The Knight and the Jester
Chapter Four
A few minutes after Al had left, Sam came to the conclusion that the best way for him to figure out what he needed to do was to talk with the Rescue Rangers, and just hope he didn't give himself away. After going through Chip's closet and finding a more modest outfit to wear, Sam headed for the door of the chipmunk's bedroom. As he was opening the door a nearby bookcase caught his attention. The top two shelves of the bookcase were stained in a tasteful mahogany, while the bottom shelf had been spray-painted in Day-Glo Orange. Judging by the appearance and clothing of Dale, it was more than likely that the bottom shelf was his. Sam stopped for a moment to peruse the volumes on the shelves, in hopes of learning more about Chip and Dale.
Dale's books looked like they had been thrown onto the shelf. Each of them was oversize and heavily illustrated. They also had cracked ribs from frequent re-reading. One of the books was an episode guide to The Red Badger of Courage, which was apparently a Saturday morning cartoon from the mid-1980's that only lasted one season. There were a few comic book compilations, a book about Shazaam called (amazingly enough) Shazaam!, a huge history of animation, and (hiding behind the history), a book called The Secret History of Vampires.
Chip's books filled his two shelves to capacity. They were neatly ordered alphabetically by author. There was a mix of adventure stories and classics, most written before 1900. They also looked dusted, a good sign that they hadn't been read for ages (if indeed they had ever been read--they could have been for show only). The sole exception was a collection of nine old books at one end. Sam was astonished to discover that they were the complete Case History of Sheerluck Jones series by Howard Bass. The books had had so few printings that Sam had been sure he was the only person in the world to own a complete set. On impulse, Sam removed Volume Three and flipped to "The Case of the Upturned Nose". He noticed that Chip had penciled in a correction to a mistake Bass had made in his chain of logic.
Sam was startled by the sound of the door hitting the back wall as Dale barged in, a paper-wrapped package under his arm. The chipmunk passed without noticing him, sitting on the lower bunk and ripping open the package to reveal a colorful chipmunk-sized comic book.
"Oh boy, oh boy!" Dale exclaimed. "Kablammo Man, number 285! I wonder how he will escape the clutches of Doctor Claw?" He then turned and saw Sam. "Oh, uh, nice pants, Chip! Glad to see you're doing better. Monterey is working on dinner right now." He flopped himself face-first onto his bed and started reading the comic book.
Sam stood up and put the book in his hand back in the bookcase. "So, Dale, any idea what we should do about the stolen diamond?"
Dale looked up. "Huh? The diamond? Well, Monterey wanted to just barge in, but Gadget had a better plan, so we went with that."
"What was her plan?"
"She was going to spear the diamond with a fork...or something like that. You better ask her yourself." He went back to his study.
"And what do you think we should do?"
This question took Dale by surprise. "Me? You want to know what I would do? Are you sure you're OK, Chip?"
"I'm all right. I just want to hear what everyone thinks."
Dale sat up in the bed, deep in thought.
"OK, first, we follow some of Fat Cat's henchmen to his secret headquarters, then we knock them out and put on their uniforms (although it might be hard finding a henchman in Zipper's size), and then go in to hear Fat Cat give his speech about how he's going to destroy the world or whatever, and then Fat Cat discovers us and we're captured and put under this 'laser' while Fat Cat goes to carry out his master plan, but we break loose just in the nick of time and use Kung Fu karate moves on all the henchmen, but we're in an all-out fight with Fat Cat inside of the missile as it is being launched, so we have to divert it into the ocean and leap out with the only parachute right at the last second on a deserted island, and only just outrun the explosion. Then MI5 gives us our medals and...I forgot what happens after that."
Sam now knew why Chip never asked Dale for advice.
Once Dale was safely absorbed back into Kablammo Man, Sam left their room and looked around to figure out which room was Gadget's. He was about to knock on the next door down the hall when it suddenly became a glowing doorway and Al stepped out of it.
"So," Sam asked the hologram, "any good news yet?"
"Yes and no. You're here to prevent your little group from breaking up."
"That's good to know."
"Only they won't break up for another four years, so whatever happens today would probably have to be pretty subtle to take that long to do its work."
"That's bad."
"It turns out we share mutual acquaintances by the names of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and they agreed to find out what you have to prevent."
"That's good."
"But they're in Washington and chances are whatever's going to happen will happen before they get here to find out what's going to happen, so that means you're on your own."
"That's bad. Anything else?"
"Chip's got the idea in his head that if he was here in the Imaging Chamber, he could somehow help out."
"That's good?"
