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The robot continued pulling the sled with the tent on top. Fuzzy still dashed about like a puppy playing in the snow, leading them toward the R and D Lab (presumably and in a round-about way). X-9 had been following the odd creature for a little over two days. Fuzzy still kept the habit of mysteriously disappearing for several hours at a time, probably getting a meal from somewhere, probably from the R and D Lab for which they were hunting. But, if Fuzzy went to the Lab to be taken care of, was it not strange that his keeper just left him back out in the cold? Was Fuzzy not even allowed inside? Curious. But Fuzzy was their only lead to the Research and Development Lab, so, when Fuzzy returned, X-9 maintained his course, letting Fuzzy lead the way.

X-9 focused on something in the blinding distance of the green blizzard. "Mrs. McCleer, Mr. Zoeniga!" he called to them. "I believe I see a large building ahead of us. It must be the R and D Lab."

Nina McCleer had dozed off under heavy blankets inside the tent. Albert Zoeniga reached over from the other side of the heater and gently shook her awake. "Hey, Sis Nina, hear that? Rise and shine!"

"Huh? What's the news?" she inquired. Albert repeated X-9's news. Nina sat up. "Thank the Lord. Finally!"

She and Albert Zoeniga jumped out the tent and into the snow, hurrying up to the robot’s side. They scanned the horizon, but all they could see was Fuzzy leaping as usual. And falling green flakes

"Where, X-9?" asked Albert.

The robot pointed. "Can you see it now?"

"Yes, yes," said Nina. She let out a cheer. "I can't wait to get out of this cold! I must reward Fuzzy for getting us here!" She turned back into the tent, calling to their animal friend as she did. "Fuzzy, come! Want a treat?"

Fuzzy obeyed. Of course he wanted a treat. She found a small snack in their supplies and came back out the tent. She tossed it to him. He caught it in the air again and greedily gulped it down. Happy, he nuzzled Nina McCleer’s side.

Albert impulsively patted Fuzzy's head. "Ya did it, Fuzzy! I was getting so tired of this blizzard."

They approached the site and soon the structure became more visible. Fuzzy ran the fastest toward their destination, but Albert and Nina were not far behind. X-9 hurried to keep up with them, still dragging the sled. It was Fuzzy who plowed the path for them with his energetic body charging through the snow.

X-9 said, "I hope they will be hospitable, since this is a top-secret research facility for the government. It would be bad if they were to turn you back into the cold."

Nina shivered at the thought. "I know Dr. Kitchen can be heartless, but I am counting on her remembering me, and also on being able to appeal to her vanity, to challenge her ability to help me find the truth about George."

The nearer they came, the more the three of them noticed something amiss. As for Fuzzy, he seemed not to notice anything wrong. But Albert, Nina, and X-9 did. With his better eyes, X-9 described to them what the humans strained to discern in the green haze of the storm. "There is a large view window at the front, and it is smashed. The door is open. Snow is blowing inside the place, and I see no guards or other people, nor can I see any lights on inside. That is an unusual way to run an R and D Lab, especially in a hostile environment such as this. Mr. Zoeniga, can you please dig out our mini-blaster from the supplies?"

Albert Zoeniga slowed his pace. He tugged Nina's jacket collar to slow her down, too. "Nina, don't be in such a hurry. X-9 is right. I will get the blaster. We don't know what happened there, or what may be awaiting us-"

Albert Zoeniga went back to the tent for the weapon. Nina McCleer gasped, concerned, as the sight sank in. "No! We can't have come all this way for nothing! And then, what will I do, to find out about George? And- and what has become of everybody- of my old professor, Dr. Kitchen? I certainly hope nothing bad became of her-"

"We'll find out," said Albert, as he handed the blaster to X-9, who took the front of the expedition team while still dragging the sled behind. They kept their approach more cautious now, but Fuzzy still paid their concerns no mind, frolicking in the emerald fluff.

Fuzzy suddenly bounded toward the deserted edifice. He leaped upward and into the Lab through the smashed view window.

Nina looked at Albert and shrugged. "Well, if Fuzzy's not afraid, I guess it's okay for us, too."

