"I could drink a gallon of water my throat is so dry!" Wednesday said as she rubbed her throat and the back of her neck.
"We did a lot of running around!" Boris stated as he fell back into a chair.
"Poor Renfield." Igor seemed to be listening to Teller's thoughts. "You look absolutely wrecked!" Teller looked up at Igor and nodded. Igor looked curiously at him and said, "I never heard you call dibs on one of the scout ships." Teller looked shocked and then takes a drink of water and looks back up at Igor.
"He says it's a little warm." Igor informs everyone.
"God, don't you ever shut up?" Ben asked Teller while holding his forehead in obvious pain.
Sketch shrugged and Penn staggered to his and Teller's quarters. Everyone got cleaned up, ate a small snack and then went to sleep. Hours passed. Soon the day passed and evening had started to set in. Sketch rolled on her left side and twitched a little in her sleep. She had fallen asleep in a wad of blankets and sleeping bags next to her computer equipment and radio. A low voice mingled with static was coming through on one of the channels.
"We've located what looks like an abandoned research facility...(static)...yesterday at 2200 hours the weather was unstable at marked positions...(static)...no unnecessary force...(more static)...all upper regions near the Valley of Fire, and Area 51 have been evacuated."
Sketch opened both eyes wide in shock and jumped up and began disconnecting all the equipment and carried what she could to the secret vault.
Her pet spider, by this time, had found its way onto a sleeping Midgetknuckle. Soon as he awoke, his screams was as good as any alarm to wake everyone else. The spider was then gently taken and put into a make-shift carrying case big enough for a small dog.
"I'm already awake you squirrely baffoon of a narg's balless carcass." Boris grumbled as Lurch tripped over his combat boots and nearly onto him. Teller opened his eyes groggily and wished that he was dead.
Within moments after the gathered group assembled in the main room, Sketch was telling them what she had heard on the radio.
"2200 hours! That doesn't give us any time!" Penn panicked.
"Relax Fester, We have a drill for just such an emergency. I'll take you through it as Ben, Igor and Mole make preparations to clear out the base," said Dr. George.
"What about the ships?" asked Dr. Goma.
"Now wait up, this might not even be our little base that they're after. I mean we're nowhere near the Valley of Fire," retorted Dr. George.
At first they were unsure that this was their base that was targeted by the military. Penn was sure that it was.
"You're gonna have to take the craft out about 30 miles. Up the canyon." With that Dr. Goma and Boris headed out the entrance with their packs and flew the mother-ship with its two still-connected smaller craft out of the area. As Sketch had already unhooked a great deal of the systems, the only way they could know where the military was moving, was through shortwave radio. Within hours everyone was working on disassembling the computers, machinery and equipment. The parts were taken into a hidden chamber twenty feet below the compound, accessible only by an entrance in one of the secret tunnels.
"There isn't enough time for this," Penn said in exasperation.
"It has to be done," countered Sketch. "This place has to looked deserted."
"She's right," Ben said, lifting a huge monitor with the help of Igor and Lurch.
"Besides," Mole added, reeling in as many wires and cables as he could carry, "the only thing humming will be the underground generators."
Penn and Teller looked at each other and wondered what the hell that meant.
"Oh, you mean for the lights down in the tunnels?" Penn said back, answering his own question.
"Yeah." Mole glanced back with a wry smile.
Sketch pocketed some diskettes and lifted a stack of keyboards. "Looks clear, after we get this down in the hidden storage space, we get our things and get through the tunnels!"
They got their packs and flashlights, Igor hauling about six extra ones for the others, in case they had a faulty one and it went out. She wasn't taking any chances.
Igor also knew that she was going to lead them through the first part of the tunnels, as they declined quite uncomfortably. It was pretty slow going at first, because Igor was leading them through some very narrow passageways. She was, understandably, due to her past experiences, uncomfortable in tunnels.
After they reached level ground again, which stretched over about four miles, Igor gave the lead to Dr. George. Igor fell back as the doctor instructed everyone to stay together and call out if someone needed to halt. They stopped to catch their breath for a moment.
Igor slid down the side of a wall to sit and clasped her hands together. She brushed her hair back with her hands and stared up at the gloomy ceiling of the tunnels of rock chambers. "Lit or not, this tunnel is fucking creepy," she muttered quietly. They continued through the dim earth with the goal of getting out in one piece.