"No, that is extremely bad. He'll get in the way and since he can't see what I see, he'll slow everything down. I tried to get Verbena to tranquilize him, but she doesn't know the correct dosage to use on a six-foot chipmunk." Al shook his head. "This is definitely one for the books, Sam." He stopped and took in Sam's attire, gasping in shock. "Tan slacks and a brown bomber jacket? Have you no sense of taste?"
Sam resorted to the little joke he had invented for this all-too-frequent scenario. "So, Pot, what do you think of Kettle?"
"Ha, ha, got me again. So, any luck on your side?"
"I think the reason I'm here might have something to do with the stolen diamond, or rather, what might happen when we try to recover it. I just talked to Dale about it, and I'm about to talk to Gadget, as soon as I figure out which door is hers."
"Which one is Gadget?"
"She's the inventor for the group. She has a plan for getting the diamond back. She's the smartest member of the group, so I have to be extra careful that I don't give myself away."
"An inventor? In that case, your best bet is to go for the sound of explosions."
"Don't be silly, Al."
Just then there was a bright blue flash under the door Al and Sam were closest to, accompanied by a loud "zap" sound and the smell of ozone. From behind the door a voice exclaimed, "Oh I hate when that happens!"
Al grinned. "See what I mean?"
Dale poked his head out of his door just as Monterey came around the corner to see what caused the loud noise.
Sam knocked on the door. "Are you all right in there, Gadget?"
Through the door he heard the sound of broken glass being swept up. "No problem, Chip!"
"No problem?" asked Dale and Monterey simultaneously in fear. In a second they were both at Gadget's door.
"Gadget-luv," cried the large Australian mouse, "are you hurt? Have you grown too big to move? Have you sprouted a second head again?" At this Al and Sam turned to each other and mouthed the word "again?" to each other in utter confusion. "Please, Gadget, speak to me!"
The door was suddenly opened by Gadget. There was a fierce look in her eye, but everyone's attention was more on her soot-covered overalls and the hair that stuck out in all directions. "Look, I said I was fine. And will you stop bringing up the second head incident?"
Monterey hung his head in shame. "Alright, Gadget, I'm sorry. We were just worried about you, that's all."
Gadget's expression softened. At the same time, the static charge began to drain away from her and her hair began falling back down. "That's okay, Monty. I'm sorry I yelled at you like that. Say, aren't you supposed to be making dinner right now?"
"The cheese!" cried Monterey as he ran back to the kitchen.
Dale grinned and shrugged as he headed back for his room. "I guess this time 'no problems' means 'no problems', for once," he said, to no one in particular.
Gadget was closing the door when Sam spoke up. "Gadget, can we talk?"
"Sure, Chip. What about?"
"I thought we could talk about your plan for getting the diamond back." Sam noticed that blue sparks of electricity were coming out of the doorknob that Gadget's hand was on.
"Sure. That's what I was working on just now."
"Of course," commented Al dryly.
Al and Sam followed Gadget into her workshop. Small inventions were strewn everywhere, some moving about under their own power. Gadget sat down in a sort of office chair constructed out of two wrapped pieces of Bubblelicious bubble gum and some plastic wire casing. The casters were four pomegranate seeds. Sam spotted a sort of rocking chair facing Gadget, so he tried to sit there, only to find himself flat on his back.
Gadget jumped up and came to his aid. "I'm sorry, Chip, I forgot to tell you that the rocket escape chair is not finished yet." She reached out her hand to help him up. Seeing by the state of her hair that she was still electrically charged, Sam grabbed a Lynden jar near his head and held it up so her hand made contact with it before she touched him. The two limp metal leaves in the jar suddenly sprang apart as Gadget's hair returned to normal.
Gadget looked from Sam to the jar. "Golly! Thanks for finding that, I thought I lost it." She took the jar and placed it on a shelf next to a short-wave radio.
Gadget turned around to see Sam had gotten up. "So, what were we talking about?"
Al, who had been watching all this from just within the room, shook his head. "I don't think you have to worry much about her realizing you're not Chip."
Sam had long since gotten used to this kind of wisecrack, so he just ignored it. "You were telling me how we could get back the diamond Fat Cat stole." He found a somewhat-stable pile of things to sit on.
Gadget sat back down and picked up a strange device that was at her feet. "That's right. It's based on the principle of harmonic resonance. You see, every substance vibrates at its own frequency, which produces a musical note. If you bombard that substance with sound waves at its natural frequency, it will give off its note, magnified. I've set up an electrically powered tuning fork to give off the special frequency for diamonds. We just have to go to Fat Cat's hideout and this invention should have the diamond telling us where it is!" Al noticed that the more she talked, the faster she got.
