Snow - Part 4

Monogram spoke hurriedly and with some fear in his voice. As Perry listened to him explain the situation, his eyes grew wider.

"…you must stop him at all cost! And I mean 'all cost' when I say that!"

Perry sighed and pointed his watch at Phineas and Isabella behind him, then at the snow-blocked window.

"Doofenshmirtz managed to trap you, too, huh?" Perry nodded. Monogram put his forehead in his hand. "Now I have no idea what to do."

"Sir?" Carl asked. Monogram backed away from his camera and turned his attention to Carl. "I think I know how Doofenshmirtz created all the snow. There's an intense concentration of cold-radiating Freon on the balcony of Doofenshmirtz's building. If we could somehow disable that devise, the temperature would rise back to normal, enough to melt the snow." He paused. "Not all at once, of course, even at fifty degrees Fahrenheit it would take a few days to completely melt, but it would melt enough that at least the plows would be able to clear the roads and Agent P could make his way to City Hall!"

"Carl, you are a genius."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Get going."

"What?"

"Go. Take your jetpack and go knock out that device."

"REALLY?! Like a real agent?!"

"We don't have a whole lot of choice here, do we?"

Carl sprang up from his chair and saluted Major Monogram. "I won't let you down sir!" And with that, he took off for the stairs to the roof.

Monogram turned back to the camera. "Don't worry, Agent P! Help is on the way! You know, indirectly."

Perry smiled and switched off the watch. He returned Isabella's earbuds to her pocket…and then snuggled back in. He didn't have to get up just yet.

Doofenshmirtz gave one final push and the couch from the lobby was wedged firmly against the door. "Whew! Now that I'm barricaded inside, I can get on with ruling."

He shed his heavy jacket and snow pants, and then headed for the Mayor's office. On the door was a plaque that read MAYOR ROGER DOOFENSHMIRTZ. "Don't need this anymore." Doof slid the plaque from the holder and broke it over his knee, right between ROGER and DOOFENSHMIRTZ. He slid the DOOFENSHMIRTZ half back into the holder. The other half he flipped over and, using the sharp corner of his Lock-pickinator, scratched EMPEROR into the metal and slid it back in the holder.

"That's better. Oh! I should totally blog this!" Doof snapped a selfie with his cell phone with the "improved" nameplate behind him.

"Now," he said as he opened the door to the Mayor's office, "the first thing I'm going to do is get rid of that blasted O.W.C.A.!"

Perry wasn't the only one dreaming. Phineas was dreaming, too. His dreams usually spun out of control, never staying the same for more than a few seconds, and then his subconscious would change its mind and switch to something else. After waking up on this particular day, he would wonder why all his dreams that day were movie-themed.

He found himself standing in front of the door to a small ground level building. He couldn't tell where he was, but there was snow falling and it was very dark. He opened the door and walked in to find a dim, but warmly lit bar. There was only one person inside, facing the far wall. "Hello, Isabella."

Isabella turned around, a smile on her face. "Phineas Flynn," she said slowly. "Always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable. So, what are you doing here in Nepal?"

Phineas put his arm around her and slowly leaned toward her face, breaking the original movie scene. "I need one of the pieces your father collected." And then he kissed her, his fedora sliding back on his head as the brim hit her forehead. Isabella moaned softly and closed her eyes. When Phineas ended the kiss, he stared at her beautiful face, her hair pulled back behind her head in a messy pony tail.

As she smiled warmly and looked back at him with loving eyes, she whispered, "I learned to hate you in the last ten years."

"I never meant to hurt you," Phineas whispered back, and then he kissed her again.

Isabella giggled. "These lines don't really work in this tone."

"No, no they do not."

And then they kissed again.

"Okay, this one goes here, and this one goes there…connect these…Got it!" Doofenshmirtz slid out from beneath the camera assembly and stood up. He straightened his lab coat and took his position in front of the camera. "Here we go."

He turned on the camera.

Major Monogram noticed Carl's computer screen flashing with an incoming message. He stepped over to the desk and stared at the keyboard. "Oh, how does this thing work? Uh…" He scanned the keyboard and decided to just hit ENTER. The flashing stopped and Doofenshmirtz appeared on the screen, an evil smirk on his face. "Doofenshmirtz!"

