Max and Gnome 4: The Facility

Chapter 6

The next thing they knew, a lot of time had passed and they were somewhere incredibly different. Gnome woke up first and saw that they were all locked up in a cell together. It was plain and white and had a door with a small glass window. Something about the location seemed alien and unusual.
"Where's Doll?" wondered Gnome. He sighed. "Where's we?"
Gnome woke up Soldier and Max.
"What's going on? This is scary," said Max. "We must be in some TAS facility..."
"Roger that," said Soldier, waking up quickly.
Soldier realized they hadn't taken his tiny pistol away. Max walked over to the door and noticed a sad-looking guard walking by.
After a while, they figured out he patrolled the hallway every five minutes.
"Doll used to be able to talk to people like that guard really well," commented Max. "We should learn those skills."
"But how would we talk to the guard through the window?" asked Soldier.
"NOISE!" yelled Gnome.
"True," agreed Max. "Gnome will have to be our voice."

The next time the guard went by, Max and Soldier advised Gnome what to say and he yelled loud enough for the guard to hear.
"HEY! WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU!" yelled Gnome almost as robotically as Bot. The guard heard but ignored them. They waited another five minutes until the next patrol.
"HELLO! HOW'S IT GOING OUT THERE?" asked Gnome. The guard looked over.
"WE HAVE SOMETHING COOL FOR YOU!" said Gnome. The guard slowed down, confused about what to do. Gnome pulled out Soldier's tiny pistol but just held the top of it non-threateningly.
"What is that?" went the guard's muffled voice.
"It works and it's tiny!" said Gnome. "Open the door and take it!"
The guard thought about things.
"Put it through the food slot. I'm not opening this door."
The guard was so close to the window that Max could speak now instead.
"This thing has gotta be worth over a thousand bucks," said Max. "How much do they pay you per hour?"
The guard was sad.
"Pretty much minimum wage."
"Well that's... A hundred and twenty hours free if you take this. What's your name?"
"Jason."
"Jason, do you work for the TAS? Are we still in Cairo?"
"Yep," he said, shifting his weight from leg to leg.
"Interesting, at least we're not somewhere totally different. I have a deal-- how about you unlock the door and when you're at the far end of your patrol we'll," Max made air quotes, " 'break out' of here, and leave this little treasure in the cell for you. You can just chase us slowly so you don't get in trouble."
Jason shook his head.
"I gotta think about it."
They smiled and waved every time Jason walked by, and it didn't take Jason too long to give in. The next morning, he finally agreed to the deal and casually unlocked the door. The toys waited until Jason was at the rightmost side of his patrol, then Gnome launched up to the door handle and dangled off it. The others pulled the door open and they turned left, free to roam the sprawling hallways of the TAS compound.

Aside from the main hallway, little sub-corridors branched out every once in a while. Out of curiosity, the toys investigated one of them. Right at the beginning was a window with weak metal wiring giving it a tiny bit more safety.
"What is that?" asked Max.
"Whoa," said Soldier.
Gnome picked his nose.
It was a velociraptor, slowly investigating its boring surroundings. There was really nothing to do in there.
"HEY!" yelled Gnome. The other toys were terrified and started running back down the main hallway. The velociraptor spotted Gnome and made a deep birdlike clicking noise before charging at Gnome. It collided with the wall next to the window as Gnome ran after the other toys.
"You almost ruined everything!" scolded Max.
"Whoops," said Gnome.
They continued for a bit before Gnome suddenly disappeared.
"Where is that little miscreant?" asked Soldier.
Max knew; he was down another hallway. They found Gnome opening a door in the corridor to the left.
"What are you doing, Gnome?" asked Max, annoyed.
"It's fine, he's safe," said Gnome.
"Famous last words," muttered Soldier.
"Who's safe?" asked Max.
A little creature walked out the door and waved. He was just slightly bigger than Gnome, with dark wrinkled skin and unusual, round proportions. He wore a very thick blue and white handmade sweater.
Gnome shook the creature's hand.
"Hey guys, this is Lepauchu," said Gnome.
"Nice to meet you," said Lepauchu in a raspy voice. "I can't wait to get out of here."
They continued down the main route, chatting.
"So, umm, what are you?" Max asked Lepauchu.
"I'm a hobgoblin," he replied. "Hey Gnome, ya should've heard the time I fixed my friend's time machine. It was making this weird squeaking sound—what is that?"
Through a window they saw a creepy 1950s style humanoid robot. It was red and silver, with a bunch of dials. It spotted them quickly.
"NEED TO DESTROY," it said, very slowly raising up an arm with some sort of apparatus on it.
"No!" yelled Soldier, diving out of the way and grabbing Gnome.
The robot's cannon was out of ammo, luckily.
"TARGET ACTIVE," spoke the robot. The toys got away quickly and continued on.
"We really have to find Doll, Bot, and Strongman," said Gnome. "Why's it so hard?"
"Because this place is so big," said Max. "What's that?" he had a quizzical look on his face.
Through one of the windows nearby they saw endless creepy hallways with yellow patterned wallpaper. There was an uneasy, buzzing feeling in the air that got stronger the closer they were.
"I need to get in there!" yelled Gnome, jumping up and down at the window. Max sighed.
"No you don't, stay on task," said Max.
"But that IS the task! I need to!" complained Gnome.
"Getting out and saving our friends is the task."
Lepauchu grabbed Gnome.
"That place is bad. Stay away."
Gnome growled in annoyance but eventually followed the others.

They walked farther, past other strange toys, beasts and places in the mysterious rooms, until they eventually saw something up ahead. It was a tiny room taking up half the hallway and one of those rotating circular steel doors that looked a little like a metal rake.
"It looks like a checkpoint," observed Soldier. "Wait until they're distracted, then RUN."
The problem was, there were no distractions. The toys waited for a long time for anything unusual to distract the staff that were inside the room, but everything was very uneventful.
"We need to make a distraction," planned Soldier. "So, Lepauchu, you should invent some apparatus that makes a lot of noise—"
Gnome was bored. He made a run for it.
"GNOME!" yelled Gnome.
Sadly, the others were basically forced to follow him.
"Get back here, Gnome!" said Max. The staff in the checkpoint heard them and got out, chasing after the toys. They made a mad dash for the metal door but the staff pulled their nets out. Gnome crashed into the door, but the staff had locked it and it wouldn't rotate. They threw their nets over everyone.