Chapter Three
Tally awoke to the sound of someone knocking at her door, so she pulled herself to her feet and dragged herself to the door to answer it. "Hey, Brunden."
"I'm here. What for?"
"Okay, you know how the Museum of Natural History works, right?"
"Yeah."
"Come in, have a seat." Brunden sat on the couch and Tally shut the door. "Well, there's an acid-spitting thing in one of the basements, and we're expecting a transfer from Berlin."
"Germany?"
"That's the one."
"Do I wanna know what it is?"
"Hitler and a couple Nazis."
"Okay, that sounds bad."
"It gets worse. We have to display the Berlin exhibit for at least one day; I'm guessing it's one of the terms of the transfer."
"So what am I supposed to do? Sit here?"
"For now. I need to come up with a plan, or see if Larry came up with a plan."
"Larry?"
"I thought you two were introduced."
"Oh-oh yeah. Yeah, okay."
"Look, I plan to go back in an hour or two and check out this acid-spitting thing in the basement. Wanna come with?"
"Is it going to kill us?"
"Not during the day, stupid."
"Okay, I can do that."
"Great. Now, care for a Famous Fredricks?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Good, 'cause I'm gonna need one, too."
As usual, there were still people milling about in the museum, those who perfered the sanity of the daytime hours over the "liveliness" of the night show. Brunden pulled Tally aside. "How're we going to get to the basement?" Without a word, Tally gestured to McPhee.
"Remember, let me do the talking, and it wouldn't kill you to learn how to shmooze this guy." Tally and Brunden walked up to McPhee. "Excuse me, sir, but my friend here believes he's left something in the basement last night, and it's really important to us that he find it before he goes back to work this weekend."
"Oh, well, we'd better go look for it then," McPhee said. "This way, please." He led the two down a few corridors to the basement. "Do you remember generally where you left it?"
"Wh-oh, yeah," Brunden replied nodding a little too rapidly and catching a glare from Tally.
"Happy hunting." With that, McPhee left them.
"Okay, follow me." Tally led Brunden to the door labeled '13', where the leftover acid from the previous night was still eating away at the hole, which had grown to the size of a tire. She slipped through the hole as carefully as possible, and broke the door open from the inside, gesturing for Brunden to enter.
Once his eyes were adjusted, he found himself staring up at a giant stone statue of a nine-headed beast. It seemed that the head closest to the door had just started to recoil before sunrise. "What is that thing?" he asked.
"It's a hydra, like what we learned about in that semester of Greek mythology in high school."
"Oh, yeah. Didn't Hercules kill it, though?"
"This is a statue, smart-ass."
"Is it gonna kill us when it comes to life?"
"Dunno, not sure I wanna find out."
"How do we, though?"
"You honestly think I know?"
"Yeah. This is your domain, your home turf."
"Doesn't mean I know everything about it." At the sound of approaching footsteps, Tally tossed her keys on the floor and gestured to Brunden, for whom it took all of about half a second to catch on.
"Oh, there it is." He picked up the keys and pocketed them. "Thanks for helping me find it."
"No problem." They slipped out of Basement Thirteen to meet McPhee.
"So, you found it."
"Yeah, now I can go back to work."
"Thanks for your cooperation," Tally said as they walked out of the basement complex.
McPhee watched them both a little suspiciously, but he dismissed his suspicions as ludicrous.