“It’s going to be nice not having him with us much longer,” Means said to Ways.
“Did you hear that, 99?” Max said. “I’m beginning to suspect that you and I are not the only ones who are going to fall victim to Rule No. 1.”
“Be seated!” Ways ordered.
Max and 99 sat down, then Ways had Hymie strap them to the chairs. When he had finished, Ways said to Hymie, “Now, you. Strap yourself into a chair, too.”
Hymie appeared to be thinking.
“Well?” Ways said irritably.
“I don’t like to be a trouble-maker,” Hymie said. “But . . . could you explain to me exactly what we’re doing here?”
“You haven’t figured it out?” Ways replied, astounded. “By now,” he said, “I’ll bet even that one’s guessed.” He pointed to Max.
“Well,” Max said, “if the truth were—”
“I’ll explain,” Ways said gruffly. “You see those chairs? Those are electric chairs. Only they’ve got a short. When the juice is turned on, the chairs will short, causing a spark. The spark will set the gasoline on fire. The heat of the fire will melt the gelatin capsules, releasing the poisonous spiders. The spiders will bite, and . . . and Zonk!”
“Zonk?” Max asked.
“I don’t like to say ‘die’ or ‘dead’ or anything like that,” Ways explained. “It depresses me.”
“I understand that part,” Hymie said. “The part I don’t understand is where I doused myself with gasoline and put a spider capsule in my pocket and now you want me to strap myself into an electric chair.”
“Yes, that puzzles me a little bit, too,” Max frowned.
“Hymie, I’ll tell you the truth,” Means said. “On the outside, you’re a KAOS agent, but down deep inside, you’re still on the side of Control. Brainwashing is not perfect. We can’t trust you. Any minute, you might turn on us. So, for our own sakes, we have to eliminate you. Now, clear?”
“I think I get it,” Max said.
“How about you, Hymie?” Means asked.
“I’m only a robot,” Hymie replied. “I find it difficult to understand the human thinking process sometimes. Could you draw me a diagram?”
Ways turned to Means. “How are we on time?” he asked.
“There’s always time for a last request,” Means replied. “What are we? Animals? Psychos?” He went to the filing cabinet, and from the ‘H’ drawer got a piece of chalk.
“ ‘H’?” Max asked.
“For hopscotch,” Means answered. “Ever draw a hopscotch diagram on the sidewalk? What’d you use?”
“Chalk,” Max nodded.
Means got down on his knees and drew a diagram on the floor. “There,” he said to Hymie. “Understand now?”
“I already knew how to play hopscotch,” Hymie replied. “What I wanted was a diagram of your plan.”
“Coming up,” Means said. He began drawing again.
Hymie moved closer. Then all of a sudden he dropped Means with a karate chop.
“Was that in the diagram?” Ways asked.
Hymie replied by dropping Ways with a karate chop.
“Hymie, I think you’re ad-libbing,” Max said. “I don’t see that in the diagram, either.”
Hymie was too busy to answer. He dragged Means to a chair and strapped him in, then did the same to Ways. After that, he got spiders from the file cabinet and placed them in their pockets.
“I think it was a trick, Max,” 99 said. “Hymie understood what Ways and Means had in mind all along. He was just stalling when he asked them to draw a diagram.”
“Is that right, Hymie?” Max asked.
“Knock it off, buster,” Hymie snarled.
“Hymie, if you’re not on their side anymore, then you must be on our side again,” Max said. “That’s how it works—you have to be on one side or the other. And if you’re on our side, then you should be releasing us.”
“Release a couple of Control agents?” Hymie laughed.
“Uh . . . Hymie, could you work up a diagram on this?” Max asked.
“Those two are traitors,” Hymie explained, indicating Ways and Means. “They tried to eliminate a KAOS agent, so they, must be traitors. It makes sense.”
“I suppose, but—”
“Now, I’m in charge,” Hymie said. “And it’s my duty, as I see it, to carry on with the mission. I must return to the laboratory and continue brainwashing Number One.”
“But, Hymie—”
Ignoring Max’s protest, Hymie departed.
At that moment, Ways and Means regained consciousness.
“You and your diagram!” Ways said to Means. “Look what you’ve done!”
“It must’ve been the chalk I was using,” Means said glumly.
“Ah, well, nevermind,” Ways said. “Our friends from Control will get us out of this.” He turned to Max. “What’ve you got in mind?”
