Episode Forty One

Cavendish had barely driven half a block before he turned down a side street. He clunked through the gears into park and pulled the key out of the ignition. The engine died and they piled out. The side street in which they had parked was deserted. There were a few overflowing dumpsters scattered here and there down the alley, which was lit with a dull orange light from overhead street lights. They started walking. Garbage from from the overflowing dumpsters was scattered here and there on the ground. A battered looking metal sign on the opposite wall said that this was "Good Luck Alley." Light from a number of open doors spilled into the deserted space. They had names like "The Golden Buddha" and "The Lucky Dragon." Music, the jangling of slot machines and a pungent aroma that Zack couldn't identify wafted through the open doors as they passed. From the brief glimpses that Zack caught of the interiors as they passed, they looked decidedly seedy. From the other end of the alley the bright lights of Night Market Square cast a long puddle of multicoloured neon into the alley. They all eyed the cop car parked at the opposite end of the alley, where it opened onto Night Market Square and looked at each other.

"So how do we get inside the police cordon?" asked Amanda.

There was about a minute of silence as they pondered the problem. They couldn't simply ask the police to let them in. The police had no reason to do so and would likely never believe their story. Zack sighed and unslung Milo's backpack. I'm probably going to regret this, he thought. He set Milo's backpack on the ground and quickly rifled through it, extracting a long handled crowbar. Even as he did, he thought he could feel the iron bands around his chest again. He ignored them, found the nearest manhole cover and began trying to jimmy the crowbar under the heavy metal cover.

"Zack, what are you doing?" asked Phineas.

Zack spoke through gritted teeth as he grunted with the extortion of trying to lift the manhole cover. "Something I'll probably regret," he said. The manhole cover shifted slightly.

"Are you sure about this Zack?" asked Amanda slightly skeptically.

Melissa nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you don't have to do this," she said. "This isn't Danville," she added. "We don't know these sewers at all."

The manhole cover shifted a little more and Zack jammed the crowbar solidly underneath. "No," he said, "this isn't Danville. If we were at home, we'd probably be in some other insane situation, but Milo would be here to help us figure out how to get out of it." Zack grunted again as he levered the manhole cover up a couple of inches. A strong sewer smell came wafting out. "And yes, Milo has a better head for the Danville sewer system than I do, but Milo could actually hurt someone and we don't have time to waste talking to the police, who probably won't believe us anyway, so why don't you help me move this thing before I chicken out!"

There was a enough of a gap between the manhole cover and the lip for Cavendish and Dakota to get their hands around the edge. They grabbed hold of it and with some effort, Zack, Cavendish and Dakota levered it into a vertical position. They let go of the manhole cover and it fell over backwards, landing on the pavement with a dull clang, which reverberated loudly in the confined space of the alley. Everyone flinched.

Melissa, Amanda and Phineas all looked a little like deer caught in on-coming headlights. Zack suddenly realized that they were staring at him. Zack picked up Milo's backpack and shrugged it back on to his shoulders. "I'm sorry, guys I-," he began.

Melissa opened her mouth to say something, but Dakota cut her off. "Somebody probably heard that," he said, motioning to the manhole cover. "We need to get moving."

Zack looked down at the open manhole cover. It seemed to be a mile deep. He took a deep breath and fought the urge to hyperventilate. OK, he thought, this is your bright idea. He suddenly remembered something and reached over his shoulder, thrusting his hand into Milo's backpack. Milo always packs three or four flashlights, he thought. His hand closed over several flashlights almost immediately. He extracted them and handed one each to Amanda, Ferb, and Cavendish. He kept the fourth for himself. Zack shrugged Milo's backpack higher on his shoulders, clicked on his flashlight and stuck it in the pocket of his jeans. He crouched down and lowered himself into the open manhole. The sewer smell was strong in his nostrils and he tried breathing through his mouth so he wouldn't have to breath in the stench, but it didn't really work. He suddenly noticed a bitter taste in the back of his mouth and had to actively resist the urge to throw up. Why does this sewer smell so bad? Zack wondered. He had been down in the Danville sewer system dozens of times with Milo and Melissa and it didn't smell even remotely this bad. Zack suddenly realized that he was fighting two opposing instincts. The sewer was narrow. They would have to walk in single file. In the confining space and inky darkness, Zack wanted to hyperventilate, but he was trying not to breath deeply, so as not to breath in the nauseating smell. Zack craned his neck to see who was standing behind him. It was Dakota. His normally dark sunglasses glowed a vivid electronic green. Zack opened his mouth to speak to the time agent, but Dakota spoke first.