"That's right!" Doof replied. "I've taken over City Hall! I am now your superior! HA HA HA!"

Monogram frowned. "Get to the point, Heinz. What is it you want?"

"I want the O.W.C.A. completely shut down! All agents must stand down and I will have the building sealed up as soon as I can find some henchmen to seal it for me."

Monogram folded his arms. "Well, I can't do that."

"You would dare disobey your superior?!"

"No, but the power is out. I couldn't contact my agents even if I wanted to." That was a lie, but Doof didn't know that.

Or, maybe he did. "Then how are you receiving this video call?"

"Back up generator. But it's about to run out of fuel. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it quit before I was finished speaking this senten-"

Monogram grabbed the edge of the desk and flipped it over. The computer crashed to the floor and died. "Carl, you'd better hurry up."

And, of course, Isabella dreamt of Phineas. She didn't find it so strange that her dream was based on a movie. For her, it was a regular occurrence.

She stood near the low wall of the ocean cliff-side fort, dressed in a rather large and frilly gown. Phineas was next to her, his red hair nearly shoulder length and wearing a large gray hat with a massive plume feather. Ferb stood a feet away, dressed all in light green and wearing a long, curly gray wig.

She looked into Phineas's eyes and smiled. Phineas smiled back.

She faced Ferb when the Brit spoke. "So, this is the path you've chosen?" Phineas glanced his way, too. "After all, he is an blacksmith."

Isabella turned back to Phineas and their eyes met again. "No." She reached up and playfully knocked his hat off. Phineas laughed. "He's a pirate."

Ferb grinned and slowly walked away. Phineas leaned forward and his lips met Isabella's.

The jetpack sputtered. "Uh-oh," Carl squeaked. He looked up above him. He was just a dozen feet from the balcony. "Come on…just a little further…"

The rockets sputtered again and the engines sounded like they were shutting down. Carl let go of the hand grips and reached as high above his head as he could. As the last of the fuel was spent and the engines stalled out, Carl grabbed the balcony railing. His fingers almost lost their hold on the slippery railing. The jetpack was weighing him down too much.

Quickly, Carl shrugged off the jet pack. It fell forty stories to the snow in the street. Finding his grip easier, Carl struggled up and over the rail, collapsing to the deck in the deep snow. "Whew."

He took a moment to catch his breath, then stood up and trudged through the snow to the Chillinator. He scanned the control panel for the inevitable self-destruct button. Finding it very obviously placed, he reached his finger toward it, then stopped. There was a large dial, obviously taken off of a thermostat, next to a tiny LCD screen. The screen showed: 15 degrees. The notches on the dial knob ranged all the way from 0 to 100 F.

"Hmm…instead of destroying this device, I can reverse it and melt the snow faster!" He quickly cranked the dial up to 75. "That ought to be good enough."

In just a few moments, the Chillinator began radiating off warm air. The air around the Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. building slowly became warm and the snow began to melt.

Carl nodded with satisfaction and headed toward the door to Doofenshmirtz's apartment. "Oh, wait!" He spun on his heal and trudged back through the snow to the Precipitatinator. He slapped the self-destruct button and covered his face with his hands as the machine exploded.

"That'll do."

The man who had been trying to start the snow plow down the street for the last few hours suddenly shrugged off his heavy jacket. "Wow. That was an abrupt change in temperature." Then he suddenly had a moment of realization.

He hopped up into the cab of his dump truck. He inserted the key into the ignition and twisted it. It cranked, but still refused to start.

"Come on, baby, you can do it." He tried again, but the engine still refused to turn over. "Come on…" He tried one more time. Finally, the air's warmth had been around the engine for enough time to thaw it out. The big International diesel engine roared to life. "Yes!"

He stepped on the gas pedal a few times and revved the engine, warming it up. A minute later, he shifted the truck into drive and stepped on the gas. The truck lurched forward through the deep snow. It didn't really seem like there was any less snow, but it had become less dense, not so powdery, and easily plowed.

All over the Tri-State Area, city-owned dump trucks with plows, carrying salt and sand, and residents with plow-bearing pickup trucks, began to swarm the streets. They shoved the melting snow into huge piles, slowly freeing Danville from its frozen gridlock.

As Carl returned to the street, his phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Major Monogram. He answered it.