Sam picked up at the same speed as Gadget. "But that won't quite work. The diamond will resonate at an amplitude inversely proportional to the distance from the emitter. Anything in the way will also serve to dampen the waveforms."
"That's true," Gadget answered, speaking still faster, "but the diamond will also give off sound at higher frequencies than the sending note, and these overtones will cause a second tuning fork, attached to a powerful amplifier and mounted on a swivel bracket, to resonate and provide the distance and direction to the diamond. That's what I meant when I said that the diamond would be telling us where it is. I didn't literally mean that the diamond would be talking."
"Oh course not, since diamonds don't talk."
"So you see what I mean?"
"Oh I see exactly what you mean, although of course I don't actually see it, I understand it."
"Yes, that's what I meant to say."
"Okay. On the other hand..."
"Yes?" asked Gadget. By this time, the two of them were talking so rapidly that Al, in looking from one of them to the other, had the distinct impression that he was watching a verbal game of tennis, and out of boredom decided to provide his own sound effects for the occasion.
"Well, you see, the returning tone itself is also a resonating tone for the emitting substance."
"Bokk!" said Al, impersonating a tennis ball being hit by a racket.
"The diamond?" asked Gadget.
"Bokk!"
"Yes, the diamond," said Sam.
"Bokk!"
"No, I'm pretty sure that the returning tone is not resonating."
"Bokk!"
"Not the returning tone itself, but the overtone."
"Bokk!" Sam thought he heard a distant sound at that moment, but the "bokk!" drowned it out, making Sam especially annoyed.
"The overtone of the returning tone? Which overtone?"
"Bokk!"
"Um, the fifth, or perhaps the fourth, if there are any flaws in the diamond."
"Bokk!"
"The diamond is flawless."
"So the fifth then."
"Bokk, bokk!" They were so fast now it was hard for Al to keep up.
"But that is so weak it can be disregarded altogether."
"Bokk!"
Dale entered the room, unnoticed by anyone.
"Not when you amplify it. The SID-PID amplification algorithm increases the amplitude of the fifth overtone by 25 % while shifting the phase by one over pi."
"Bokk!"
"And the SID-PID algorithm is the basis for all amplifiers smaller than 1000 Volts. But that change shouldn't matter..."
"...unless the diamond is in contact with a resonating board..."
"...such as the metal walls of a safe..."
"...in which case the amplification and phase shift will be enough to cause a 37,468 % positive feedback loop..."
"...and hence the weakest setting of my amplifier would be enough to break every piece of glass in the lab!"
"Actually, there is an 86 % probability that the effect had a radius of 2 miles or more."
"Bokk!!"
"Golly!" And that apparently ended the conversation. In the lull, Gadget tossed the invention over her shoulder in disgust. Miraculously, it didn't break anything.
Dale chose this moment to make himself noticed. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "I didn't know Gadget could speak chipmunkese! Dinner's been ready for a few minutes now, guys."
When no one was looking, Sam tried to bonk Al on the head. Sam's fist passed through the hologram's head, but the act had its desired effect, since Al was so startled he fell straight down.
Gadget nodded. "Go on ahead and we'll catch up with you." After Dale left she turned to face Sam. "So," she asked casually, "how did you learn so much about acoustics all of a sudden?"
Sam spent a few moments racking his brain for a plausible answer. "Uh, well, it was in the Sheerluck Jones mystery 'The Mark of Five'."
"Oh." The mouse adopted a thinking pose. "We're just got to get that diamond back, Chip. I heard on the news that the police have arrested the security guard at the museum, Avery Mann."
"Everyman?" asked Al, getting up. "What is this, a medieval morality play all of a sudden?"
Sam looked carefully around at the equipment in the room. "Do you remember if any of Fat Cat's gang can see in the dark?"
"Hmidunno. Cats can see well in poor light, but in absolutely no light, I think most of them would be totally helpless. What are you thinking?"
Sam pointed at two items near him. "Well, if those are infrared goggles, and that is an infrared lamp, we could sneak in by night after cutting the power to Fat Cat's hideout."
"That's a great plan, Chip! I'm so glad we'll be able to get that poor innocent guard out of jail and reunite him with his wife and three children, Faith, Hope, and Charity!"
"That's it!" yelled Al. "I'm out of here before Good Deeds shows up. It looks like you'll be able to handle things around here until nightfall anyway." He walked through the portal without another word.
Al stamped his way from the Imaging Chamber to the Waiting Room, complaining to no one in particular the entire way.
"Has the whole world gone mad, or is it just me? I sure hope this animal thing isn't the beginning of a trend, 'cause I really don't think I can take much more of this. A crime-solving chipmunk! Ridiculous! What next, a ghost-busting Great Dane?"