X-9 had his own take on that. "Let us not be so quick to assume, Mrs. McCleer. We don't know what happened to the people from the lab. Did they flee something, and did they have no time to get Fuzzy, if Fuzzy were playing outside in the snow at the time? Was he abandoned in haste? Is there still something dangerous inside?"

They were very close to the lab now. X-9 undid the cable for the sleigh. "Allow me to enter first, please." He held the mini-blaster and walked in through the open door.

Nina and Albert stayed close to him, right behind him, not waiting for his all-clear signal.

The door had a handwheel to open it, on both its front side, and its back. The door had been swung inward before their arrival, long before they got there, opening the door. The inside of the door itself had a simple horizontal cross bar that retracted when the wheel was turned, and ordinarily a guard should be standing vigilantly in the hallway.

No one stood there, now. And the snow blew in through the open door and blew about. Under the snow piling inside the entranceway, the handle of a blaster poked out.

"Curious," said Nina.

Albert picked it up and peered at it. The weapon had somehow been mangled.

"I wonder what happened here," said the robot, speaking for all of them.

"So do I," said Albert. "No lights are on. The only light we have comes from the broken window and the open door. Beyond that, it's all a dim, gloomy darkness."

Fuzzy, meanwhile, jumped about in the main laboratory just off the entrance hallway. He rushed from the lab to greet them in corridor, enthusiastic as always.

Nina shivered from the chilly wind coming into the place as she thought about her former professor. The frigid air brought her back to the present. "Whoa- It's almost as cold in here as the outside! At least the walls give a small protection against the wind, though, except that the wind still gets in here, too."

Albert said, "Let's at least close the door, block out some of the wind. I figure probably further inside this place, where the wind can't reach, it must be a bit warmer.”

When Albert tried to swing the door to the building shut, it groaned and moved hard. "Huh, it must move a lot easier when the power is on. But not even the emergency power is on anymore, assuming they had emergency power to kick in, to begin with. So, how long was it like this, if even the emergency power ran down?"

X-9 asked, "What if we must leave in a hurry? If you close the door, you may have a hard time getting back out."

"Maybe. But there’s the big busted window in the lab proper,” said Albert. “We don't have to worry, since the main lab doesn't have any locked doors blocking it from the hallway. When whatever happened, happened, the emergency procedure is to then open the main lab's doors, I guess. Anyway, this place looks dead. Whatever happened is gone now.”

Nina said, "Yeah, we can get out that big window, IF we can jump that high. But I say, let's close the door to the outside and the blizzard, and get out of the wind. I'm willing to chance dying from some unknown problem that may or may not be still here, rather than dying from pneumonia."

X-9 helped Albert shut the door, while Fuzzy stood by and watched, crowding them in the hallway.

They entered the main lab and looked about. Tables and vials cluttered the floor. Several scientific instruments, such as Bunsen burners, microscopes, lay about. And more air whistled in through the window.

"I wish we could close the window, too," said Albert.

“Look at this lab! This doesn't look good at all," Nina told them. "Like something hit them fast. I... I wonder what happened to Dr. Kitchen, then."

"While it seems no one is here anymore, just to be sure-" Albert began to call out. "Hello? Hello? Anyone here?" Nina called also.

No answer, except the howl of the winds. Fuzzy sat in a corner, curious because of their calling.

X-9 went back toward the entrance hallway. "I will fetch the flashlights, so we can look around. In fact, I will also bring in the heater, too, and the tent. The heater works best in a small space. I shall bring in all our supplies. I think you will need them." With little effort, he swung back open the door which had taken so much strength from Albert to move.

Albert and Nina once again exchanged looks of wishful thinking, If only we could do that!

Fuzzy stood in the way, in the corridor, watching, while X-9 carried in some boxes of supplies from the tent on the sled outside. Since the whole sled would not fit through the doorway, things needed to be brought in trip by trip. Nina and Albert helped X-9. And the tent had to be folded up, too, to fit thru the doorway

"For the time being, let's set everything in the main lab, but away from the smashed window," said the robot. "Later, we must find a good place to set up the tent for you two. Without the fierce wind inside here, I think we can get by without using the pegs driven into the floor. We can simply tie the ropes to blocks or something, and hope Fuzzy does not then knock the tent down with his jumping about in these confined quarters.”