"Mission accomplished, sir! The snow is melting."

"Carl, listen! Doofenshmirtz is in City Hall! He's ordered the O.W.C.A. to stand down! As an unpaid intern, that order does not affect you. The fate of the Tri-State Area rests in your hands now! You must find Agent P and get him to City Hall!"

Carl looked ready to panic. "I'll do my best, sir," he croaked.

But the line was already dead.

Carl returned the phone to his pocket. "Now what am I going to do? How am I going to find Agent P? Oh, duh." He pulled his phone from his pocket again. "I can use the GPS on my phone to track Agent P's wrist comm."

The GPS started and he programmed it to pick up the homing beacon in Perry's watch. "Got him! He's a dozen miles outside town!" His excited smile quickly faded. "But how am I going to get to him…?"

Across the street, a man was clearing the layer of snow from his Ford F-250 pickup. The truck had a plow mounted to the front.

"Now there's an idea…" Carl pulled his O.W.C.A. badge from his pocket and headed across the street. "Excuse me, sir?"

The sound of a passing diesel engine woke Phineas, Isabella and Perry. The snow on the driver's side of the car suddenly fell away. A plow truck had gone past, and the snow against the side of the Torino fell into the now open road.

"Hey! We're free!" Phineas cried out.

"Yay! And aww," Isabella said.

Phineas smiled at her. "Don't worry. It's only the beginning of winter. We have another three months to keep each other warm." He gave her a quick kiss and then climbed up to the front seat and out the driver's door. Perry was right behind him. Phineas didn't even notice the platypus slip out the door.

As Phineas began brushing the snow off the car, Perry ran into the middle of the road. In the distance, past the tree line and down a hill, across the Metropolitan Oval Aquatic Trench and through some fields, he could see the skyscrapers of Danville. His heart sank. He didn't have his any of his hover vehicles, his hang glider, or his scooter. He turned back to Phineas's Torino.

"Whew! When did it get so warm?" Phineas asked. He shed his jacket and threw it into the car, then returned to pushing the snow off the old Ford.

Perry sighed. He would be better off waiting for Phineas to finish clearing off the car and ride home.

With the snow slowly melting, it didn't take Phineas long to finish clearing off the Torino. When he climbed back in, Isabella was already in the passenger seat. She, too, had removed her jacket, and was holding Perry on her lap.

"Weird how the temperature changed so quickly," Isabella observed.

"Sure is." Phineas gestured to the sky through the windshield. "All the clouds are gone, too."

"What is this, New Jersey?"

Phineas frowned, looking rather confused.

Isabella shrugged. "I have an uncle who lives in New Jersey. Apparently, the weather there changes very sporadically."

Phineas put the key in the ignition. "I cannot confirm, nor deny that." He turned the key. Nothing happened. "Oh, yeah. I completely forgot. We're outta gas."

Perry face palmed.

"I think there's a gas station a mile or so up the road. Kinda far to walk, but at least now we don't have to worry about frostbite from not being properly dressed for the snow," Isabella said.

"Maybe we can even flag down a passing plow to give us a ride."

Phineas and Isabella climbed out. Isabella reached back in for Perry. Phineas locked the doors. They started walking toward Danville.

Carl looked at his phone. The arrow on the screen pointed dead ahead. He looked back up at the road. There, on the shoulder, were Phineas and Isabella, holding hands as they walked. Perry was in the crook of Isabella's free arm. When they looked up and saw the approaching truck, they let go of each other's hand and waved, hoping the truck would stop.

Carl pulled over and put the truck in park. He jumped out and jogged across the road. "Hello!" he greeted.

"Hey!" Phineas replied. "Thanks so much for stopping, mister."

"No problem."

Phineas squinted. "You look familiar."

Carl's heart skipped a beat. There was no way they could remember the day of the second dimension adventure, right?

Phineas snapped his fingers. "You spent a day with us in our backyard when we were ten!"

"Yeah!" Isabella exclaimed. "The day we built the anit-gravity fun launcher. Your name is…Carl! That's right!"

Carl relaxed. He had completely forgotten about that day. "Yeah, I did. Phineas and…" He paused. He knew Isabella's name, but he pretended not to.

"Isabella."

"Right, right. So do you guys need a lift?"

