That evening, Calvin and Hobbes got hold of Andy and Sherman and managed to convince them that this little endeavor was worth dropping what they were doing – and it wasn't hard since all they were doing were playing videogames and finding a cure for male pattern baldness.
They walked up the sidewalk to the large mansion at the end of the street, which as far as they could tell didn't look as though it was bereft with ghouls or monsters at this particular moment.
"Well, I'm sure this was worth walking all this way," Sherman sighed.
"You're riding in somebody's pocket, Vermin," Hobbes snorted.
"It doesn't look like anything's happening over there," Andy said.
"Something definitely happened," Calvin said. "On the off chance that Socrates can't look after himself, I still think it's best to just go over and see if the idiot's okay."
They walked up the steps and headed for the large wooden doors.
Calvin pressed the doorbell.
DING, DING, DING, DING, DING… DING… DONG!
They all waiting a few seconds for a reply, but there was none, so they headed inside anyway.
They peered into the main foyer. The place was dimly lit, even in the late afternoon. They scanned the area, but there were no signs of any life.
Calvin looked around uncertainly. "Hello…?" he ventured nervously.
There was no reply.
"Socrates…?"
Still no reply.
They all walked cautiously inside.
"Where do you suppose he is?" Andy asked.
"Well, let's think like Socrates," Sherman said rationally. "If we were captured by an otherworldly being what would we do?"
Everyone thought for a moment.
"Well…," Hobbes said at last. "If I thought like Socrates and that happened to me, I would most likely find a way to outsmart him and, after succeeding, I'd go and watch TV."
They all mulled that over for a few moments.
"Sounds good to me," Calvin said at last.
They all headed for the living room.
Sure enough, just as predicted, they found Socrates sitting on the couch, watching something on TV with great interest.
They all looked at what he was watching. It seemed to be some sort of monster movie, but there was no sound at all.
"Socrates…?" Calvin asked.
"Shh!" Socrates hissed. "This is the good bit!"
They all stayed quiet for about three seconds before they realized how stupid this was, and Calvin broke the silence.
"What the heck is going on?! Why are you still alive?!" he snapped.
Socrates jumped and stared at them. "What?"
"You were supposedly captured by some sort of evil person who was dragging you off to the depths of the underworld before we got here," Hobbes supplied, also sounding a little irritated. "What gives?"
"Oh! That! Sorry. Well, this guy wearing a hoody captured me, but before we could leave the house, he tripped over one of my booby traps in the kitchen. Once I was certain he wasn't going anywhere, I decided to just catch one of my favorite movies while I waited for you guys to get here."
"Yeah, on that topic," Andy said, tilting his head in confusion, "what movie is this?"
"Oh! It's a rare Hitchcock movie called The Silent Killer Penguin That Devoured New York City and Got Sick Afterwards."
"I think I can see why it's rare…"
"Too bad it's not a Susan Hart movie," Sherman grumbled. "Otherwise we wouldn't have this problem."
"So why didn't you answer when we called you again?" Hobbes asked.
"Because I knew that if I didn't answer, you'd come and I wouldn't have to be by myself."
They stared at him incredulously.
"And you're not even injured?" Calvin demanded.
"Don't sound so disappointed, Cal."
"I am disappointed! I'm intensely disappointed!"
"Yeah, I mean we all dropped what we were doing and came over here," Sherman added. "The least you could do is to have a couple lacerations and maybe a missing tooth."
"And maybe a black eye," Andy added.
Socrates gasped with indignation. "Honestly! Hobbes, can you believe the nerve of some people?"
Hobbes thought for a moment before he responded with, "… Maybe you could've gotten a bruise or two."
Socrates snorted. "Let's just deal with this guy, all right?"
"What do you mean?" Andy asked.
"I mean he's still in the kitchen, dangling from a net."
They all looked at each other for a few moments before they all nodded and silently headed for the kitchen.
When they all looked inside, they saw the hooded man sitting cross-legged in the net, staring back at them. His face was covered in shadow, but they could just about tell he was human and possibly an adult from the stubble on his chin.
They approached him cautiously.