“I ought to just sit tight and let you figure your own way out,” Max said.
“If you sit tight, Max,” 99 pointed out, “we’ll all be the losers.”
“I thought of that, 99. So, I’m going to put in a call to the Chief and ask him to send those reinforcements I didn’t get a chance to ask him to send before because you-know-who was on the line.”
“Max . . . you’re strapped to that chair.”
“But I can still move my feet, 99. Watch this.”
Max slipped his foot out of his shoe, then, using his big toe, flipped the shoe over. Utilizing the toe again, he dialed. Then, faintly, a voice could be heard coming from the shoe.
Mom:
I haven’t moved, sonny-boy. Just been sitting here waiting for you to call. I been here for seven months. Haven’t had a bite to eat.
Chief:
Is that you, Max? What happened to your voice?
Mom:
Is that you, baby-boy? Your voice sounds funny. Been eating too many graham crackers? That’ll do it.
Max
(shouting): Chief, that’s not me. That’s Mom. This is me. I need reinforcements!
Operator:
Max? Is that you? How come you’re answering your own phone? You’ve got an answering service to do that for you, you know. What’re you trying to do, put Harold out of business?
Harold:
Yeah, watch it, Maxie-boy!
Mom:
Harold! At last! It’s you! You don’t know the butterheads I’ve had to talk to, waiting for you to call.
Harold:
Mom? Gee, it’s good to hear your voice again. I thought you Zonked years ago.
Mom:
That was your Dad, Harold.
Chief:
Operator! Is Max on this line? What’s going on? Who are all those people?
Max:
Here I am, Chief! I need reinforcements. We’re in desperate—
Mom:
Operator, get that butterhead off the line. I’m talking to my baby-boy! Harold? You still there, sweetie?
Harold:
Mom, don’t call me that on a public phone. I’m a big boy, now. I’ve got a business of my own. I’m very big in the telephone answering service racket.
Mom:
I don’t care if you are in the rackets, Harold. You’ll always be my sweetie baby-boy to me.
Harold:
Dad is Zonk, eh? How about that!
Chief:
Operator, I’m losing my patience. Is Max on this line or isn’t he?
Harold:
You sure about Dad, Mom? That voice I just heard sounded awful familiar.
Mom:
Hold on, sweetie. I’ll check the upstairs extension.
Max:
Now, can you hear me, Chief? I’m shouting as loud as I can. I can’t get any closer to the phone. I’m strapped into an electric chair.
Chief:
Speak up, Max! I can’t hear you.
Operator:
He’s strapped into an electric chair, Chief.
Chief:
Is that what he called me to tell me?
Max:
Operator, tell the Chief I called him to tell him I need reinforcements.
Operator:
You tell him, Maxie. I don’t want to know any government secrets. Don’t get involved, that’s my motto.
Chief:
Max, what was that you said about cement?
Mom:
No, sweetie, baby, it wasn’t Dad. There’s nobody on the extension. In fact, the upstairs isn’t there anymore. I guess Dad took it with him. He always was partial to the upstairs.
Max:
Not cement, Chief. Reinforcements!
Chief:
Four cement what, Max?
Harold:
I don’t think he took it with him, Mom. You probably just misplaced it. Have you looked in the hall closet? That’s where you used to lose everything else.
Chief:
I got that, Max. You’re lost in a hall closet. But where? How can I help you if I don’t know where the closet is?
Mom:
No, he took it with him.
Chief:
What help is that! I still don’t know where he is!
Operator:
Where everybody goes when they Zonk, Chief. To that great switchboard in the sky.
Max:
Don’t listen to her, Chief! I’m not at any switchboard! I’m at the Leg Up Ranch!
Chief:
How will four cement whatever-it-ises help you let go of a branch, Max? Are you hanging from it? Do you need more weight, is that it?
Max:
I don’t need weight! I need—
Chief:
All right, Max, I’ll wait. But I wish, in the meanwhile, you’d tell me what you want.
Operator:
Harold, how come Maxie is on this line? I thought you were taking all his calls.
Harold:
It’s your fault. You must’ve rang him instead of me. Maxie-boy, get off the line. I’ll let you know if you have any calls.
Max:
I didn’t receive the call, I made the call.
