Stitch
looked around.
He
was in a small room, very neat and tidy, with a bed at one corner,
and a hutch dresser at the other.
Then
he noticed them.
They
were everywhere – lining the shelves, the ledges, and the
mantelpieces, leering down on him like he was the evilest thing in
the world. These were the many dolls of Myrtle Edmonds.
Suddenly,
a voice cut through the silence, so cold it made even Stitch shiver.
"Experiment
626! I knew you'd come. I've been expecting you."
Stitch
looked around. But he saw no one.
"Don't
bother, 626, you'll never find me. Indeed, you'll never see the
light of day ever again."
Something
grabbed him from behind. Stitch spun around.
How
cute, a doll, he thought. Is that the best you can do?
Two
more grabbed his arms.
"Of
cause not, 626, I can do far more."
He
swung the dolls off. But as soon as he did, ten more took their
place.
"You
see, 626, I can anticipate all your moves and counter-act them."
Stitch
ripped them apart. But then, twenty or so jumped down from the
shelves.
"You
can't beat me, not with force, not with negotiation, not with the
strongest weapon ever invented."
Three
hundred dolls surrounded Stitch, and if he were not fighting for his
life, he would have found this picture very humorous – drowning in
a sea of dolls.
"I
am the beginning. The end. The one who is many."
Stitch
found himself completely free… but a moment later the sea of over
two thousand dolls pulled him down again.
"You
cannot defeat me. You cannot destroy me. You will join us. Your
resistance is hopeless…"
"Stitch!"
"Jumba?"
He
awoke to find the shocked face of Jumba looking down on him.
"What
is wrong with genius experiment? You are being muttering in sleep,
tossing and turning and talking about mean girl with spectacles…"
"Nothing."
Jumba
knew from experience that it wasn't nothing. 626 had not been
muttering in his sleep since the night after his activation, and
Jumba had fixed that. Or so he thought.
"OK,
well, me and one-eyed-wonder are going to mall, so you are to be
being on best behaviour. That means, no touching anything.
Understood?"
"Okataka!"
Jumba
could see a hint of deceit in his eyes, but said nothing of it.
Stitch
watched Jumba walk down the stairs towards the kitchen, probably to
make sure Pleakly didn't destroy the kitchen before their outing.
Jumba
had called him Stitch! He must have been really shocked, he had never
called him Stitch before, preferring "genius experiment" or
"six-two-six".
No
matter, now was the perfect opportunity to sneak into Jumba's room.
Lilo
grabbed the two-way radio, hoping for the life of her that it was
still operational, or that Jumba didn't still have the other end.
She didn't know why, but she just felt… lonely when she hadn't
spoke to him for more than half an hour. And this time it had only
been hardly ten minutes, and she felt she had to contact him.
She
switched it on and adjusted the wavelength. A burst of feedback came
from the speaker.
"Oww…
naga furdesa waka-teki."
Her
heart leapt.
"So,
MD, how you doing?"
"Idesa
doa o stalet cheeca."
"What?"
Stitch
began to stutter in his broken English.
"Nothing
here. Meega search closet. MD out."
"OK.
BC out."
At
that moment, the batteries went dead.
Stitch
switched the walkie-talkie off and headed towards the old wooden door
of Jumba's closet. He opened it with difficulty and stepped inside.
Inside
there was nothing. Not even the tiniest speck of dust. He looked in
the corners, around the sides, and up the roof. Nothing.
He
leaned against the wall. Except it wasn't a wall, because he fell
right through it…
Next
thing he knew, he was down, his face pressed against a smooth
metallic floor.