Calvin cleared his throat and spoke first. "Okay… Are you the guy who's been dressing as an octopus and freaking out Socrates?"
The man didn't answer. He just sat in the net, gently swaying back and forth, his hidden eyes bearing down on them.
"Let's start with an easier question," Sherman suggested. "Who are you?"
But the man still wouldn't reply.
"Socrates, what did you say to him?" Andy asked.
Socrates looked offended. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You've put him in a bad mood! Now he's unresponsive!"
"He was unresponsive when he got here!"
"A likely story," Calvin grunted.
"Okay, hang on," Hobbes said, holding up his paws placating. "Let's figure this out rationally."
"If only someone had said that a few years ago," Sherman grumbled.
Hobbes approached the man, who simply stared back at him.
"You're not answering our questions, you're not cooperating, and you tried to kidnap Socrates," the tiger said slowly. "Are you working for someone? Are you an underling? Are you even human? Maybe you're a robot? Is that it?"
But the man didn't say anything.
Hobbes arched his brow at him before walking back over to the others. "Okay, the usual shtick isn't working."
"Okay, let's regroup," Calvin said, motioning the others to follow him.
They gathered in the corner.
"If he's not going to talk, then we might as well put him somewhere while we've got him captured."
"Where can we put him?" Andy asked.
"I can have a makeshift dungeon built in the basement in less than ten minutes," Socrates said.
Everyone stared at him. They could tell from his expression that he was totally serious about this.
"How can you do that?" Sherman asked.
"Elliot's family planned to use it as a panic room. I suppose we could lock him up inside it."
"It doesn't have any internal control panels, does it?" Calvin asked.
"Yeah, but we can disable those if we get MTM to reroute the power."
"Ah… Yeah, that might be our best bet."
"What do we do with him for ten minutes?" Hobbes asked.
"Keep an eye on him?" Sherman suggested disdainfully.
"Have you been watching the same guy as the rest of us? He's genuinely creepy."
Calvin stole a glance at the man, who didn't seem to have turned his head away from the kitchen doorway. "I concur with that assessment," he said, sounding a bit uneasy.
"Well, he's hardly going anywhere," Andy said. "We just need to hold on to him for a little while, and then we… Wait. How do we get him down there?"
"MTM could teleport him there," Hobbes suggested.
"Sounds good to me," Socrates said agreeably.
"Then let's get on it," Calvin said. "Let's go."
They broke out of their huddle and turned around to put their plan into action.
Unfortunately, they had barely moved before they realized something rather strange had happened.
The hooded man was gone.
The net was in shreds, and its remnants were either dangling from the ceiling or scattered messily on the kitchen floor.
"Wha…?" Calvin struggled to speak. "Where'd he go?"
"And how'd he get out?" Hobbes added.
Sherman climbed down from Andy's shoulder and scurried over to the net. He examined it closely. "It would seem as though he cut his way out. These ropes have been sliced neatly with a knife."
Socrates staggered backwards against the wall as if all the strength had gone out of his legs.
"What's wrong?" Andy asked.
"I… I had some psycho with a knife in my house," he mumbled, struggling to get his brain to comprehend this new information. "The guy who tried to kidnap me had a knife…"
"Socrates, you've been kidnapped by people with ray guns," Calvin reminded him.
"I know, but a knife! It's all so… real."
Everyone let that sink in for a moment as they realized the implications of what this meant.
Calvin swallowed before firmly stating, "Nobody moves. Nobody leaves this room. He might still be here." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the MTM. "MTM, scan the house. Is he still here?"
MTM hummed for a moment as he scanned the whole house.
Finally, he declared, "No, he's not. We're the only ones here."
Everyone simultaneously let out a breath of relief.
WHAM!
And then they all jumped when they heard the door slam, followed by hurried footsteps running down the walkway.
They were clutching their chests and trying to calm down for a good five seconds before MTM sheepishly announced, "Okay, now he's not here."
Calvin glared at the CD player. "MTM…?"
"Sorry. I mean it. I'm sorry. I genuinely didn't detect him. I swear."
After a few moments, the gang managed to regain their composure.