Harold:
Max, if I’m going to be your telephone answering service, you’ll have to stay off the phone. You might have an important call coming in and I wouldn’t be able to reach you.
Operator:
I’ll handle it, Harold. Maxie—no more calls for you.
Max:
But—
There was a click, as the line went dead.
Max slipped his foot back into his shoe.
“You can’t even depend on your friends, the Control people, these days,” Ways grumbled.
At that moment, Hymie came back into the room. He looked distressed. He dropped into one of the chairs and put his head in his hands.
“If you’d like an aspirin,” Max said, “I just happen—”
“That’s not a computer! That’s a woman!” Hymie groaned. “I can’t do a thing with her!”
“Still at it, eh?” Max said sympathetically.
“I fed her every hate word in the dictionary,” Hymie said. “And what did I get? I got:
C is for rapid calculation
R means rhabdology’s old hat
U is for universal mathematics
S is for statistics, doo-be-doo
and H means hyperalgebra’s here to stay!
Put them all together and they spell
WHOOPEE!
The dearest word in all the world to me!
“That’s pretty sickening, all right,” Max said.
“That’s the breaks,” Ways said to Hymie. “Nothing to do now, but electrocute, burn and poison these two Control agents and let Means and me go.”
Hymie raised his head. “There’s one other alternative,” he said to Ways.
Ways sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
“I could sell out,” Hymie said.
“Now, just a minute, Hymie,” Max said. “You weren’t brought up to be a fink. When the scientists at Control created you, they used the very best parts available. There’s not a dishonorable nut or bolt in your body.”
“I was thinking about selling out to you,” Hymie explained.
“Oh! Well, that’s different. That’s good selling out. I thought you were talking about bad selling out.”
“Think it over,” Ways said to Hymie. “If you’re going to sell out, consider us. We pay well. And we’ve had more experience with selling out than that cheap Control outfit has.”
“If I sold out to you, you’d order me to strap myself into an electric chair again,” Hymie said. “Where’s the profit?”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve heard Control’s offer,” Ways advised. “The electric chair may be the best deal you can get. Don’t forget—you’re a fink.”
“Max! Say something!” 99 urged.
“Yes . . . all right. Hymie, I’m sure I can do better than KAOS. How does
two
electric chairs sound to you?”
“No, Max!” 99 said.
“99, I don’t think the Chief would like it if I went all the way to
three
electric chairs. You know how upset he gets when somebody goes over the budget.”
99 took over the bargaining herself. “Hymie, wouldn’t you like to be a Control agent?” she said. “If you defect from KAOS, I’m sure the Chief would accept you. And it’d be nice to be a Good Guy for a change, wouldn’t it?”
“You’d never win another ball game,” Means warned.
“But there would be other compensations,” 99 said. “For instance, at the end of fifty years of service, you’d get a Fifty Year pin.”
“Unless the Chief didn’t like you,” Max said. “There’s a lot of politics involved in getting a Fifty Year pin. You’ll notice I’m not wearing one.”
“You haven’t been in service fifty years, Max,” 99 pointed out.
Max nodded. “Politics.”
“KAOS gives out Fifty Year pins after only twenty-five years of service,” Ways said to Hymie. “And you get the pin whether our Chief likes you or not.”
“Of course,” Means said, “whether he likes you or not has a lot to do with
how
you get the pin.”
“Working for Control, you get Washington’s Birthday off,” 99 said to Hymie.
“At KAOS, you get Benedict Arnold’s Birthday off,” Ways countered.
“99,” Max said, “you forgot to mention that you get Washington’s Birthday off only if it falls on the second Tuesday of the month of December. And, so far, that hasn’t happened.”
“That’s good,” Ways said to Max. “At KAOS, you only get Benedict Arnold’s Birthday off if he happens to come back to life. Off hand, I’d say your chances for getting a day of are better than ours.”
“Well, Hymie—which will it be?” 99 asked anxiously.
Hymie put his head in his hands again, concentrating. “Maybe I ought to try once more to get some sense out of that infernal computer,” he said. “I could kick her. I didn’t try that. That sometimes works.”
“Thinking like a KAOS man!” Means said proudly.
“No, Hymie!” 99 urged. “Don’t weaken. Make a decision! This may be the most important moment of your life! Which will it be? A life of crime? Or excellent prospects for a Fifty Year pin?”
“I’ll do it!” Hymie decided.
“Which?” Max asked.