DORIS RETURNS

Chapter Four

By doodlegirll

----A/N----

This is going really well, you guys! I'm really glad to see it finally up and going! See, I told you it was really easy, as well as really fun!

Anywho, onto the chapter! -ouch-

----Sublevel 3----

"That's the least of my worries at the moment!" Wilbur said, literally dragging Lewis towards the nearest ledge. The Soda Operater began to blink rapidly between red and blue, and Wilbur knew he had only a few precious seconds to get himself and Lewis onto a ledge before they were sent into the water-like substance.

Wilbur quickly yanked his chargeball glove off of his hand. If it so much as touched the substance, it would never work again. He threw it over to the ledge, and it slide across the floor until it bumped into the wall.

Suddenly, just as he and Lewis were about two steps away from the ledge, the soda operator disappeared, and the two boys were sent tumbling down into the water below.

Wilbur resurfaced quickly, spitting and sputtering as he did.

"Great." He mumbled. "Lewis, we need to--"

Wilbur glanced around, only to find Lewis no where near him. He looked down into the water and spotted his dad floating gently downwards.

"Lewis!" Wilbur shrieked as he dove under the surface. He quickly swam as best as he could through the thick watery stuff. It might have been almost identical to water, but it was much thicker, more like oil than anything. Wilbur reached out his arm and grabbed Lewis's arm, then hauled him towards the surface, where they both began to spit and sputter.

"Are you okay, dude?" Wilbur asked. Lewis nodded.

"I think so. I just couldn't swim through this stuff for some reason! It's slicky like oil!"

Wilbur nodded. "It's really a disessmbler liquid, which is why I threw off my chargeball glove. Anything electronic that falls into this stuff won't work again. Ever."

Lewis just shook his head. "How do we get out of this stuff?" He asked. Wilbur pointed to a ladder on the other side of the pool.

"That ladder should actually take us to the ledge where my chargeball glove is." Wilbur said.

"But won't it disessemble with all this goop on our hands?"

Wilbur shook his head after a moment of thought. "I don't think so." He said. "Carl told me the last time I broke infalrated SubLevel 3 that they have a special alloy on them that makes them undisessemblable. Carl has the same alloy built into his hardware."

Lewis nodded again, goop splattering all over Wilbur from his spikey hair. "Good." He said. Then something seemed to click in his mind. "Wait, the last time you infalrated SubLevel 3?!"

WIlbur grinned a quilty grin as he began to swim towards the ladder. "Hey, Bowler Hat Guy and Doris stole the green time machine last time, and the prototype one was in your time lab. I had to get to the past somehow!"

Wilbur began to climb up the ladder to the ledge, Lewis in tow. He quickly over to a machine on the wall as soon as he was on solid ground again, not even bothering to make sure Lewis got up onto the ledge alright. Blue and purple lights surrounded him, and a voice said "Energy Levels replenished."

"What did that thing do?" Lewis asked, wringing some of the goop from his shirt.

"It replenishes energy and recharges batteries." Wilbur explained, grabbing his chargeball glove from the ground. "You invented it to help you stay awake." He stood in front of the machine again, and the lights reappeared. "Battery levels replenished." The voice sounded.

"Cool." Lewis said, walking up to it. The lights suddenly engulfed him and he found himself feeling a lot better, not to mention dry again.

Wilbur nodded. "Very." He said as he walked over to an intercom on the wall.

"Wilbur, what's going on down there?!" Carl's voice sounded. "Why can't I contact you on your earpiece anymore?"

"We fell into the disessmbler goop, Carl." Wilbur said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?! What if something really bad happens and there's no intercom around? What then, Smart Guy?! Hm?" Carl yelled into the intercom.

"Carl, relax. Everything's going to be fine." Wilbur assured the robot. "We just have to get across the room, that's all."

Carl sighed on the other end and clicking could be heard. "Alright, I think I can turn on the soda operators to where they'll work for five minutes." He said. "Can you get over there in five minutes?"

"I'm sure we can, Carl." Lewis said.

"Alright then." Carl said. Buttons being punched could be heard and all the soda operaters lit up at once.

"You have five minutes. Go, go, go!" Carl said. WIlbur let go of the intercom button and he and Lewis ran for the soda operaters.

"Why didn't he just do that LAST time?!" He asked himself angrily.

"No time for that now." Lewis said as they stopped in the middle of a soda operater. "Charge that one over there!" He pointed to one a little more than then feet ahead and Wilbur quickly charged it. The platform next to it twisted to where it was in jumpind distance of dynamic duo.