"What if he comes back?" Socrates asked, worry latent in his voice. "What if…? What if he comes back when Elliot and his family come back?"
Everyone tried to think that over, but their thoughts were racing at a thousand miles an hour. Somehow, some psycho with a knife that they couldn't identify had become ten times scarier than any mad scientist or alien dictator that had tried to destroy them previously.
Finally, Calvin found his voice. "Then we'll just have to stay here."
Everyone stared at him.
"R-really?" Socrates asked, sounding like a helpless child.
"Yes, we will. Won't we, guys?"
Hobbes nodded. "We will."
"All night, if we have to," Andy agreed.
"And we won't sleep the whole time," Sherman put in.
"And if he does return, he won't know what hit him," MTM finished.
Socrates looked among his friends for a moment before he let a relieved smile split across his furry face. "Thanks, guys," he said quietly.
There was a short silence after this, wherein a sense of camaraderie could be felt between the six of them that they rarely ever felt.
Fortunately, that mushy nonsense was broken when Socrates' grin became his usual insane smile as he jumped up and began to head for the stairs.
"SLUMBER PARTY!" he shouted, running towards his room.
The others rolled their eyes, secretly relieved that the tension was broken as they followed after him.
When they got to his room, they found Socrates pulling out loads of pillows and blankets from his closet, and he spewed them across the floor, somehow managing to get them to line up evenly.
"This is gonna be awesome!" he declared excitedly. "We can stay up all night, eating junk food, watching horror movies and talking about girls! I can make my world-famous omelet for breakfast tomorrow!"
"World-famous according to whom?" Sherman asked dryly.
"According to you guys, after you eat, love it and blog about it! Now help me set everything up!"
Rolling their eyes, Calvin, Hobbes, Andy and Sherman proceeded to help him roll out of the sleeping bags and move things around so that they all had room.
Hobbes picked up some discarded books and took them over to a shelf near the window. As he did so, he glanced out of it and saw that he had a pretty good view of the front yard and the neighborhood before it. His powerful feline eyes scanned the area.
Off in the distance, a long way away, he thought he could see a tall man walking down the sidewalk, away from them.
Hobbes felt his heart briefly freeze in his chest before he shook the feeling off and started to help the others move a cedar chest.
Meanwhile, in the South Pole, Jack was grumbling to himself as he grabbed one last barrelful of ice for Dr. Brainstorm.
"Okay…," he mumbled to himself, "I think that's about it. Since Frank didn't give me an exact amount to collect, I'll just take the bare minimum the ship can carry. Maybe I'll dump it on his head. Debbie could stand to see what kind of nut she's been roped into working for. I wonder what she's going to tell her husband and kids when she gets home – that she helped a crazy guy and his robot sidekick attempt to take over the world with ice?"
Jack looked around as he realized something.
"I'm talking to myself again. Dang. Sixth time today – I need to get out of here."
The South Pole was a complete ice desert – nothing for miles around except ice, snow, cold water, and despair. Not even a single penguin to lighten the mood.
He poured the barrel into the ship's lower cargo hold which had been converted into a freezer. He looked across the piles of ice and snow he had gathered.
"Frank, you numbskull – you'd better have a plan," he muttered.
Closing up the hull of the ship, he tossed the barrel into the back of the ship before climbing up the embarkation ramp in to the front. He headed into the cockpit and sat down behind the pilot's seat.
"Okay, baby," he murmured. "Let's get out of here."
The ship roared into life, and in a few seconds, it was taxying down the icy field he had landed on before slowly taking off into the snowy sky.
He was whistling casually to himself as he prepared to plot a course back to Yellowstone so he could set it on auto-pilot and engage the hyper engine.
Unfortunately, he was interrupted by a sound coming from the control desk. He threw a glance at the radar, which seemed to be picking something up. The words "UNKNOWN THREAT" flashed in nasty red letters.
"This better not be a squirrel," Jack grumbled. "Every time this thing goes off, it's a squirrel. Just my luck, there's going to be a squirrel in Antarctica."
