by Jon Scieszka
Frank looks out over Midville. “Nothing great about it today. Everything is wrecked. What a disaster.”
Grampa Al hands Frank his canteen. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s pretty much the same world it was yesterday. Sun still shining, oak leaves still working their photosynthesis, these ants right under us still digging and hauling.”
Frank takes a long swig of water. It does taste good.
“But the Science Prize, Klink and Klank, your shop, your place . . .”
“Ahhhh, none of that’s a big deal. You’ve still got that Frank Einstein brain of yours, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still Frank Einstein, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you can keep asking questions and finding your own answers. We don’t need trophies or prizes to do that. We are scientists.”
Frank looks down at his sneakers. He sees a familiar-looking shape—an insect leg. Just like the one he found in his lab.
Frank picks up the leg, crushes it between thumb and finger, and sniffs a familiar sharp Magic Marker scent.
“Right?” says Grampa Al.
Suddenly everything falls into place.
Frank looks up. In his mind he connects the insect leg, the kidnapping of the robots, the Antimatter Motor . . .
“Ant leg,” says Frank. “Ant leg—Mr. Chimp—Edison. That’s it!”
“Of course it is.” Grampa Al leans back and takes in the view. “Glad we could have this little chat.”
“I know who kidnapped Klink and Klank. I know how Edison got that Antimatter Motor. I know where to go next. And I know what to do next.”
“Then what are you waiting for, Frank Einstein? Shake a leg.”
SO WHERE ARE KLINK AND KLANK?” ASKS WATSON.
“Here,” says Frank, pointing to a spot on the Midville map hastily pinned above the workbench. He makes a red X over the outline of a single building at the southern edge of Midville, right next to Lake Genevieve.
“And smelling a crushed ant leg told you this how . . .?”
“No time to explain everything, Watson. But I am glad you didn’t fall for that Edison pitch—”
“Aw, come on, Frank. You know I’m a better friend than that. I got trampled, and I always freak out when—”
“OK, OK. Good to know,” Frank interrupts. “But what all this means is we need to get to Edison’s place. Now. Before he realizes he should destroy the evidence.”
Watson smiles. “Good to know” is probably the nicest thing Frank has ever said about their friendship. He would like to hear more, but Frank is already busy marking a flurry of X’s on the Midville map, seemingly at random.
“What do you see?” Frank quizzes him.
“I see that you marked up my dad’s map that I told him I would take care of, and that now I’m already in trouble and we haven’t even left your lab.”
“Connect the dots,” says Frank. “All the properties that Edison’s family has bought up over the past year . . . and kicked people out of . . . and this building, Grampa Al’s . . .” Frank connects the X’s.
“A big red circle? So Edison is building a racetrack? A gigantic doughnut oven? I don’t get it.”
Frank puts up another map right below the Midville map. It has an almost identical circle on it.
“A map of CERN, the subatomic-particle physics lab buried under Switzerland and France. It’s that place Grampa Al was telling us about, where some of his scientist pals work. The ring is part of a machine called the Large Hadron Collider.”
“Right,” says Watson. “Now I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s the coolest thing,” says Frank. “A seventeen-mile ring that speeds up subatomic particles to almost the speed of light and then smashes them together! Like racing two really, really small cars around a huge racetrack in opposite directions . . . and then smacking them perfectly head-on.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Frank points to the matter section on his Wall of Science. “To record what happens after the collisions and uncover the true nature of matter . . . and antimatter. Think of it as figuring out how those two really little race cars were built by looking at the pieces that come out after the crash.”
Watson scratches his head and nods. “So Edison has been secretly building his own collider ring thing and trying to make antimatter all along?”
“Exactly, Watson! And yesterday he somehow found out that I beat him to it. So last night he had Mr. Chimp robot-nap Klink and Klank so he could steal the secret of my Antimatter Motor from them.”
“Wow,” says Watson.
“So Edison is likely in this building”—Frank stabs an index finger at the Midville map—“right next to Lake Genevieve, for the water supply he needs to cool all the subatomic reactions. And he’s probably hiding Klink and Klank there, too.”
