Chapter Three

"Dodge City"

At first there was no movement from the Time Machine. Then slowly, carefully, a striped head poked over the side.

"Nice flying," croaked Hobbes.

"Thanks. Next time I'll do a barrel roll for your pleasure."

"Don't you dare. Oh my aching paws..."

"Paws? I smashed my butt! Hard!"

"Oh you poor baby," Hobbes mocked, "shall I kiss it better?"

I oughta give you what-for...But at the moment all Calvin could do was shoot a dirty look and painfully clamber out of the box. He stood up stiffly and rubbed the seat of his pants with one hand. "Oh-kay. Now where are we?"

The two time travelers looked around. In the immediate area were exits into several buildings. Most were rusty-red with at least one steel chimney. The walkway itself ended behind them by leading into a building, while the other end went on for quite some distance.

After examining at several of the buildings, Hobbes spoke up. "We're in some kind of industrial area. All the big buildings I see look sort of like ones at home that were factories or things like that."

Calvin edged close to the clear panels at the edge of the walkway. "Whoa! We're also high up. Reallyhigh up."

Hobbes took one look and his tail frizzed out. "Heavens. A hundred stories at least. Maybe more."

Calvin spent a moment staring down at the ground below before he remembered something. "The Time Machine! How bad is it?" He rushed over and lifted up one side to survey the damage...

"Uh oh."

"Bad?" With a leap Hobbes was there beside him .

The bottom of the box was badly scraped up. Much of the outer layer had been torn away by the long skid along the walkway. In places the inner layer of folded cardboard showed through.

"Whoo. That looks pretty bad."

"Tell me about it. Just be glad this is an extra-sturdy box."

"We sure won't be able to do another landing like that, Calvin."

"I know, I know! So that means we'd better make this trip count. Here - let's find someplace to hide the Time Machine."

"What about that?" Hobbes pointed to the trail of brown flecks on the ground. "Even a one-eyed old lady could see the mess we made!"

"Unless you brought a broom, there's nothing we can do about that. But you, me and the machine had better be out of sight before somebody -"

At that moment a large green vehicle appeared from behind one of the buildings.

"Duck!" The two hid behind the Time Machine. But the ponderous craft simply flew high over the walkway, to an unknown destination in the city.

Calvin was the first to peek out. "Hope nobody saw us..."

"Oh, somebody saw us, allright. Maybe not on that flying whatever-it-was, but I highly doubt our crazy flight went unnoticed."

Both of them began looking around for a concealed area. But suitable hiding places seemed to be in short supply.

"What's down those stairs?" Calvin indicated a metal staircase.

"Don't ask me. Shall we go look?"

"We'd better." A nervous young boy scanned the walkway for approaching people.

Dragging the box behind them, the intrepid duo cautiously approached a blank metal door at the bottom of the stairs. When they'd gotten within a few feet - the door suddenly slid open!

Calvin froze, expecting a policeman or security robot. But only a dark room lay beyond, illuminated by a reddish light.

"Whew. Just an electric-eye door like at Wal-Mart."

His tiger friend sniffed the air. "I smell fire...like a furnace or something."

"Think we should go in?"

"I don't like it. But we need a place out of sight. Let's check it -carefully."

Leaving the Time Machine on the landing behind them, the two cautiously tiptoed inside. The door slid shut behind them with a soft groan.

Hobbes' feline eyes adjusted to the darkness first. The glow was indeed coming from a furnace. Dust- and rust- colored pipes of all sizes twisted alongside the walls. Ominous hissing and crackling issued from the furnace brooding on the opposite end of the room. An elevator shaft ran up to another floor, the area around it protected only by a thin railing.. Everything was lit in a fiery-red color.

"Creepy." Calvin whispered. "The monsters under my bed would love this place."

His friend didn't comment, instead looking into the darker places. But none of the shadows suddenly moved or jumped at them. After a minute he nodded. "Nobody here but us. Let's get the Time Machine."

"What?!"

"Look around. There's no lights or windows. And the floor hasn't been cleaned in ages."

"So it's a dark, dirty, scary place...so what?"

"Nobody's come around here for a long time, frazzle-hair, and that makes it..."

The light went on in Calvin's head. "The perfect place to hide the Time Machine!"

"Give the man a silver dollar."

Soon the scraped-up Time Machine was tucked away in the most obscure corner in the room. Their machine suitably hidden, the pair ventured back up the metal staircase.

As they got to the top Hobbes began put a finger to his lips and began walking on tiptoe. Both of them made their way to the very last step and poked their heads around the corner.

"Nobody this way."

"All clear on the left."

Calvin stepped out and looked both ways. "I expected the future to be full of people!"

"This is a lucky break for us. We need to get moving."

"Agreed. So where to, buddy?"

"Somewhere besides here."

Calvin glanced around at the different buildings. "How abouuut...that one?"

"Not a chance! See the chimneys on top? And all the steam coming out? That's a factory! Plenty of people there."

"What about this one?"

"We just came out of that building."

"No,no, there's gotta be more to it. A recycling plant has more than one dirty room ol' furnace room," Calvin protested. "It's way too big to...to..."

"To what?"

A huge grin spread over the young boy's face. "Hey Hobbes...where do people throw stuff away?"

"In a garbage can?"

"Stuff like batteries and computers."

"Oh - those? Those have to go to a..." Hobbes froze in mid-sentence. "What did you say that building was?"

Calvin's only answer was start running. "Follow me! We hit the jackpot!"

"Has it reappeared yet?"

"Alert scopes are still clear, sir, there's nothing in the air that isn't showing an IFF code. It must have crashed or landed by now."

"Last known location was in the industrial zone?"

"Affirmative. Sector A5. Right over a top-level walkway."

"Really now?"

"Right on top of it, sir! The tracking path I saw looked like it was going to land there."

"Interesting!"

"Our response, sir?"

"Contact city security and have them send a squad to that area. Priority four. From what you and Ensign Donnegan told me, that is awfully strange behavior for a glitch."

"Yes sir...alert sent...city security acknowledges...dispatching three flyers...now."