Chapter 4: The Replay
Eric punched in a security code and pushed a door open into one of the larger buildings. Directly out the windows of the building was the Spree, and a large gash in the concrete of the road. The inside of the building was just as bad.
"Like please tell me this was just an awesome party?" Shaggy moaned.
"Hardly" A German accent answered. Professor Ostwald stepped over to them, his face worn with stress and his blond hair greyer than the last time they had met. "This was sabotage."
"Of course it was"
"One of our machines malfunctioned. We're not sure which one but we suspect it was our tornado generator." Eric explained.
"Did you just say tornado generator?"
"Yeah. The idea was to put in a counter wind to neutralize tornados."
"That's kind of…"
"Rinsane" Scooby offered.
"Yeah" Madelyn agreed. "Pretty insane."
"That's kind of what we do here" Eric shrugged. "Marcie's disk reader may have been scrapped… in theory… but we work on a lot of strange stuff. We're mad scientist incorporated."
Eric put his hands and his hips, glancing around to the other scientists in the room as though daring any of them to challenge his comment. He got a couple of shrugs and a few nods of agreement.
"What do the police say about this?" Fred asked.
"The police" Ostwald laughed derisively. "As Herr Stauffer so eloquently put it, we are mad scientist incorporated; the police want nothing to do with us."
"Well" Eric mused. "They do want to get us for what happened when those things got out onto the street."
"The tornados?" Madelyn clarified.
"Yeah."
"Do you have security footage of the…"
"Tornados" Madelyn finished.
Eric and Ostwald both laughed.
"Security footage, oh you gotta think bigger than that."
Ostwald motioned for the technicians to clear the space. He pulled a remote from his lab coat and clicked a button. The room darkened and a matrix of lights began to form. A three dimensional image a man took shape, walking the halls. The gang stood in the middle of the holographic footage as the man was chased by the miniature tornado, jumping out the window. Ostwald swept his hands across the image like a touch screen, bringing up a smaller hologram of the building's exterior as the man fell, landing in the bushes outside. He jumped into the river and the tornado dispersed.
The gang all sighed in amazement. Eric and Ostwald gave proud grins. After her moment of awe, Daphne walked over to the paused image of the guard treading water in the river. She squinted at the tiny spot where the tornado had vanished. Eric spread his hands out against the image, enlarging it.
"There" Daphne pointed to the small crater. "There're burn marks there."
"Son of a gun." Eric mused. "Something blew up."
"Are all of your… tornado generators accounted for?"
"Yeah…"
"But the Prototype Fabricator" Ostwald said.
"The what?"
"When someone completes a design, they input the schematics into the Prototype Fabricator; it's a system that can quickly build a replica of a device if the original is destroyed in experimentation."
"We need to go check this thing out." Fred said.
"I want to check out where these vents go." Madelyn interrupted.
"Why?"
"Before the tornado came out, I noticed a rumbling in the vents."
"Well…" Ostwald opened up a data screen in the hologram. "Those vents go directly outside from here, but they come from the kitchen."
Shaggy and Scooby flashed each other grins. Madelyn gave an amused nod.
"So, we'll take that one I guess." She said to Fred and Daphne.
"And we'll take the…" Daphne paused, trying to remember what the machine had been called.
"Prototype Fabricator." Eric finished. "I'd better come with you."