Watson jumps up. “Oh, we know that building. It’s the Big Black Cube. But that thing is built like a fortress! How are we ever going to get in there?”
Frank studies the two maps. “May I please have a stick of your gum, Watson?”
“Sure! I have plenty. I couldn’t even give it away at City Hall. Here, take two or three.”
Frank takes one stick of gum and tucks it carefully in his inner lab-coat pocket. “One should be just fine.”
“And what does any of this have to do with ant legs?”
“More later,” says Frank, motioning Watson toward the door. “Right now we have to be quick . . . and inconspicuous. Let’s roll.”
FRANK AND WATSON ROLL, QUICKLY AND inconspicuously, on their regular bikes, through downtown Midville, across South Midville, and out to the lake.
They skid to a stop in a deserted lot right next to exactly what Watson described—a big black cube. And just as Frank predicted, the building is topped with two lake water–fed cooling towers.
“Ditch the bikes here,” says Frank.
They hide both bikes behind a mound of brick and lumber and dirt rubble and approach the Big Black Cube.
There is nothing around the Cube. No fences keeping anyone out. No kennels hiding guard dogs. No towers with floodlights and security guards. Nothing but a bare lot. But it is a fortress because there are no visible doors, vents, or openings of any other kind in the smooth, gunmetal-black surface. The only break in the exterior is a band of windows too high to reach or to see in through.
“So how do we sneak in?” whispers Watson. “Did you secretly copy Edison’s fingerprints off a glass you made him pick up back in the shop, and we’re going to fool a thumb scanner?”
“Nope.”
“You reconstructed his eyeball from a 3-D camera, and we’re going to fake out a retina scanner?”
“Nope.”
“Tiny portable missile launcher? Giant trained tunneling moles?”
“Nope and nope.” Frank scans the ground in front of him carefully. “We need the densest rock we can find. A nice metamorphic or basic igneous would be fine . . .”
Watson picks up a baseball-size piece of speckled black, gray, and reddish rock and shows it to Frank.
Frank hefts it in one hand. “Granite. Perfect.”
“So now we grind the granite into dust,” guesses Watson, still whispering, “combine it with another powder you have in your lab coat to make instant dynamite, and light it to explode a hole in the side of the Cube?”
“Simpler than that,” says Frank. He winds up, pitches the granite chunk at one high window, and smashes the glass with a resounding crash!
Sirens whoop.
Lights flash.
Video cameras pop up out of the ground, recording two nearly invisible door panels sliding open and a small army of gray-uniformed security guards running out, grabbing Einstein and Watson, and hustling them inside the Cube.
WELL, HELLO!” SAYS T. EDISON FROM BEHIND HIS HUGE polished black desk. “What not-a-surprise to see you, Bert and Ernie. I’
m sure you are here to congratulate me on my new invention, the Edison Antimatter Motor, yes?”
Mr. Chimp, sitting just to the right of Edison, signs:
“Hardly,” says Frank Einstein. “We are here for some answers.”
“Wonderful. What are your questions?”
Watson scans the office. “Why do you have so many TVs? I bet you are spying on people. Like us!”
“Mr. Chimp and I like to watch cartoons. Lots of them. All at the same time. Next question!”
Frank walks around the office, counting his steps and measuring the room’s exact dimensions. He checks the door. He notes the heating and air-conditioning vents. He listens to everything. He hears the deep hum of machinery behind the office doors. He leans against a wall and hears a very faint rumba beat. He watches Mr. Chimp take out a small metal box, dip his stick-tool into it, and slurp a quick snack. A few ant legs drop on the desk. Now Frank is sure.
“Where are Klink and Klank?”
Edison raises his eyebrows in surprise. “What’s a klink and a klank?”
“My robots,” says Frank without raising his voice.
Frank pictures jumping over the desk, screaming at Edison, and slapping the goofy look right off his face. But then he pictures Mr. Chimp, with 98 percent of the same DNA but five times the strength of anyone fighting in the WWE, tossing him around and snapping most of the bones in his body without even breaking a chimp sweat.
