SUNGLASSES AND ROCKETS Part 1 : New Moon

A SECRET AGENT

The time had come for Darwin and I to act like real men and assume our responsibilities.

"What did you use the I.K.Y. for?" Moses Masterton inquired.

I kept quiet. I did not dare to answer. I turned to Darwin. It looked like my inability to talk had infected him. The silence became uncomfortable.

"Darwin," the interrogator continued, "Didn't we agree that you would only use the glasses inside The Garage? Why did you take them out?"

Evidently, my friend had taken it upon himself to slightly alter the conditions that the doctor had imposed, to my benefit. I felt ashamed. I had to talk.

"Well?" insisted the scientist.

I breathed deeply.

"Doctor," I said, exhaling, "It was my idea. I know it will seem like the silliest thing, but I used them...I thought they would help me to...a date that I had yesterday...in fact with a girl that I never dared to talk to until yesterday afternoon...it's just that I liked her so much...and...and..."

There my confession ended. I started at the floor. I could not continue. I did not dare look him in the eye. I felt completely embarrassed. Resignedly, I waited for the verdict.

"Is she pretty?" asked the doctor, to my surprise.

"She's a goddess!" Darwin hastened to say, eagerly.

I slowly looked up.

"Well," I added, surprised, "I thought she was the woman of my dreams, but..."

"I understand," the doctor replied, nodding his head. "It was love that motivated you."

Moses Masterton did not cease to amaze. He had just shown that aside from being a brilliant mind, he also had a wonderful understanding of people.

"Gordo," he went on approvingly, "it takes courage to approach the woman of your dreams. Not everyone does it!"

Darwin gave me a look of astonishment.

"I know men," the doctor affirmed, walking abruptly away from the blackboard, "even older than I who never had the nerve to even look at the woman of their dreams, never mind ask her out. Later, looking back, they regretted it! This won't happen to you! Courage! That's what I want from you two. Courage! Determination! We can't get anywhere if we don't have the willingness and the determination."

Dr. Masterton was every bit a humanist. Now I was almost blushing just remembering that I had dared to doubt the honor of the magnificent man that we had in front of us.

"Now on to the state of the I.K.Y." he went on in a graver tone. "Surely the lenses must be spoiled by now; the circuit on the prototype is harmed if the battery isn't changed every 15 hours."

The glasses were worth $80,000. We were quiet.

"But how were you to know?" he asked himself reflexively.

I knew it, I knew it. Moses Masterton would forgive us for the childish mishap. That's how he is, a generous character.

"We must find a way for you to pay for the damage to the prototype," he answered himself.

Uh-oh. The wisest thing to do would be to stop ourselves from making any kind of suggestion. My friend and I opted for silence.

Without saying anything further, the doctor took a blue yo-yo from his shirt pocket and strung it on his middle finger. Apparently the talk was not over.

"No doubt you two have many questions about me," Moses Masterton admitted, hurling the yo-yo towards the floor. "Which is absolutely understandable." He paused and continued. "Let's go in order. The walls of this building are concrete, and they're three feet thick. We are in a..."

"Fall-out shelter," I let myself interrupt.

It was too obvious.

"In a basement," corrected the doctor. "Gordo, fall-out shelters are made no less than 120 feet underground, and they're very different from this basement."

"Doctor," Darwin inquired, "if the walls are so thick..." he pointed to the gaping maw in the roof, which was about 30 feet away right above a solid wooden desk, "how can it be that a fairly small explosion created such a big hole?"

It was the same cavity that we had accidentally opened the previous night.

The doctor shook his head and smiled.

"I don't know how you found the switches controlling the explosives," he said while he tried his hand at a trick called "shooting the pistol" with the yo-yo, hurling it at the hole. "Yesterday, just before you called me, I had put some plastic explosives in the garage, on the floor above...was doing some tests..."

"With explosives?" Darwin wanted to know.

Moses Masterton nodded.

"And the shower entrance?" I interjected.

"The elevator we used to get down here is more than 50 years old and it breaks down a lot. It's no longer safe to come down in for even a floor, never mind for coming down 210 feet, which is the depth of the hideout."

So there was a nuclear bunker.

The doctor fiddled with the yo-yo in front of the blackboard, doing a trick known as "walking the dog."

"Doctor," I continued talking in his place, "if I remember correctly, you've been living in this house since March...did you know about the basement when you bought it?"

It was time to ask questions, and this one seemed key.

"Good question," he admitted, taking up the yo-yo. "This house isn't mine, neither is the basement. The only things in this residence that belong to me are the gadgets in the garage and a pair of socks in the laundry. And of course," he pulled a face, "what I've got on."

Wow! This was getting interesting.

"That means that the house belongs..." I intervened, using deductive reasoning.

"It belongs to my good friend, Colonel Harrison Bilsby. The same person that I'm with next to the Stealth in the photographs decorating the living room."

The doctor works for the military, I said to myself.

"I should clarify that I don't work for the military," the doctor added. "Neither do I spy for any government, although I have worked on secret missions..."

"Doctor, that means that you are..."