"Yeah. We ran out of gas a little ways down the road," Phineas said, pointing. "Do you think you could give us a lift to a gas station?"

Carl tried not to smile. There just happened to be a five-gallon gas can in the bed of the F-250. The man he had commandeered the truck from had had a snow blower in the back that he made Carl help him unload before he handed over the keys. Apparently, he had forgotten about his fuel can. "I just happen to have a fuel can right here. Hop in, I'll drive you back to your car."

"Thanks, Carl."

As they all climbed into the cab of the pickup, Carl winked at Perry. The platypus winked back.

Carl put the truck in drive and continued down the road.

Phineas and Isabella waved as Carl turned the truck around and headed back to town. The intern smiled. Yet again, his phone had come to the rescue.

The phone had been issued to him by the O.W.C.A. Not only did it give him access to every security camera and traffic cam in the city, a GPS and tracking device, and unlimited texting, he could also use it to effect a person's decisions. Thanks, ironically, to the technology from Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Devolition-ator from several years ago, Carl could set his phone to emit a signal that would tell a person's brain to do whatever he set it to tell them. In this case, he had used it on Phineas to tell the boy to drive to City Hall.

Carl smirked. If they didn't start paying him after this, he was quitting.

"Where are you going, Phineas? This isn't the way home."

"I know. I'm going to City Hall." Phineas turned left. City Hall was directly at the end of this street.

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. For some reason, I feel like I absolutely have to go there."

"Okay…"

"Hey, do you have cell service now? You can call our moms and let them know we're okay."

Isabella pulled out her cell phone. "Strangely, I do not. The storm must have knocked out the cell towers."

Phineas shrugged. "Oh, well." He turned the Torino into the parking lot and climbed out of the car. He stared at the building. While he wasn't looking, Perry slipped out the door and crept across the parking lot.

After a minute, Phineas climbed back into the car. "Alright, let's go home."

He steered out of the parking lot and headed for home. Perry watched them from the snow covered bushes beside the building. When they were out of sight, he put on his fedora and turned his attention to City Hall.

Perry found an unlocked basement window and squeezed through. Once inside, he climbed into the air duct through a vent. He made his way up through the building to the mayor's office. Looking through a grate, he could see Doofenshmirtz leaning back in the big chair with his feet up on the desk. He actually looked rather bored.

Perry kicked out the vent and vaulted onto the desk.

"Perry the Platypus!" Doof cried, quickly sitting up. Perry pulled back his balled up fist, ready to punch. "Wait, wait, wait!" Doofenshmirtz cried. "I surrender."

Perry looked confused. He didn't really look like he believed Doof.

"Seriously. I surrender." Perry hopped off the desk and stared at his nemesis. Doof stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, here's the thing. I've been trying to take over the Tri-State Area for years. But, now that I've actually done it…ruling over a few thousand people sounds tiring and boring. I relinquish my position."

Perry was speechless. Well, he would have been regardless, but even if he could speak, he wouldn't have been able to say anything.

Doofenshmirtz continued. "Actually, I think I'm going to give up on doing evil altogether. I mean, let's face it: I'm not getting any younger, and neither are you. I can't take all the beatings anymore."

Perry squinted at Doofenshmirtz and frowned. "Don't give me that look. I accomplished my life's goal, now I'm done. I think I'm finally going to break in my Retirinator. Not to be confused with my Re-tire-inator, which shoots tires. I'm talking about my overstuffed arm chair, big house cat, and books of crossword puzzles that's been sitting in the corner of my lair for the last…I don't know how many years."

Perry rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Perry the Platypus. Let's go home." They left through the office door. "Just a sec." Doof slid the backwards half of the plaque off the door and flipped it back around so it read MAYOR ROGER DOOFENSHMIRTZ once again. "Okay, let's go."

And with that, Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry left City Hall.

While Phineas and Isabella were busy recounting their night to their respective families, Doofenshmirtz returned home and Perry returned to his lair to write out his mission report. He printed it out and put the pages in an envelope. Then, after a moment of consideration, he printed out another file he'd had saved on his computer for a long time, which got its own envelope. He then took a tube to the O.W.C.A. headquarters building.

Doofenshmirtz was strolling past his back door when he noticed his Chillinator still on the balcony. "Oh, almost forgot."