Frank takes the stick of gum out of his lab-coat pocket and calmly chews it.
“The smart robots you robot-napped from Frank’s lab,” says Watson, leaning threateningly over Edison’s desk.
Mr. Chimp signs, adding a short, barking “Hroo!” that needs no translation.
“Smart robots, you say? How interesting. You two are quite the Pinky and the Brain. Or maybe Goofus and Gallant?”
Watson backs away from the desk, but he can’t take it anymore. “You stole the idea of Frank’s Antimatter Motor! You are wrecking our town to build a thing that collides atomic particles! Where are you hiding Klink and Klank?!”
Mr. Chimp looks from Watson to Edison, points one finger at his temple, and moves it in a circle.
Edison laughs.
“Now there’s that question again. OK, I guess I might as well tell you.” Edison stands up. “A couple of robots did stop by last night. One that looked like a Shop-Vac, and another like a big trash can.”
“Yes! That’s Klink and Klank!” Watson yells.
“We talked for a bit. Had a nice chat about producing antimatter . . . cheaply. And then I sent them on their way.”
“Yeah, right,” says Watson. “On their way where?”
“Oh, to a friend’s place. I think you and Frank’s Grampa Al know him—Junkyard Dog. All the way on the other side of the lake.” Edison makes a big deal of checking a brand-new, flashy gold watch. “And they should be having a smashing good time . . . right about . . . now. So sorry that you are too late to save them.”
“You what?” exclaims Frank. “You gave them away to be smashed into scrap metal?”
“Oh, no,” says Edison. “I would never do something that crazy. I sold them. Got ten dollars.”
Frank grinds his teeth. He clenches his fists. He tenses every muscle. Then he shouts, “NOOOOOOOOO!” and runs right at Edison.
Frank pulls back his fist, leaps over the desk, and is caught in midair by a strong, hairy arm. Watson jumps in, kicking and swinging crazily. Another strong, hairy arm wraps around his waist.
Edison laughs a weird, panting laugh. “Throw them out, Mr. Chimp!”
Frank and Watson struggle and flail and fight against Mr. Chimp.
Watson kicks his legs helplessly in the air. Frank grabs the doorjamb on the way out. But Mr. Chimp doesn’t even seem to notice. He tosses Watson first, and then Frank, each a good twenty feet out into the deserted lot.
“Nice visiting with you, Abbott and Costello!” calls Edison from behind Mr. Chimp in the doorway.
Mr. Chimp straightens his tie and seamlessly closes the door of the Big Black Cube with a sticky shhmmmpp.
“Owwwwwwww,” groans Watson, rolling off a pile of bricks. “Well . . . that went well,” he says sarcastically.
Frank stands up, looking strangely not that upset about getting tossed around by a chimpanzee, being called a lot of names, or losing his robot pals.
“Perfectly,” Frank says, taking a quick look back at the Cube and brushing off his lab coat.
WATSON POUNDS THE STEERING WHEEL OF THE JET SPEEDBOAT. “Are you kidding me?”
“I couldn’t tell you before, because then you wouldn’t have been convincing,” says Frank from the passenger seat. “You know you are a terrible actor. And you can’t keep a secret.”
Watson looks straight ahead. He knows Frank is right. “Well, yeah. So?” Watson sulks.
“But you were amazing in there. You got Edison to talk. And you really whaled on Mr. Chimp. At least for a minute or two.”
Watson perks up. “That first karate chop was pretty impressive. So what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Frank checks the position of the sun in the sky. “Not yet.”
Because Frank and Watson aren’t going anywhere.
They are not racing across Lake Genevieve at fifty miles per hour, skipping over the choppy waves like Edison thinks they are.
They are not throwing up a rooster tail of spray from the back jet nozzle. They are not peering through the dying light of dusk. They are not running to Junkyard Dog’s, hoping they are in time to save Klink and Klank from being smashed into tiny cubes by the car crusher.