He was just considering ignoring it and going home when he noticed a cave in the mountains of ice just ahead, and according to the radar, the threat was in there.
"I should just go home," he muttered. "It can't be all that important. I should really, really, really just go home…"
He managed to ignore his curiosity for all of three seconds before he turned the joystick and aimed the rocket for the cave.
"I've been hanging out with a scientist for too long," he grumbled to himself.
He landed the ship close by, bringing it down like a helicopter. He wanted to be close to it just in case he needed to run away very quickly.
He lowered the embarkation ramp, adjusted his internal temperature and headed back out into the cold tundra once again. He looked around in the thick swirling snow, and he managed to find the entrance to the cave.
"Well," he sighed, "let's have a look at the Arctic Squirrels."
When he got inside, he saw that it wasn't very long. He made it to the end in less than three minutes. He scanned the entire place, but he couldn't detect anything serious.
"Hello?" he called out.
That "hello" reverberated throughout the cave.
He shrugged. "Oh well. I can't say I didn't look." And with that, he turned and headed towards the mouth of the cave.
But then his audio receivers detected something skittering around, reverberating all around him and steadily growing louder and louder. He looked around for the source. At first, he couldn't spot it, but as he got closer to the entrance and had some sun coming in, he saw light reflecting off of a bunch of tiny little creatures crawling across the walls.
"What the heck…," he said to himself, trying to enhance his view, but something seemed to be wrong with his zoom function.
And then he realized that whatever the creatures were, they apparently crawling across his body!
"Hey!" he cried as he stopped and swatted at them like they were insects. "Get off of me! What the – ?!"
It was only when he brought them up to his eyes that he was able to register what they were.
"Wait… These are tiny little robots!"
And with that realization, he collapsed as all his major functions shut down.
Attention, Jack T Robot!
This is your auto-repair system speaking. It seems as though you have been attacked. Thankfully, Frank installed a special system in your brain that has stored your virtual memory data and is keeping you conscious even though the rest of you is essentially useless.
Just don't tell him if necessary. You'll never hear the end of it.
We have run a complete scan on your operating systems, and from what we can tell from the damage-report, you are under attack by a cardiac halting machine that is typically designed to kill humans instantaneously. Fortunately, as you are a robot, it has not killed you. It has merely rendered you inoperable. Luckily, your memories still exist in this secret drive in the back of your head.
Seriously, don't tell Frank this worked. You always told him how pointless and unlikely it was that you'd need it. You'd have to actually start showing him respect from now on.
We have just about restarted your systems. You shall have control momentarily.
Three…
Two…
Smile, Jack – you're on!
The roof of the cave loomed over him.
Jack's eyes flitted left and right. They were working again.
"Optical sensors back online," he said in a monotone voice.
He flexed his fingers.
"All ten digits maintain dexterity," he said, still in a lifeless tone.
He managed to raise his arms above his head.
"Arms have regained mobility."
He managed to slowly sit up straight.
"Spinal column has become unparalyzed."
Then his head whirred and he felt something slot back into place.
"Ohhhh…," he moaned, finally with some emotion. "And personality disk has been reinstalled! Thank heavens for that! What the heck…? Cardiac halting machine? Who the heck could possibly use one of those? Heck, who could possibly have one of those?"
As he slowly began to make his way back onto his feet, he looked around, feeling a tad sluggish.
And then he heard the skittering again.
He turned around and saw that the spider-like robots were swarming towards him again at a frantic face, their little metallic legs clicking across the icy walls and floor of the cave.
"Now would be a good time to run," Jack said to himself.
Staggering along, struggling to get himself working again, the silver robot proceeded to engage in an ungraceful sprint as he tried to get himself away from the swarm. He headed started run away from them, but then he saw that they were coming at him from the mouth of the cave as well. Activating his internal GPS, he looked around, and he saw that a section of the cave's wall was hollow. Aiming a finger at it, he managed to send out a signal that vibrated the section of the wall, causing it to shatter and fall apart, allowing him to duck inside.
Following his GPS, he began to get more feeling back into his legs as he ran further up the cavern, listening to the tiny robots skittering after him through the hole.
