Last Week As you Recall…
Ms. Teresa Phillips, Not-So-Secretly-Anymore a Russian spy, had ambushed our heroes in the prison of Dr. Smith's Robotic Butler, Jeeves.
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| -=fig. 571: an unwelcome surprise=- |
“Three hours,” she said, “ It took you three hours to escape. I'm disappointed. I expected More from The great Dr. Smith. ”
Dr. Smith Shrugged, “The guard was a slow walker. Let us go, and I won't kill you.”
Ms. Teresa Phillips laughed, Dr. Smith was unarmed, and standing nonchalantly.
“Do you know how annoying you are?” she said, “All the time, it either this or its that, I don't now how he–” she gestured at Capt. Brown “Puts up with you, you think you're so clever and magical and special, you're not, really. You're just a little man with a robot.”
Dr. Smith was the master of Selective hearing.
He had gotten a lot of practice.
All his life.
“So what do you want with my robot?”
“To take him apart, to find out how he works, and you're going to help us, or die. You do understand that when you made your ‘butler’ you made a nearly-indestructible infinitely obedient yet imaginative and thinking soldier? What I can't understand is how Legopolis is not the worlds largest superpower!”
Capt. Brown, who up to this point had been trying not to be noticed, spoke up “He won't let me use anything he makes for war. Damned stupid, but those are his conditions.”
Dr. Smith, while a brilliant inventor, had no concept of market applications, so when he invented something he would sell it to Capt. Brown.
Capt. Brown, being at heart a layman, had all kinds of ideas on how, for example, the telecommunicational-audio-visual system could be applied. {TaVee! The next big thing in entertainment! Dr. Smith had developed it as a teleconferencing system.}
Two guards appeared out of nowhere.
Ms. Teresa Phillips turned to them, “We only need the doctor, take this one away.”
The guards grabbed Capt. Brown, He resisted “But what about all our old times? The good times! Remember!” Dr. Smith watched with interest, Lots had happened when he was out, apparently.
Ms. Teresa Phillips laughed, she was doing that a lot lately. “There were no old times! You mean nothing to me fool! I'm a spy, remember? We're very sneaky, and you weren't all that hard to fool, Most men aren't.”
“That's how you really feel?”
”Of course!”
Capt. Brown overpowered his guards, bashed their heads together and stole their guns.
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| -=fig. 572: heartbreak=- |
“I'm sorry you feel that way. Let us go or you die. I have–” he checked, but quick “–Twelve shots, and they're all yours if you don't open up Jeeves' chamber.”
Ms. Teresa phillips gave him a big hand. “Bravo! It was an almost convincing lie, tell us what the man won, Jim! You'll never shoot, you're just a big sentimental softie, and that sort can't shoot girls—” he shot her. Not fatally, because she was the only one could open the containment unit, but it hurt. Most leg wounds do.
“Eleven shots. And plenty of you left, shall I continue?”
“Ha! I'll never–” bang.
“Ten.”
“You really shouldn't have hurt his feelings.” Dr. Smith commented from the sidelines.
Capt. Brown took an ambidextrous approach to gun-wielding.
‘One Gun Per Hand’ was his motto.
He also didn't take well to people messing with his heart.
He took it as a personal insult.
A Very personal insult.
All of this gunfire, however, had attracted attention.
Dr. Smith's hand shot up, “James? There's a blinking light, it says ‘All persons Alert’ I don't think we have much time. ”
“Alright, Ms. Phillips, Next one goes through your head, how do we open the cage?” He didn't say it particularly loud, or meanly, but saying threats softly has quite the impact when you have a couple of guns and have not very much to lose.
“You're a psychopath!” she said.
Capt. Brown cocked his guns and smiled.
“Fine! Иаков. The code is ‘4gh6yhEç6ø2op9πx5’ ”
“You got that Zachary?”
“Got it, typing.”
Capt. Brown leaned in real close, so that Dr. Smith couldn't hear him, but Ms. Phillips could. “I'll let you in on a secret, I am a big softie, you're right, but you show your face in my city again and you die. Not quick, like with bullets, no. We have just the things for heart-breakers like you.”
She spat in his eye.
He helped her to unconsciousness.
“You know,” said Dr. Smith from the console, “We're a couple of Psychopaths. ”
“Good thing we're the Good Guys.”
“Yeah.”
The secondary-back-up generator finally kicked in, and the machine recognized Dr. Smith's kill-code.
A chunk of Jeeves' cage slipped away.
“How's it going, Jeeves?”
“Not well at all, sir, I need a serious tune-up and over-haul, and perhaps some chicken soup.”
“I'll make you some soup when we get home Jeeves, right now we need to run–”
The Russians had found them and started shooting. bam. bam.
Capt. Brown loosed a couple of shots. bang. bang.
They ran.
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| -=fig. 573: mooks=- |
A stray bullet found Jeeves. ping.
The tunnels blurred together, Capt. Brown's bullets ran out, they kept coming.
“James, I feel this is the best time to say this–”
“I love you too, man”
“What? No, I have a pocket in my suitcase filled with the weapons of people who have tried to mug me.”
“Do they still have bullets in them?”
“Mostly.”
Dr. Smith passed over his suitcase, Capt. Brown opened it up. “Wow. You must get mugged a lot. The poor hoods!”
“Anything you can use?”
“I like this one,” he had selected an automatic weapon, it was evil-looking, and full.
“Good, Lets go. How are you feeling, Jeeves?”
“Not at all well, Sir.”
“Just hang on, We're almost outside.”
A small hatch was openly marked with an arrow pointing up, and the words: ‘Аварийный выход’ It led up, there was another hatch at top.
Dr. Smith, being in front went through first.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“Guys, We're in the middle of nowhere. And it's freezing.”
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| -=574: i thought you knew we were in russia=- |