Albert agreed to the plan. “Your planning got us this far, X-9. We might as well stick with your plan."

All the time they fetched the supplies, X-9 kept the mini-blaster also in hand, ready, just in case something lurked in the dark, something dangerous.

Once they had moved in everything except the sled, X-9 took up a flashlight. "Time to explore. Maybe we can find out where everyone went. Keep your eyes open, and look for anything we can use to close up that large broken window. We can wait out the blizzard in here. If it ever does stop. You recall that the planet Jupiter has an ongoing storm on it, which has been raging for centuries."

Fuzzy quietly followed them from room to room, hall to hall. A few more blasters were found lying about, but mangled. X-9 held one of the flashlights, and Albert carried the other.

"It looks like whatever happened was an attack of some kind, and the guards did not have much time to pull arms- they were incapacitated before they knew what hit them. Those that did have a moment or two to defend themselves must have had their blasters knocked from their hands and destroyed. What could have done such a thing? There was nothing said about any attack back in the city," wondered Albert.

"Why would there be," answered Nina, "since this is a top secret R and D Lab. At least Fuzzy must have been playing outside in the snow, and so he at least escaped this, like you suggested before, X-9. But what has happened to everybody else? Were they taken prisoner?"

There were sections inside the building for the staff's living quarters, and there were several more smaller labs- some connected to individual apartments, a locker room with some guard uniforms and a locked metal cabinet to store blasters, a tiny work-out gym, a cafeteria...

Nina McCleer brightened upon seeing the cafeteria. "I bet there's a couple of pantries...” She momentarily remembered what had happened to her during the Incident, when she went into that small room to get the cake...

Albert caught her expression of sadness, and then it was gone. Nina pushed it aside. Albert had talked a lot with her on the trip. He knew she would force any distraction aside and not let it sidetrack her focus on finding and rescuing Mr. McCleer.

Nina tried to smile optimistically. “I hope whatever happened here left us some food. I will hunt for something for us, Albert. Maybe I can make something better than those rations we have been eating- either on these kitchen stoves, if they run on an independent power fuel source, and are still loaded with power, or we can use our heater. Heck, I guess we could even make a bonfire in one of the stoves, too. I was a Girl Scout."

X-9 handed her his flashlight. "You will need this to hunt for food, Mrs. McCleer. Mr. Zoeniga and I shall look for the power supply room. Depending on what kind of damage there is, I might be able to restore electricity to this place. And heat."

Fuzzy's ears perked up when he heard Nina open a food closet. She found some cans and took them out. The beast danced about excitedly as Nina popped off the top of a can.

She laughed at his antics. "Okay, okay, relax, Fuzzy. I'll let you have some, too."

"I guess Fuzzy'll stay here with you and keep you company," Albert noted.

"Yup. If there is anything still lurking about in here that we should be afraid of, Fuzzy'll protect me."

Albert told X-9, "I'll come with you to look for the power room, but I want you to know, I don't know much about electric. I guess I was busy chasing girls with my pal Osmo when we covered that section of studies in school. But I hope to be as good an assistant to you as I was when you and I were foraging supplies for this trip. You'll just have to be the brains of the team this time."

"Yes, Mr. Zoeniga."

They went back into the hallway. Albert and the robot walked side by side. The flashlight provided their only light. Here and there, they saw some dark stains on the floor or the walls. Each had suspicions what those stains were.

Albert mused, "If we hadn't seen those few blasters, twisted, I would have thought the people evacuated because of some experiment gone bad, like an escaped bio-weapon, a plague of some type."

"And all that equipment tossed about also suggests an attack," added X-9. "Plus, these stains... if they are what I think they are-"

"I don't even like to think about what they are," confessed Albert.

Meanwhile, Fuzzy waited anxiously for Nina in the cafeteria. She looked for a spoon to scoop out the frozen milk from the open can. When she found one, along with plates, she put a plate down for Fuzzy on the floor with some of the icy milk. He greedily lapped it up. Then he peered up at her with mooching eyes.

Nina smiled. "No, Fuzzy, we'll be needing the rest for some decent coffee."