"Great!" Wilbur said as he ran and jumped for the ledge, arms flailing through the air as he did. He pulled himself up. "Lewis, jump!"

Lewis jumped and caught the ledge by one hand. Wilbur bent down and helped him up with a grunt.

"I think that one over there shoud get us to the other side." He said as he carefully took aim at another soda operater machine.

He charged the machine, and just as he had predicted, it twisted to where he and Lewis could safely make it to the other side. They ran over to it, giving each other a highfive as soon as they were sure it was the right ledge. Just as they did, the soda operaters began to blink, and disappeared.

"Alright, now what?" Lewis asked. Wilbur walked over to a huge machine in the corner, which closely resembled the one that was located upstairs in the garage.

"We us this machine to see what's going on." Wilbur said. "It's a backup copy of the one upstairs, and it always seems to work better."

"I wonder why." Lewis grumbled. Wilbur rolled his eyes.

"So I crashed the time machine into the one upstairs one time, so what?" He asked as he pressed a couple buttons and flicked a switch. The green screen lit up, showing a blueprint of the house. Wilbur studied it intensly for a minute.

"Here's what's wrong!" He said. "The security system near the canon room has been turned off!"

"Why is it turned off?" Lewis asked. WIlbur shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe Doris deactivated it or something when I saw her last night!" He said.

"Are you sure about that, Wilbur?" Lewis asked. "I mean, you still don't know if that was Doris you saw or not!"

"Hey, I'm not going crazy here!" Wilbur said. "I know what I saw! How could I forget that deranged hat? She almost wiped me from exsistance!"

Lewis shook his head. "And she nearly caused me to have future not worth living for." He said. "But what I don't understand is this: I promised never to invent her. So how is she back, if you're telling the truth?"

Wilbur shrugged. "I don't know." He said as he pressed the button on the intercom. "But I do know one thing."

"And that is...?" Lewis asked, waving his hand for emphasis.

"We're stacking out the canon room tonight!"

----Later that night----

"Wilbur, this is hopeless!" Lewis said as he sat up on one of the lawn chairs he and Wilbur had set up to sleep on. "Admit it; you were just seeing things! Doris is not back!"

Wilbur, who was staring straight ahead with the disessembler in his hands, shushed him.

"I'm not crazy, Lewis. Doris is back, and she's going to break into the house through the canon room and do who knows what!" He hissed in the dark. "And if you don't stay quiet, the family is bound to hear you! And then I'll be in the some of the biggest trouble I've ever been in! Why do you think I made you hide under the sink in the kitchen for two hours?"

Lewis chose not to answer his son and glanced at the clock on the wall. It's illuminated face told him it was three o'clock AM.

"Wilbur, I--" He began, but Wilbur quickly shushed him again.

"Sh!" He hissed. "Listen!"

"For what?" Lewis asked. He stopped talking and listened intently for a minute, not hearing anything. Suddenly, there was a small drilling sound, and the two boys could only watch in horror as a small hole appeared in the ceiling.

"What the...?" Wilbur started, but was cut short when a small sphere was tossed out. It began to beep and greenish smoke began to seep out of it.

"What is that thing?!" Lewis yelled as he coughed from the smoke.

"It's a sleeping bomb!" Wilbur said, also coughing and dropping the disessembler.

"A what?!"

"A sleeping bomb! Don't breathe the air!" Wilbur said, bring his shirt up to his nose.

"That's kinda hard not to do!" Lewis said as he did the same thing. Suddenly, there was a low cackle and a small black hat dropped down from the hole.

"Doris!" Lewis and Wilbur said at the same time.

Doris bobbed up and down, as if nodding and she began to beep.

"What is she saying?" Lewis asked as his vision began to blur.

"I...don't...know..." Wilbur said slowly, sinking back onto the lawn chair he had been using as a bed. "We...breathed in...too much sleeping smoke." He said.

"What?" Lewis asked as he, too, slowly sank back onto his own chair.

"We breathed in too much--" Before Wilbur could even finish his sentence, he closed his eyes, and everything else went black for both him and Lewis, leaving Doris and Marc, who was located on the room above the hole, to laugh evilly.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR

Hope I didn't go overboard! And I hope it wasn't rushed...but this came to mind, and I couldn't shake it!

Who's next? I have to know what happens to our favorite heros! Write, write, write!

Robin