Episode Seventeen

It took another couple of hours of careful study of the cube, which Dakota explained to them later, was called a shrinkatron, before it was possible to restore Milo, Melissa, Phineas an Dakota to their original sizes. Milo felt himself once again seized by a giant pair of hands, only this time he felt as though every bit of him was being stretched. The muscles in his dislocated shoulder howled in protest and when it was over, Milo tasted blood in his mouth. He had bit through his bottom lip.

"This is extremely dangerous technology in the wrong hands," said Cavendish, as they drove back to Danville that afternoon. "With enough energy, this device is capable of shrinking the entire planet down to the size an atom."

"Yeah," said Dakota, "whoever let this thing get out must be a real nutjobber. We definitely need to phone this in."

As September faded into October, and Milo and his friends settled into their classes, Danville was cloaked in a mantle of orange and yellow and crimson, as the leaves on the trees gradually turned from summer time green to a riot of Autumn colours. Two weeks after the Shrinkatron Incident as they had taken to calling it, Melissa raised the subject of Phineas.

"Milo," she said as he wrapped his knee one afternoon between classes.

"Yeah, Melissa."

"We need to talk." She had intentionally let Zack and Amanda go ahead of them because she felt as though what she wanted to say was something should remain between her and Milo.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked. Milo finished wrapping his right knee. He had slipped going upstairs between classes and had banged his knee rather badly. He guessed that he would have to put ice on it later.

She took a breath. "Milo, I think you should be careful around Phineas," she said quickly.

"You don't think it's safe for me to be around him?" asked Milo.

Melissa paused, wondering how to say what she wanted to say. She knew that Milo liked Phineas and she didn't want to seem like she was trying to come between them either, but as his closest friend she felt as though she owed him her honest point of view. "I think that Phineas and Ferb live in a bubble," she said at last. "I don't think they always realize the consequences of their actions."

Milo thought about this for a second or two, then said, "maybe this is just part of the Phineas and Ferb effect. Maybe being born with a positive probability field means they have a higher tolerance for taking risks."

"Possibly," Melissa allowed slowly, "but after Duckburg, and now the Shrinkatron Incident, I can't help but wonder if Phineas and Murphy's Law are a bad mix."

The six of them spent the next two weekends shadowing Cavendish and Dakota, as they worked various clean up sites around Danville. For the life of him, Milo wondered why aliens who could apparently master interstellar space flight couldn't master something as basic as recycling.

"That's a really good question," said Dakota one Saturday when Milo asked him. "Maybe one day you'll be able to ask them." He passed Milo a lawn gnome. "Take this and put it a container. And try not to touch it any more than you have to."

"Why?" asked Milo.

Dakota told him.

Milo looked revolted. "But that's just-I mean why would anyone do that?"

Dakota chuckled at the look on Milo's face and shrugged. "Maybe it's somebody's idea of a funny prank. Perhaps you can ask them that too, although personally, I don't really want to know."

Heinz stood pensively in front of the white board in his shed in Milo's backyard one afternoon in the middle of October. Over the past several months, Doof's calculations had slowly become more refined, thanks in part to Perry and Cavenpuss' input, but he had found himself beset by frequent setbacks and obstacles nonetheless. He was facing such an obstacle now. Heinz's white board dominated one wall of the shed which had previously belonged the Milo's mother, Brigitte, who was an architect and had used it as a design studio. The large workbench on the perpendicular wall, was located under a large rectangular window, and contained an elaborate array of mirrors, magnetic coils and lasers. The purpose of the experiment was to develop a base line for the time it took for a beam of light to travel through a temporal continuum from one point to another.

Cavenpuss and Perry stood on a chair next to the lanky scientist, staring the calculations on the white board. Perry chittered at Heinz. "Your calculations are off," said Cavenpuss. "There is a variance of three microns."

"What," said Heinz, "no there isn't. There is a variance of less than one micron. Look." He rattled off a series of mathematical equations and formulas, pointing to each one as he spoke.

Perry shook his head, chittered emphatically at Heinz and pointed at the calculations on the white board.

"Alright fine, Perry the Platypus," said Heinz in exasperation, "go ahead and show me."

Perry picked up a pad of paper and a pen and scribbled out a series of mathematical formulas. He chittered his teeth at Heinz and handed him the pad of paper. Heinz took it and studied for what seemed like a long time. He made some notations and walked over to the apparatus on his workbench. He made some adjustments to the positioning of the mirrors. He booted up a laptop, opened a new window and input a series of commands. Heinz shifted his attention from his computer to the test apparatus on his work bench and made a few more adjustments. Heinz flipped a switch and a pair of blue and green lasers went ricocheting around the maze of prisms and mirrors and through the magnetic coils. A pair of jagged lines appeared in a window on Heinz' computer screen. He studied the readout carefully and then sighed.