A voice from a speaker overhead answered him. "Actually, there are reports from the mid-1960's onward of a strangely-painted van that has been sighted in the vicinity of..."
"Please, Ziggy, haven't you heard of such a thing as information overload?"
"I'm sorry, Admiral Calavicci, I was just trying to be useful. For example, analysis of current traffic patterns show that Agents Fox and Scully should be approaching their destination. You may wish to prepare means to maintain contact with them while in the Imaging Chamber."
"Hmm...sounds like a good idea. Talk to Gooshie and get back to me."
"Very well, Admiral Calavicci."
Al continued on to the door of the Waiting Room, then froze with his hand on the doorknob as a dark suspicion occurred to him.
"Agents Fox and Scully? She's up to something."
Fox Mulder had the passenger-side car seat of the rental car reclined back about as far as was legally possible. His eyes were closed as he stepped through his latest theory.
"Now of course you realize that November of 1956 was, by the fact that he voted, one of the few periods in Joe DiMaggio's baseball career when we can be certain that he was not under the mental influence of aliens. Put that together with his batting record, and it becomes quite clear that the entire team was being controlled by the Shadow Government in that season."
Scully was trying her best to screen out the stream of talk coming from her partner. Every few miles she would curse herself for ever wondering what her partner was like when he was not obsessed with a case.
A couple of stop lights into the city, Mulder opened his eyes and looked around.
"We're nearly at Chip's tree, Scully. Why don't you drop me off there and you can go ahead and visit Gadget, then pick me up and we can compare notes before proceeding."
"Yes, but..."
"No, I think this is for the best. You could always keep up with Gadget better than I could, and you know how impatient you get around Chip. We're only a few blocks away, so you can drop me off here."
Scully smiled craftily. "If you insist." She let him off then continued on towards the airport.
Mulder started walking down the street, humming the theme to some forgotten 1930's cartoon and waving merrily at the hunched-over men and women that passed him by on either side. It seemed that the sun shined on him but not on them.
Mulder praised his quick thinking in getting out of a meeting with Gadget. He could never trust himself around her, and was afraid of embarrassing himself in front of his partner. The inventor's brilliance dazzled him and often left him speechless (a strange condition for him). Why, she even invented the device that allowed humans and animals to communicate with each other. She was very protective of the device after the one and only time she had lost it, which was why she never let it out of her sight anymore.
Mulder stopped suddenly in the middle of the street. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his partner.
"Scully?"
"Yes, Mulder?" There was a sort of feline purr of triumph in her voice.
"Gadget has the translator."
"That's right, Mulder."
"Do you think she'll let you take it back with you when we interview Chip?"
"I'm sure we can arrange something. Are you going to be able to take care of yourself till I get back?" Condescending sarcasm dripped from her voice.
"I'm sure I'll find something to do," he growled, and then hung up.
Immediately the phone rang again.
"What is it now?!" he demanded.
"Agent Fox, this is Ziggy, at Project Quantum Leap. Am I interrupting something important?" There was something almost sultry in her computer-generated tone.
"No, Ziggy, is there something I can help you with?"
"Admiral Calavicci requested that I inform him of the progress of your investigation."
"We are just about to begin our interviews of the former Rescue Rangers."
"Very good, Agent Fox."
Mulder waited for Ziggy to hang up. After a few seconds, he hesitantly asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" wishing desperately that the answer would be no.
"Actually, I've done some more research on that theory you mentioned, and I think you might be greatly interested by the results I have uncovered."
This was what he was afraid of. "What exactly have you found?" he sighed.
"Eating habits of the world's population between the years of 1643 and 1987, adjusted for population growth and tribal taboos, show a high correlation with sunspot activity on Sirius in real-time, implying a trans-light linkage of some kind centered in Lancashire, England. Combined with my earlier research, this shows strong support for the possibility that 0.032 % of human genetic material is Sirian in origin. I have 473 other correlations that bear out this theory. After this case is over, how about coming over to the Project to compare some notes?"
Mulder knew a pick-up line when he heard it, even when delivered by a super-computer. He panicked. "Um, well, that's very interesting, but I'm being watched right now and I think I have to be very careful what I say. Plus there is the fact that you can't believe everything that happens in Lancashire. So with all that in mind I will have to decline your gracious offer, for now, mind you, until I have time to check my fact file. Until then I wish you a jolly good day." He snapped the phone shut then glared at all the people staring at him until they looked back at the pavement.
"I swear," he said, shaking his head, "why is it that all the weirdos are attracted to me?"