Agent Andy remembered he had reacted according to his training when Agent Johnson was hit. Andy tackled Frink to the floor to protect the scientist right before another blue ray of light hit them. He didn’t know where Bionic was.
Andy was still on top of Frink, who seemed to be unconscious.
The awake agent lifted his head a bit and glanced around their surroundings. He saw a retro chair, a couch, a wooden TV set, and an artistic glass coffee table. They must be in a living space. A home. Odd, Andy thought, this place seems oddly familiar.
Then Frink shuffled beneath him. “Ouch! I wish I had more hit poi- I mean, I wish I was tougher.”
Andy rolled off of the scientist and pulled out his Berreta. He checked his ammo. A magazine of twelve in the gun along with a bullet in the chamber. Besides that, he had four magazines on his belt. Andy hoped he didn’t have to use them all.
Suddenly, there was a sound at a door at the front of the room. Agent Andy picked Frink up and dragged him behind the sofa.
The door opened and Andy heard a woman’s voice say, “An-dy! I’m ho-me!” Andy dropped his jaw in shock. No, he thought desperately, not my Mavis!
“Hey, Andy, isn’t that your mother?” Frink whispered.
Then another voice said, “Mavis, I’m going over to Frink’s. I’ll be back by five.” The voice was almost identical to Agent Andy’s, just a bit younger. Then the speaking figure emerged from the other end of the room and out the front door, past Mavis.
The memory was rushing back to Andy like a Boeing 747. He remembered this day, back when he was 16. It was just an ordinary day, except for the fact that it was the last day of his sophomore year of high school. But how did he get here.
Then Mavis sat down on the couch and turned on the television. “Oh,” she remarked to herself when it was on, “it’s that new movie ‘Back to the Future!’ Too bad Andy isn’t here.”
“Frink, we’re back in time!” Andy exclaimed quietly.
“Andy,” Mavis said in front of them, “is that you? Are you still here?” Then she began to move.
“C’mon!” Andy whispered as he dragged Frink away from the couch and to the kitchen. Once there, they stood up and sprinted out the back door.
***
Andrew Gardner finished walking the block-and-a-half to Frink’s place. He let himself into the junior scientist’s house, knowing Frink wouldn’t care.
Andy went straight to the basement, which held Frinks’ lab. Once there, he yelled out, “What’s up doc?”
Frink jumped up from his test tubes, startled. Frinks lab was every nerd’s dream. Beakers, flasks, tubes, Bunsen Burners, lab rats, and even a work computer (no games, though; Andy hated that fact). The junior scientist himself was an extreme nerd. Bright red suspenders, a blue pocket protector, pink dress pants (pulled up past his naval), a spotted bow tie, a lab coat (with sleeves pushed up to reveal Frink’s thin arms), mismatched argyle socks, and enormous taped glasses. Frink even had buck-teeth, although those had gone down with age.
Andy wasn’t half as geeky. Andy thought himself cool, with his complete-protection black shades, his jeans, his pink-green tennis shoes, his backwards cap, and his nylon windbreaker.
“G’hey! Gondor Primulon, Werdna!” Frink exclaimed as he pulled off his latex gloves and made a Vulcan-V sign with his fingers.
That meant ‘Oh my! Hello and welcome, Andrew!’ in nerd, Andrew knew. Andy sighed and walked into the lab. He crashed into a table on his way. The cool guy still kept his shades on.
“You ready for the honors ceremony tomorrow?” Frink asked.
Andy grinned. Even though he was cool, he still got honors. He planned on being the chief of police one day, and that needed smarts. “Got my suit all picked out,” he said.
“Affirmative here too, buddy,” Frink said as he took the pencil behind his ear and srote something on a notepad.
“Frink,” Andy began as he took a relaxed seat on a stool, “when you become an esteemed scientist and teacher at MIT one day, you aren’t going to make a super-powerful mutant, are you?”
“No,” Frink answered, frowning. “Why d’you ask?”
“Well, down at the arcade, there was this zombie game with a mad scientist that looked a lot like you.”
Frink guffawed and snorted nerdily. “Ah yes, ‘Zombie Mashers.” The game with the unforgettable line, ‘You planet does to us now belong.’ you think the Japanese would’ve kept words out of a shooting game.”
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the house. Andy looked at Frink curiously, “Outside?”
Frink expressed horror and said, “I kept nitroglycerine in the shed!” Both the boys got up and ran outside.
***
Agent Andy let out a manly cry of fear when the shed exploded. Agent Frink, who had taken cover, said, “Well, it was highly explosive. I just hope the neighbors don’t mind the broken fences. Or the fire.”
“As long as it gets us into that lab,” Andy said, checking to make sure that his suit hadn’t caught fire. Then he ducked behind a smoking bush as two young men ran out of the house. One of then let out a vulgarity and the other ran toward the destroyed shed.
“Now!” Agent Frink said as he and Agent Andy snuck into the open doorway.
***
“No!” the young Jonathan Frink cried as he fell to his knees in front of the wreckage. Soot stained his pink pants, but he didn’t care.
Andy, still in his gaudy shades, ran to the distressed scientist. “Calm down! I don’t think anyone was hurt,” he said.
“This will cost so much money!” Frink screamed as neighbors began to run out of their houses. Sirens sounded in the distance.
Andy knew that Frink’s parents would never forgive him. They had tended their garden so sell, and now it was decimated. Frink’s father had always told him to take excellent care of his chemicals, and wouldn’t be happy with this. They would also have to pay for the neighbor’s damages.
Frink was speaking though tears now. “I vow to track down whoever did this and make them pay.”
“You could become a cop with me,” Andy suggested.
Frink stared at him though thick, tear-streaked glasses. “Don’t you get it? This was obviously an attempted robbery. What local criminal would have need for such explosive chemicals? It’s international, Andrew. Some Commies from Cuba wanted to destroy city hall, so they tried to take my chemicals. No cop can take down all the Communists!”
Andy saw his point. This was a federal offense, he was pretty sure. “So, I guess we have to go one level higher. Let’s become federal agents, Frink. Then we can take these guys down legally.”
Frink nodded his angered consent.
***
Agent Frink raced through his old shelves of chemicals, pilfering certain ingredients. “If I can remember right, the time warp potion contains a lot of petroleum and a bit of phosphorous. And a bit of lemon.”
Andy thought for a moment. Petroleum and lemon. It sounded familiar. Then he look on top of an old shelf and saw a bottle of Lemon Oil wood varnish on top of it nest to a rag. “Frink,” he said, “you’re not making a time-warp potion, you making an anti-warping potion for wood.”
Frink stopped and thought for a second. Then he mumbled, “Oh yeah. There is no such thing as a time-warp potion. It’s a spell.”
Andy’s feeling of despair only heightened as two people began walking down the stairs toward them.
Then Agents Andy and Frink vanished in a flash of light.
Home