"There is still a two micron variance," observed Cavenpuss.

Perry chittered.

"A two micro variance is still within the margin of error for-"

"Technically," said Cavenpuss, "but only barely. You would be able to enter the time stream, but you risk substantial damage to yourself and your vehicle."

Heinz was silent for a long time.

A week later the weather turned chilly. Danville was drenched in a cold rain that washed away last of the fall colours and turned everything drab and grey. Zack trudged across the parking lot from the bus stop to the Googleplex Mall. He reached the entrance to the mall, pushed open the door and stepped out of the bad weather. He unzipped his coat, took off his hat and stuffed it in his pocket. He walked over to the mall directory and ran his finger down the index of stores until he found the one that he wanted. He double checked its location. It was up on the fifth floor. He made a mental note of the location and walked over to the nearest escalator. He was half way to his destination when he heard a voice behind say his name.

"Hey, Zack."

Zack stopped and turned to find Melissa coming out of Safety Barn with a large bag under her arm. "Oh, hi Melissa." For some reason that he couldn't explain, Zack suddenly felt his face grow hot. "What's with the bag?"

Melissa shrugged. "Birthday shopping for Milo," she said. "Mr. Murphy said that Milo needed a new hard hat, so I thought I'd pick one up for him. You?"

"Same," said Zack. "I was going to check out the Trashcandroid's Dungeon."

Melissa nodded approvingly. "The official Doctor Zone store," she said. "Good call, it'll be intact and you definitely won't run into him there today." The Trashcandroid's Dungeon was Milo's favourite store at the mall and was near the top of their list of places to check when Murphy's Law made it unusually difficult to find him.

"So you arranged some interference, then?" asked Zack.

Melissa nodded. "Sara and Neal took him to Danville Comic Con," she said. "All of the Time Wardens are appearing together on stage with Orton for the first time over twenty years." Melissa laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen Milo so excited before."

"Why don't you come with me," suggested Zack. "You've been friends with Milo for a lot longer that I have. You might know what he'd like."

"Sure."

They walked the rest of the way to the Trashcandroid's Dungeon together chatting amiably, mostly about Milo and about, "the ridiculousness that is his life," as Melissa liked to put it. As the person closest to Milo outside of his family, Zack had often noticed that Melissa could get away with saying things to Milo that anyone else would have been immediately called on. He remembered the first time he had met Milo, while waiting for the school bus at the bus stop at the end of Milo's street. They had almost been run over by a section of concrete drainage pipe and had eventually ended up in the sewer. Zack had stared in amazement as this strange kid had calmly rummaged in his backpack and handed him a head lamp.

"Here," Milo had said, "we can use these to navigate in the dark."

"Dude, if and when we get out of here," Zack had said, "I'm going to have to go my own way. No offence, but I'm not sure I can handle all of this."

Milo had turned to stare at Zack, as if confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this cyclone of calamity that follows you everywhere you go," Zack had replied. "How do you live like this?!"

When Milo spoke next, It was clear that he felt as though he had just been insulted. "How do you live like that?" Milo had asked.

Now it had been Zack's turn to look confused. "What do you mean?"

Milo had given Zack a searching look, as sizing him up. "I mean do you want to live like those other kids? They took a bus to school today. A bus! Does that honestly seem like more fun to you?"

In spite of this initially rocky start, Zack's relationship with Milo had quickly hardened into a durable friendship. Zack's thoughts were interrupted by the ethereal music drifting from the Doctor Zone store, just ahead of them. "It's time for danger! Time for action! Time for Doctor Zone!" Zack and Melissa stopped in front of the entrance to the Trashcandroid's Dungeon, which was flanked by life-sized statues of Doctor Hankry Zone and Time Ape.

Zack and Melissa went inside. The store was decorated in lurid shades of purple and gold. The Doctor Zone them played over the store's speaker system. "Chronological time is an abstraction when you're with Doctor Zone." Props were on display behind glass display cases. T-shirts, sweaters and sweat pants hung on racks. A life sized replica of the Time Beehicle, for sale for $50,000, dominated the open space in the middle of the store. They spent around half an hour wandering around the store looking at all the coffee mugs, action figures, comic books, Christmas ornaments and various knick knacks for sale. They eventually picked out several T-shirts, four Doctor Zone Universe graphic novels that Melissa said that Milo wanted to read and an expensive pair of sixth scale figures of Doctor Zone and Time Ape.

"So," asked Zack, as they walked out of the Trashcandroid's Dungeon, "do you want to hit the food court?"