Looking around, he saw that the ceiling ahead of him had several large icicles dangling from it. He aimed his finger at them, and as he ran underneath them, they fell to the ground, along with the whole ceiling.
There was a loud thundering crash that knocked him off his feet and sent him crashing onto the floor of the cave.
After a few seconds, he looked back and saw that none of the little spider-robots had made it. They were all trapped on the other side of the sealed-off pathway.
Sighing with relief, Jack got back up again and looked around.
What he saw next almost made him shut down.
It was Dr. Thunderstorm.
But after a moment, Jack realized something. The man wasn't moving. He was frozen in a block of ice.
"What the heck…?" Jack murmured. "How…? But he was killed… Well, obviously he wasn't, but… How the heck did he end up like this?"
Cautiously approaching, the robot looked his frozen adversary up and down. He held out a hand and gently pressed it against the block of ice.
"Hmmm," he said aloud, watching reams of data spew across his eyes. "He's defrosting. There's some sort of heat source coming from somewhere. His vital organs are starting up again. However that works…"
He looked Thunderstorm up and down, observing his frozen expression, which was one of barely contained fear and fury.
"I wish I could draw a mustache on him, but the felt tip wouldn't keep on the ice… Maybe I can refreeze him."
Jack placed a hand on the block of ice and promptly adjusted his body temperature. His hand turned blue, and the ice containing Thunderstorm proceeded to solidify.
"There. Maybe I can stick him in the freezer and take him back to Yellowstone. I'll let Frank decide what to do with him. Shouldn't be too hard. It's not like they're brothers or anything."
His thoughts were interrupted by something slamming into his side.
He and his attacker went rolling forwards like a bowling ball out of the cave and into the snow.
Jack found himself being violently rolled over so that he was looking up into his enemy's eyes.
It was Shadow, who was looking just a little worse for wear, but his deranged eyes hadn't lost that insane fury from years before.
"You will not interfere," he growled.
Jack managed to get over the surprise of the attack before regaining his smart-alecky persona. "Shadow," he said. "Long time, no see."
Shadow kept his grip firm around Jack's arms while extending his own so that he was on his feet. He lifted his adversary over his head, spun him around and threw him against a solid wall of ice. He let out a grunt of momentary pain as he slid down back into the snow before he reoriented himself. He managed to get his internal nanobots working on his repairs before he stood up.
"So you're alive," he said, as if nothing had happened. "Could've sworn you guys got blown up when we destroyed the space station."
"Negative," Shadow replied. "We escaped."
"No duh."
This was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Shadow suddenly ran at Jack and knocked him down, and they both went tumbling rapidly down a hill, where they both slammed into a rock.
The force of this collision brought Shadow to a halt, and he lost his grip on Jack, who let out a yell of pain as he went sailing through the air, feeling as if something had broken.
He landed in a snowdrift. He slowly climbed out and tried to figure out where the problem was, and he saw that it was his finger. Specifically, it was the finger that he didn't have anymore.
Looking back across the field of ice, he saw that Shadow as on his feet and waving the finger furiously at Jack
"I will not abandon my master!" he roared, resembling a little grizzled green guy holding his 'precious'. "You will run, but once my master is freed, we shall hunt you and Dr. Brainstorm down, and we shall destroy you!"
Jack mulled this over before responding. "Thanks for the heads up, pal. I'll deliver the message."
And feeling a bit more afraid than he'd ever care to admit, Jack hightailed it to the rocket and jumped inside.
Shadow watched as it slowly took to the sky and jetted away, disappearing almost instantaneously as its hyper engine kicked in.
"My master awaits me," he murmured to himself, tossing Jack's finger up and down.
He was just turning to leave when he saw what appeared to be a tall man in a black suit, far away in the distance, walking through the snow.
Shadow briefly restarted his eyes to make sure he was seeing things properly, but when he looked again, the man was gone.
Although initially concerned, he dismissed it as unimportant and just a side effect of his damaged circuits before returning to the cave, still holding his rival's finger. He needed to scan it to see what Jack's technological capabilities were.
TO BE CONTINUED