"Oh fertilize me, this smells awful," muttered Dakota. "Zack, hold still," he said. He pushed open the flap on top of Milo's backpack. "I'm going to see if Milo packed filter masks."

Zack nodded. "Good idea," he said in agreement. He felt Dakota rummaging through the contents of Milo's backpack. A sudden thought occurred to him, "just to warn you, Dakota, they might be-,"

"Doctor Zone masks?" said Dakota, "really?"

Zack had half expected that. Milo, Zack and Melissa had once stayed late after school to look for Melissa's missing math book. An encounter with the hall monitors had left them coughing on a cloud of chalk dust. Without blinking, Milo had produced three filter masks from his backpack.

"And they look like circus animals because-," Zack had asked only a little sarcastically.

Milo had given a trademark casual shrug in response. "They serve a variety of purposes," he had replied.

Zack sighed to himself and took one of the masks proffered by Dakota. Between claustrophobia and being able to breath properly, he'd take breathing. Zack pulled on his mask and took a deep breath. The air entering his lungs tasted flat and filtered, but at least it was clean. He took another breath and another and another. Zack felt himself noticeably relax.

"OK," Zack said, mostly to himself. He sounded as though he was trying to psych himself up. "OK, lets go." He started walking. He could hear the muffled footsteps of the others behind him squelching in the sludge that lined the bottom of the tunnel. Zack had to work at not thinking about what it was. The tunnel ran straight with almost no deviation for what seemed to Zack like several hundred meters. He started slightly when Dakota tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to look over his shoulder. The night vision mode of the time agent's sunglasses cast a creepy green glow through the eyes of the Doctor Zone mask. "What is it?"

Dakota pointed down the tunnel. "I think I see an exit up ahead. Another hundred meters."

Some of Zack's relief crept into his voice. "Are you sure?"

Dakota nodded. "Yeah," he said. He tapped his sunglasses. "I can see a ladder."

Zack nodded, "OK" he said, "lets keep going."

They resumed their march and a short time later, which seemed to Zack to last several eternities, they found themselves at the base of the ladder that Dakota had seen. In actuality, it had really only about ten minutes. Zack felt as though his sense of the passage of time was being warped by the dark confines of the tunnel. He took a deep breath. Everything's fine, he thought, you haven't been down here that long. His breath felt hot against the inside of his mask. Zack stuck his flashlight in his pocket, put his hands on the rungs of the ladder set into the tunnel wall and began to climb. Zack estimated that he had climbed maybe about twenty five feet when the top of his head struck something hard and metallic. "Ow!"

"Zack, are you OK?"

Zack looked down and saw Dakota just below him on the ladder. He could feel a lump the size of a chicken egg rising on the top of his head. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. Zack looked up and saw that he had hit his head on the bottom of a sewer grate. "I'm underneath a storm drain." He studied the underside of the sewer grate for a second or two. "I'm going to see if I can move it," he called down. Zack carefully leaned back and braced himself against the opposite wall. He could feel the prongs of Milo's grappling hook digging into his back, but he ignored this. He reached up, placed his hands on the underside of the sewer grate and pushed upward. The sewer grate came loose with a dull metallic scrape. Zack pushed it aside and climbed out of the sewer. The others followed closely behind him.

Zack pulled off his Doctor Zone mask and straightened up. He took a deep breath, taking a lungful of clean air. Zack felt his tension ebb as his claustroavoidance melted away. He looked around. They had emerged in the centre of a large plaza. It was ringed on all sides by tall glass and steel skyscrapers. They strobed and pulsed with green and purple neon lights. Something flickered in the corner of his eye and a slim athletic looking woman in a chef's uniform, an impish looking figure in a violently purple jacket and what Zack could only assume was some kind of robot stepped out of the shadows. He, Zack assumed it was a "he," but it was hard to tell for sure. It looked like some kind of corporate mascot. The figure in the spangly purple jacket had a wicked looking face and long, clever fingers that looked as though they were itching throttle something. It had a clump of bright green leaves on its head instead of hair and it was surround by what Zack initially took be a collection of small plants, except that they were like no plants that Zack had ever seen before. For a start, they had faces. Zack had never heard of a plant with a face and they were making noises. They kept repeating the same word over and over again. "Mayoi. Mayoi. Mayoi."

Zack was suddenly aware of Melissa whispering in his ear. "Zack, where is Milo?"