Garfield and The War on Lasagna

Chapter 7 - The HQ

And so, the party Liz called for was fully gathered. Garfield, Odie, Mrs. Arbuckle, Squeak, Arlene, and even Lyman were all gathered. They caught Lyman up with all he had missed on the way. He seemed happy to hear about the Arbuckles' lives, and how they'd changed since they'd last talked. He mainly seemed nervous about seeing Jon again after he'd left that fateful election night. Garfield assured him there were no hard feelings, although that wasn't fully true..

Now they'd made it, Kitty HQ. The building was gigantic, but the friends were confident they'd succeed. They had to be stealthy on their way to the entrance. Squeak ran ahead, and signaled the team when to run when no guards were looking. Odie chucked a rock at the camera once the coast was clear. Once they had snuck to the door, squeak crawled under and began his task. He disabled the lock systems from inside, and sure enough.. The door slid right open.

"I'm out of here now. I guess I'll head back to the "house"." Squeak said. " Good luck in there."

The team waved goodbye to Squeak, and he skittered off into the sunset. Now is when the plan really began. They moved carefully through the metal hallways, tiptoeing to avoid any loud noise. Occasionally, a catbot would clunk by, and they'd hide behind the conveniently placed boxes of pasta that were waiting to be sent to the incinerator. This was a big building, and making their way to the center wasn't easy. Luckily, maps of the facility were on the wall every once in a while. Kind of like in a shopping mall. The way to the main room was mainly these few steps: walking, hiding, checking the map. This was until they made it to the sector reserved for only the very top of Almren's team. No outsider had been here before, unless they broke a law so badly that Almren had to punish them firsthand. None of the friends knew what lay ahead.

"Drats.." Lyman grunted. "A security panel. We don't have a card, how will we get through?"

"That's why I came along." Arlene boasted. "I do this stuff for fun all the time, I'll figure this out."

Arlene hopped up on the table and got to work at the computer that was connected to the security system. She was clicking and typing really fast, the team watched in wonder. After about 5 minutes, the door unlocked itself. No key card needed.

"That was like magic!" Mrs. Arbuckle said.

"Incredible!" Wowed Garfield.

"Thank you, thank you." said Arlene. "Now we need to get a move on."