He went outside. "Don't need this thing anymore." He punched the self-destruct button and the inator exploded. "And that's the end of that phase of my life."

As he went back inside, the air slowly began to grow chilly again.

When Perry was outside Major Monogram's office, he stopped and considered what he was about to do. Inside the office, he heard Carl shouting. "YES! Thank you, sir!" A moment later, the door flew open and Carl rushed out. "Guess what, Agent P! I'm finally going to get a paycheck! A whole three dollars an hour!" And then Carl took off down the hall, yelling "WOO HOO!"

Perry sighed. He took a deep breath and entered Monogram's office, closing the door behind him.

Monogram was sitting at his desk. He looked up. "Ah, Agent P. Got your mission report?"

"Ngrgrgrgrgr." He held out the two envelopes. Monogram took them. The one on top was his mission report. "Thanks Agent P. What's this other one?" He tossed the mission report down on his desk and removed the paper from the envelope. He scanned the paper, his eyes slowly widening. He looked up. "You're resigning?"

Perry removed his fedora and wrist comm and set them on the desk. Without waiting for Monogram to say anything else, he saluted and rushed out of the office.

Phineas answered the knock at the front door.

"Hey, Phineas."

"Hey, Isabella. Come on in." Phineas closed the front door and they both headed for the living room.

"It's getting cold out again," Isabella relayed in transit.

"Sporadic weather indeed."

They sat down on the couch. For a moment, neither was sure what to say to the other.

"So…about last night…and this morning," Isabella began, "Where does that leave us?"

Phineas thought for a moment. "I don't know. Where does it leave us?"

Isabella laughed nervously. "I asked you first."

Phineas put his hand on his non-existent chin and thought hard. "Hmm…"

Before Phineas could come up with an answer, Perry entered the room. "Oh, there you are Perry," they said simultaneously. They looked at each other and smiled. Phineas gestured for her to moved closer. She did, and he put his arm around her.

"Look, I said I love you, and you said you love me. We know this for sure. But for now, let's not worry about where we're at. I don't think I'm quite ready to label our relationship. No matter what, you're still my best friend." He laid down on the couch, pulling Isabella down with him. "We can figure it out later. But for right now, let's just lay here and snuggle."

It wasn't really the answer Isabella was hoping for, but she couldn't object to cuddling with Phineas. "Okay." She put an arm around him and nuzzled his cheek, her soft hair tickling his face. Phineas sighed contentedly.

"Wanna watch a movie?" he asked.

"Okay. What do you want to watch?"

"For some reason I can't explain, I really want to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark."

"I was going to suggest Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, but, whatever. That's fine, too."

Phineas flicked on the TV and searched through his movie library while Perry laid down on the floor in front of the couch. He was feeling some qualms about resigning from the O.W.C.A.

As the movie started and Phineas put the remote on the end table, he happened to glance down at the floor. "Hey, Perry. Come on, boy, climb up here with us."

Perry's qualms instantly vanished. He jumped up on the couch. Phineas encircled Perry with his arm and Isabella scratched his head with two fingers. Perry purred. This was the whole reason he quit. He was getting old, as Doofenshmirtz had pointed out, but after years of crime fighting, he'd had enough. He was ready for some relaxation. Now that Phineas and Isabella were unofficially together, it seemed to him like the perfect time to start taking it easy. He was looking forward to spending time with the two of them, hopefully doing nothing at all, in the future.

Phineas turned his head around backwards to face Isabella behind him. He smiled broadly. "I wish we had started doing this years ago."

Isabella grinned and rolled her eyes. "You have no idea."

And as Perry dozed off, they kissed passionately.

Okay, this story really spun out of control. I'm not really sure how I ended up here, and I'm not really sure if I'm happy with the outcome. The plot seemed to just fall apart near the end and I had no idea where to go with it. Either way, this is the conclusion I came to, so this is where it's staying.

I'm sorry about the super anti-climactic ending to the "Doofenshmirtz Take-Over" story. I just couldn't come up with a better way to end it and I just wanted to finish it, so that's what came out of my keyboard.

Tomorrow, It's back to P&F Industries. I've been neglecting it for too long now and I already know exactly what's going to happen next.

Count on there being more of this, though. I have to. I've got 12 people following this, so there's gotta be more.

Please review! Please! Please. Please? Review!