Solving the Mystery

"Hey Mike, whacha up to?" Little wears a sheepish smile, as if he'd been caught misbehaving. "Um, I've just been playing around with Ice Chaser here," he proudly brandishes his toy robot, "and well, I thought, maybe you'd want to do the same? Maybe meet-up with the rest of the gang at our hideout?" He sheepish smile broadens at the suggestion.

"I'm not allowed to play today," Mike squeaks. "I mean, I'm not supposed to leave the house."

Mike looks around nervously. What would Aunt Liwanag do if she caught him? He's never broken any rules before. He's heard tell that kids don't get spanked over here, but he's not eager to test that theory. At least, not without a plan. "Hide your bike in those bushes there," Mike urges Little. "Climb in through the window."

Little sprints back to his Huffy and stashes it behind the hedges, then obliges Mike and climbs through the window.

With Mike's very few possessions, the small bedroom looks sparse and hardly lived in. The lone poster on the wall declares in neon letters, "THIS ROOM IS NOT A MESS. IT'S MY SCIENCE EXPERIMENT!" but it hardly seems appropriate because the room is incredibly neat for a 12 year old boy's. Everything is tidily stacked just so, including the many books that don't fit on the makeshift shelf built out of a pair of cinder blocks and one wooden plank.

On the desk is Mike's binder of drawings that Little saw Burt admiring when they met Mike yesterday at the Toy Corner. Today's drawings appear to be the beginnings of D&D dungeon. The loose sheets are held in place by a beat-up Walkman.

Mike helps Little climb over the sill. He cringes a little when Little's shoes touch down on the worn but spotless carpet, but he says nothing. Mike himself is barefoot. "Are the others going to the hideout? I mean, if it's just you and me, we could just hang out here..." Mike isn't entirely sure that would fly with Aunt Liwanag, but it'd definitely be a lesser infraction than sneaking out.

"Not sure, but we can call them!" he answers Mike excitedly. "Where's your phone?"

"Sssh, keep your voice down, please," Mike quavers. "Phone's in the kitchen, but we can't go there without being seen! Same goes for my shoes, which are in a rack in the foyer." Mike gazes down at his bare feet. If he's sneaking out, he'll have to go out in his flip-flops.

Little scrunches his nose in thought. "Hmm..." Then his eyes grow wide, as if something brilliant's dawned on him.

"Michael! Is someone else up there?" The kids hear the sharp voice of Mike's aunt calling from downstairs.

"Say, do you have soldering iron?" Then, noticing the confused expression on Mike's face, he quickly adds, "Nevermind, maybe just a paperclip and a wall outlet." Little gets busy with various makeshift implements both in his bag and in Mike's room (pens, pencils, protractors, rubber bands, etc.) to pry open the circuitry in his Power Glove and then administers a jolt from the wall outlets to rearrange the wiring. At the slight dimming of the lights, Ambrose gives a silent Eeek! to his new friend, then blows the remnants of smoke emitting from the gaming accessory's innards and offers a few quiet coughs at the scent of the fumes.

Finally, satisfied with his work, Little puts on the glove. "Which way's Northeast?" After being pointed in the right direction, he beings typing slow and methodically on his game-pad before giving a satisfied sigh. "Ok, just have to verify the telemetry, and....voila! They should know where to find us now!"

You hear crackling on the other end, as if the connection is not entirely stable. "Hey guys, it's Little! I'm at Mike's right now; you seen anything weird with your Machine?" More crackling and static, "Hey, can you hear me? That's better," he says, as the static quiets a bit, "So, why doncha guys come on over and compare notes!?" Static builds again slightly as he awaits a response.