Max piped up, calmed down and sat on the edge of the Chief's desk as he stole a cigarette. "We got the moleculizer and restored the landmarks..."

"And 99 as well." The Chief added.

"Uh, yes, 99...." Max nervously looked around. "Is she..."

"Upset?" The Chief looked up as the doors slid open. Back to normal size, 99 wandered in clothed in a mechanic's gray work suit. Silent and cold, she wandered in, stood near Max and shot a cold stare at him as she looked to the Chief.

"99, it was an accident. I swear." Max looked at her.

"I know that, Max." She sounded as if she forgave him. "I fact, I just love blowing up like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon!!!" She became sarcastic.

"Wait a minute," Max sensed something off and unusual and looked her over up and down. " Are you taller than me now? Chief, I don't think she was shrunk all the way!" The Chief just looked with neutral noncommittal interest.

"Chief," 99 turned placidly upset to her superior. "I'd like a week off to get over my humiliating experience."

"Of course, 99," The Chief was obviously sympathetic. "Take as much time as you want."

"Now, wait a minute, Chief, Don't gloss over this yet…" Max looked back and forth between them as 99 coldly turned out of the room than to rather deal with him. "Is she taller than me now? 99, answer me." He watched her ignore him as she left him alone to debate the controversy of his punishment.

"Oh boy...." Max mumbled to himself. "I am never going to hear the end of this..........."

END