"Ya know, this is really the worst government conspiracy ever!" Calvin complained, flipping through the papers the next day. "We have some nut going after a nonexistent dictator. It just figures it would be me that stumbles onto it!"
Hobbes was busy packing everything back into Calvin's duffel bag while Calvin glared at the papers.
"Mm hmm," Hobbes said, not really listening.
"I mean, all the other fools, that are less qualified to take on such as task as myself, are finding out about all these exciting felonies and adventures, and here I am getting lost in a stupid mountain range. How fair is that?!"
"Which direction do you think we should head towards?" Hobbes asked, looking up.
Calvin stared at him.
"What?" He asked.
"What direction should we take?" Hobbes asked.
There was a pause.
Calvin glared at Hobbes.
"Hobbes, were you even listening to me?" He demanded.
Hobbes hesitated.
"Not really," He said, looking skyward and preparing for an earful.
"Well, Hobbes I am deeply offended and heart broken and I vote we head north like any right minded fool!" Calvin said, crossing his arms.
Hobbes stared at him, astonished at not hearing a bit more from him.
"North?" He asked.
"Sure, you have a compass, lead the way," Calvin said, pointing ahead.
Hobbes shrugged.
"Oh, very well. I suppose we don't have anything to lose."
And so after everything was packed up, Calvin and Hobbes examined their compass for about five minutes, arguing over which direction north was, and continued on their way, ultimately towards the north-east.
For a while, they walked in silence.
Then, Hobbes spoke.
"Calvin, what do you suppose those papers and that underground hideout was all about?" He asked, turning to the boy.
Calvin thought for a moment.
"Well, in all honesty I really don't know," He said. "Of course, I don't know why someone trying to assassinate someone of high authority would have their headquarters located in the middle of a mountain range on this god forsaken part of the Earth."
"Yes, it's a real puzzler," Hobbes considered. "Makes you wonder who was behind it all,"
"The kind of people in life who spend hours on end planning the blueprints for a hideout they're just going to end up blowing up in the end, which is creative, when you put it in perspective, but what I could really use is some of the way-too-much time they apparently have on their hands," Calvin said.
Hobbes gave Calvin an odd look.
The aliens, meanwhile, had returned to their spaceship, which was hovering high above the Earth cloaked from any NASA surveillance that might have been around at the time. Having just blown up their randomly placed underground hideout, Earl's band of freaks had decided to retreat to their quarters in which they all watched cartoons while arguing over whether Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon was the better viewing choice.
Rupert and Earl, however, got right back to work.
"What are the reports from the remains of the dig out?" Rupert asked, examining a computer nearby Earl, who was watching a screen above him.
"The scanners show no indication of life," Earl said, typing in a few commands. "Let me get the video log for the last few minutes before it blew,"
Rupert watched as Earl typed in more commands and then stood back and looked at the screen.
For a moment, there was nothing but static, but then suddenly, it roared to life.
Rupert and Earl stared at the screen.
Standing in front of the camera was none other than the grinning face of Zack the alien.
"Is it working, now?" Lenny's voice came.
"I think so! Was it ever broken?" Zack asked, turning around.
"Well, I breathed on it a few minutes ago, and Earl told me not to do that, so I think I might of broke it!"
"Well hold on, I'll hit it, again and see what happens," Zack said, turning back and facing the camera again.
Rupert and Earl's eyes rolled into the back of their heads.
Zack stood there, repeatedly hitting the camera with his fist, causing the picture to flicker a couple of times.
"Did you fix it?" Lenny asked.
"I can't tell," Zack said. "The red light that's above the label 'record' is on. What does that mean?"
"I think that means it's broken. Hit it again, and see what happens."
Zack complied.
"Don't we have some kind of insurance policy on these guys?" Earl asked, turning to Rupert.
"Yeah, but fraud is more trouble than it's worth and chances are those jerks at the flight station will just give us another crew that's even worse than this one." Rupert said.
Zack meanwhile continued to hit the camera until Alfred's voice rang out through the speakers.
"HEY GUYS! EARL WANTS US IN THE CONTROL ROOM!! THE EARTH POTENT KNOWS WE'RE HERE!!!"
"What are the chances that Calvin didn't hear that?" Rupert sighed, heavily.
"How long have they been calling him 'potent'?" Earl demanded.
"God, I'm surprised they're not calling him the Pope," Rupert groaned. "Switch to another camera and skip ahead five minutes."
Earl typed into the computer, again.
The screen flickered.
What the saw almost caused them both to have coinciding heart attacks.
Dave the alien was carrying the camera under his arm and was following the rest of the crew back onto their spaceship.
He held it up to his face.
"For future generations I have removed this camera from its station, so I can bring you the previously undocumented 'take over the planet that Earl's been talking about for the last few weeks!' documentary!!" He said, excitedly.
Earl groaned.
"As of this time, we are running away from the Earth's leader for some unknown reason as of this time!" Dave said, apparently not paying any attention to what he was saying. "There's a possibility that we're all just to scared at him to do anything so we're going make the place explode, instead! Earl's yelling at us, again, so it must be pretty important!"
