Home for Horny Monsters - Book 4

In and Out

Up on the third floor, Mike contemplated the large set of double doors in front of him. The wall where the wardrobe used to be had been replaced with a slightly wider hallway that terminated after a few yards at a large pair of metal doors with a series of gears built into them.

He tested the handle, but the door didn't budge. Symbols were emblazoned across both doors with shapes that seemed astronomical in nature—he recognized the symbol for the moon and the sun, and the planet Mars, but that was it.

"Well?" He looked at Tink. "What's supposed to be behind here?"

"Wrong room." She looked at the gears, then slid her goggles on. "Old room just bedroom with bed that smell like farts. Tink not sure why special door."

"It looks like a combination lock," Dana added, pointing to the five large gears. Each gear had a slightly different hue to it and a central handle. "See how these turn? The symbols change and then line up in the middle of these windows here." She pointed to a column of openings in the middle of the double doors.

"The goggles should be able to figure it out, right?" Mike looked at Tink, who was now scowling at the door. "Tink?"

"Goggles say turn dials, but no tell Tink correct password." She moved closer to the door to inspect it, then put her hands on a piece of metal and gave it a slight pull. "Pull lever when correct, but..."

"But what?"

"Tink don't know. Goggles say pull lever any time." She shrugged. "That how door works."

"Yeah, I'm suspicious." Dana examined the gears of the door with a mixture of curiosity and excitement. "There's a series of tumblers behind the gears. I can see them in a couple of places."

"Tink see, too!" She had shoved her face against the door, turning her face sideways to see behind the mechanism of the door. "Tumblers move rods, unlock door."

"So, what, do we just have to get the combination right?" Mike grabbed the lever and gave it a pull. The door emitted a series of clicks, but failed to open when he pulled the handle.

"It would seem that way." Dana knocked on the door a few times and put her ear against it. "Can you turn one of the gears for me?"

"Yeah, sure." Mike grabbed the one closest to him and gave it a slow turn. The thick teeth of the gear clicked as a series of symbols moved through circular openings in the middle of the door. There were seven windows, and the symbols were changing in only two of them. He watched the symbols cycle through, and he looked at Dana, waiting for further instructions. They had yet to repeat, and he noticed that one of the symbols changed three times faster than the other.

"Oh, wow." Dana said, then pulled her head off the door and gave one of the other gears a turn, causing Mike's gear to lock up. Two other windows rotated their symbols, but one of them went through five symbols by the time the other went through two. "This is so cool!"

"Glad you like it." Mike grinned and gave the third gear a twist, then frowned. The third gear controlled a new window and one of the previous ones. "Oh, that's a nasty trick. How is that even possible?"

"Do it again." Dana put her ear to the door, and Mike alternated turning the two gears. "There's a slight delay, but I can hear something shift in there."

"How does that help us?" he asked.

"It doesn't, really. Sounds like there's a mechanism in there for changing from one window to the next. Would love to take this apart and see how it works." She turned the remaining gears. Each gear controlled two windows, meaning that three of the windows were controlled by two different gears. The ratios were different for each gear as well, and he was having trouble figuring out which ones did what.