Chapter 19

19 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...