certainly far more valuable than a needle, and far more distressing
than a haystack.
“One, two, three—
heave!
” Jewel commanded, and Vlad was
catapulted to the very top of the excreta-collecting apparatus. With
no time to waste, the helmeted and rubber-armored adventurer
turned the wheel that sealed the airlock, pried open the heavy metal
and glass hatch, and with a great and mighty grimace, boldly went
where no man has gone before—at least, one would hope, not
willingly.
“Vlad, honey!” Jewel said as soothingly as possible into a two-
way radio, “Can you hear me? How’s the reception?”
“Shitty. Where’s the chip?” the radio speaker squawked.
“Give me a second,” she replied. An excruciatingly long second
passed, then two more, which seemed to Vlad more like fifteen. And
then, another one passed which could as well have been a full minute.
When each second started to become five minutes long, Vlad finally
screamed:
“Goddamn it! Where’s the fucking chip? Just tell me where the
motherfucking chip is now, dammit! I think the shit is getting inside
my pants! Oh wait, that’s my own shit. No! Waitaminute! I take that
back! I repeat: I did not shit my own pants!”
Jewel and Milo both started to worry whether or not Vlad would
be able to pull this off. She walked around the apparatus and waved
the receiver around but could detect no signal. Unfortunately, after
some time (which to Vlad was just under a month and a half) she had
to admit that it might not be anywhere in the tank.
“Honey, I’m really sorry about this,” the Madame confessed,
“but, the chip is not in CRUDD. Somehow, somewhere, we screwed
up on something.”
“Shit!” cried Vlad, not inappropriately. “Well, then, you can bet
your sweet patootie I’m getting the fuck out of this dump, then.”
Suddenly, Milo made a signal to Jewel. The foreman was coming
back! Somehow, Don Wong had not been able to keep him occupied.
Now they had to act even faster, or this act would surely be their last.
Impulsively, Milo snatched the two-way radio from Jewel’s shaking
hand.
“Don’t come out!” Milo yelled.
“Screw you, punk,” replied Vlad defiantly. Milo looked up and
saw that Vlad’s head was starting to emerge from the top of the tank.
There was simply no time to explain the situation to him, and
H O L Y S H I T !
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