They are hiding in a boat, dry-docked on a trailer, just a short walk down the shore from the Big Black Cube.
The setting sun lights up the dramatically cloudspeckled sky in fiery reds and oranges. Frank leans back in his cushioned seat, hands behind his head. “Beautiful, isn’t it, Watson?”
Watson and Frank quietly admire the sunset.
“Even more beautiful,” Frank continues, “when you know that it’s caused by the sunlight rays traveling through more air molecules at sunset. And the short-wavelength blue and green light getting scattered out, leaving the longer-wavelength reds and oranges.”
Watson stares at Frank. “Yeah. Just what I wasn’t thinking.”
The last of the sunlight, all wavelengths, disappears. The darkness of night covers the waterfront. Frank and Watson climb out of their jet-boat hiding place and sneak quickly and quietly back to the side of the Big Black Cube where, not that long ago, they were being tossed out by a chimp.
Frank feels along the smooth side of the Cube. His fingertips find exactly what he is looking for—a small, sticky lump. He pulls out his tiniest, thinnest screwdriver, wedges it in the almost-invisible crack, and eases open a door, its auto-lock mechanism stuck flat and useless by one very sticky wad of Watson’s Universal-Strength Peanut Butter Bubble Gum.
Frank motions for Watson to follow him.
Silently they glide down the dimly lit hallway that Frank measured as he was being dragged out. They slip inside an inner door where Frank heard the mechanical and rumba sounds coming from. And they are suddenly inside a gigantic factory filled with massive machines built of magnets and wires and metal panels and computers.
“Whoaaaaa,” whispers Watson. “What the heck is this?”
“Just what we thought. Edison’s Large Atomic Particle Collider.”
“So why did Edison need Klink and Klank and the Antimatter Motor if he has this?”
Frank looks around. “Because my Antimatter Motor is faster and cheaper and better at powering that.”
Frank points to the far end of the factory, against a brick wall, where the emergency-exit lights outline the shape of what has to be the world’s biggest, and most electromagnetic, pink Antimatter Squirt Gun . . .
. . . powered by a very familiar, small, silver Antimatter Motor.
“Noooooo waaaaay,” squeaks Watson.
An access door just
to the side of the Antimatter Squirt Gun slides open.
“Shhhhhh. Someone’s coming.”
Two workers emerge, stepping into the circle of light around the Squirt Gun. The white light reflects off the one worker’s glass head and the other worker’s metal body.
“Klink!” says Watson.
“And Klank!” says Frank.
WATSON STARTS TO RUN TOWARD THE ROBOTS, BUT FRANK grabs his arm. “Wait! It might be a trap. And I’m sure Edison has more security. Let’s watch for a minute.”
And, sure enough, in less than a minute, a motorized boom lift wheels around the corner of the particle collider . . . carrying T. Edison and the boom driver, Mr. Chimp.
Frank and Watson duck behind a bank of computers.
“All right, you repair-shop rejects,” calls Edison from the boom platform. “Stand over against that wall. Right in front of the target.”
“We are hardly rejects,” says Klink. “My mental capacity alone is, by any measure, now roughly twelve times that of even your smartest human.”
“And you are a robot. And I have decided to get rid of you before that jerk Einstein and his doofus pal—”
“Hey . . .” whispers Watson. “I’m not a doofus.”
“—come back snooping around. I will destroy all evidence that you ever helped me. And we will get to run the best and final test on the Edison Antimatter Squirt Gun. Win-win!”
Frank and Watson can see Klank’s antenna blinking in serious thought.
“But I do not want to be destroyed.”
“Hmm,” says Edison. “What is Asimov’s Second Law of Robotics again?”
Klank beeps, “A robot must obey orders from humans.”
Edison pushes a remote, and the Edison Antimatter Squirt Gun lights up with a deep hum.
“Great. So I am ordering you two metalheads to get over there in front of that target. Now.”
Klink and Klank move slowly along the brick wall and stand in front of the target.