"DAVE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!" Earl's voice screamed.
Dave looked up.
"NOTHING!!" he screamed back, nervously.
"GET ONTO THE SHIP!!" Earl screamed.
"OKAY!!" Dave screamed back.
He turned back to the camera.
"As you can see, he's yelling a little louder than usual, so he must want me to do something. I just have to figure out what!"
"DAVE!!!" Earl shouted at the top of his lungs.
"I better get over there, or he'll yell again!" Dave said, leaping to his feet. "All and all, I think our mission to take over the planet was a complete success!! ZOKAINS ARE AWESOME!!! DAVE OUT!!!"
And with that, the movie simply died.
Silence greeted this video.
Rupert and Earl stared at the screen with repressed rage written all over their faces.
"Alright, different camera." Earl said, walking over and typing again.
The screen flickered, again.
Suddenly, Biff appeared on the screen.
"HI MOM!!!" He yelled, happily.
"RRRGH!!" Earl screamed, slamming his fist into another button.
The screen flickered again, and this time, it showed the ladder heading straight up to the exit of the hideout.
"The exit is right behind that door!" Calvin's voice came.
The room began trembling.
"How do you know?" Hobbes' voice asked,
"I just know! Come on!"
The second that was said, there was an orange blur shooting through the door and up the ladder, signaling Hobbes' escape.
Seconds later, a terrified Calvin leapt through the door still gripping his duffel bag in one hand, and frantically began climbing the ladder towards safety.
As just as Calvin tumbled out of the hole in the ground, the bomb placed at the bottom of the ladder went off, sending a blast of fire shooting straight up, and causing the video to flicker and go out.
Rupert and Earl watched this all unfold quietly.
For a while, they simply stared at the static filled screen in dead silence.
"He got out," Rupert said, quietly, taking a step back and sitting down.
Earl's expression turned dark.
"How did he manage to get out?" Rupert groaned. "All of those traps should have gone off simultaneously. He should not have had a chance to get out."
"He has some of our equipment," Earl said, quietly.
There was a pause as that sank in.
"He what?!" Rupert demanded, standing up from his chair.
"He took some of that equipment from the wall." Earl said. "The computer registered it as our technology, and so it couldn't tell if it was firing at one of us or the Potentate. It held the traps back so that he would have a chance to get away if it was one of us,"
Rupert groaned.
"This isn't worth it!" He screamed. "We should just bomb this entire planet right now, and wipe all the life out!"
"We can't do that," Earl said. "If we bomb the planet then we won't be able to use it for a military base. Nothing will be able to survive on it for decades. We have to work our way down the Earth's military systems in order to break their civilization apart, starting with this child!"
Rupert glared murderously at the screen.
"For a boy of this much power, he certainly seems helpless," He said, slowly. "Why can't we just kill him?!"
There was a tense silence as Rupert and Earl glared at the screen which still had crackling static coming from it.
Suddenly Earl's eyes lit up.
"That's it!" He said, straightening up and running over to the computer.
"What?" Rupert demanded, turning his glare onto Earl.
"He has our technology!" Earl said. "Our technology has trackers! We can find him, now!"
Rupert's eyebrow's jumped.
"You can track it?" He asked. "What about the interdimensional energy from his bag?"
"I'll just put the command in to focus on any abnormal shifts in the dimension," Earl said. "Now that he has our stuff, we can pin point his exact location, right now!"
And with that, Earl pushed a red button on the console, and looked up.
A digital map of the Earth appeared on the screen. It then flew in over the United States and focused on a specific mountain range in Colorado.
The map continued to go in before finally stopping on one particular mountain, and one bright green light lit up on the screen.
An insane grin started creep up Rupert's face.
"There he is," Earl said. "The Colorado Rockies, miles from Camp Pine. The Search and Rescue units aren't even looking in the right state."
Rupert and Earl stared at the screen for a long time.
"But we are," Rupert said, sinisterly, turning to Earl.
Earl turned to Rupert and grinned, widely, showing his blade sharp teeth.
"Yes.... We are." He said.
And with that, in order to keep up with the high demand for a cliche, Rupert and Earl burst out with insane laughter, as the green light on the screen above them continued to blink on and off.
Unfortunately, who was to come and ruin their moment was none other than Lenny, who peeked into the control room and looked around.
"Erm.... Earl?" He asked, nervously.
Rupert and Earl stopped laughing.
"What do you want?" Earl demanded.
"Would you be sad if I told you I accidentally dropped the hyperdrive from our engine room and lost it?" Lenny asked.
Rupert and Earl stard at Lenny.
"Lenny, if you told me that, I would personally throw you off the ship into a herd of starving Shadowfax," Earl said.
Lenny paused.
"Oh. OK," He said. "Never mind then,"
And with that, he simply left.
Rupert and Earl stared after him for a long time.
Then, in the distance, Zack's voice was heard.
"WHOOP!! THERE GOES THE OTHER ONE!!!"
"Oh God," Rupert groaned, his head falling to his chest.
"I'll call home and tell them to send a cargo ship," Earl sighed, turning back to his computer.