Fuzzy tried rubbing his muzzle on her leg, and when that didn't work to change her mind, he let out the tiniest of growls.

"Now you behave!" she scolded Fuzzy. "I know you miss your master, or maybe this place brings back memories of him or her, but don't take it out on me. You behaved so well out in the wild. I'd think you'd be even more pleased inside here, away from the wind and snow... Come to think of it, though, you seem to like the outside better. And, Fuzzy, if nobody is here anymore, and hasn't been for awhile, obviously, then where did you disappear to all the time, and who fed you?"

As Nina pondered that mystery, Albert and X-9 found the power room in a corner near the back of the building. The power room doubled as a utility room for storing maintenance supplies and equipment.

Albert shined his light around. He saw some kind of a metal cabinet, the size of a dozen drawer file cabinet, but filled with circuit boards and wiring- smashed and lying on its side, still connected to cables going down from this cabinet down into the floor and then below the floor. There were other, smaller electrical cabinets placed around the room. On the wall hung tools for working on these cabinets, and for working on other things as well. In a corner standing against the wall were several plates of heavy-duty sheet metal and rebar, and nearby spare circuit boards in plastic wrap sat, awaiting use.

"We can use that sheet metal to patch up the broken view window, Mr. Zoeniga. But the electric distribution box on the floor... I do not know if I can repair that to get the power back up. What could have happened?" said the robot.

"What does that thing do?" asked Albert, as his companion went over to the toppled box to look closer at the damage. "It's pretty important, huh?"

"Indeed, Sir. The power fuel generator can make enough electricity to run the R and D Lab, but without this distribution box, the electricity has no way to get from the gigantic generator over there to the rest of the facility. This box can carry the full force of the generator, which, I notice, has shut down, because there was no way for the generator to release the power it would produce, and then it would just burn out. A safety feature. The backup generator won't do any better, with the distribution box destroyed. I imagine the emergency systems ran on a different circuit, but by now they must have run down. But whoever knocked down this distribution box must have gotten quite a jolt.”

“Okay," agreed Albert, taking the robot's word for it. "Makes sense. All we have for now are our flashlights. What a mess. Looks like there's all kinds of scratch marks covering the toppled distribution box."

X-9 said, "Let' s worry about the power later. Let's try to stop the blizzard from getting in here, first." He walked over to the leaning metal plates with Albert Zoeniga.

As they went, shining the light about to be careful not to trip on anything, they both saw it at the same time. A small personal screen device, just lying on the floor.

Albert picked it up and turned it over. Now they could see the screen, and it had a crack running down its face. Nevertheless, the device turned on as soon as Albert picked it up. "Somebody must have lost this, during whatever it was that happened."

"If it is still going, it must have a strong battery, to still have any power. Maybe an experimental type battery. Better than the battery used for the emergency lighting, anyway, I would guess, although the emergency power supply battery would have needed to work a lot harder than the battery for a personal screen device,”said X-9.

"This is the Research and Development Lab, home of the experimental.”

X-9 remarked, "If we can get it to divulge what is on it, maybe we can find some clue as to what happened."

Albert grunted. "I can't believe this. Even with the nasty crack, the screen works. And look at this- It's not even encrypted! Can you believe that, such a lack of security, here at the top secret lab. Let's see just what is on this thing."

“Perhaps it’s been running during the whole time, and it was not returned to encryption mode,” suggested X-9.

A few moments later, the last few recorded minutes came up on the screen. The video portion was a blurry haze, as if it was showing inside this dark room with only the dim light of the emergency back up, which had worked at the time. But the audio was distinct.

A gasp came from the screen device. What sounded like a weak, aged woman's voice. She asked, "Could... could you please help me... decrypt this? It- it shouldn't be lost. My life. My life is in this thing here, my personal screen device. My life story. My legacy. So... so that I am remembered, and so that people know that my life mattered."

A short pause, and then a man's voice. "Okay. You never struck me the kind to care about what anyone else thinks about you, Dr. Kitchen.."

X-9 observed, "That is Mr. Clyden's voice.”

“Clyden?!" repeated Albert Zoeniga. “And- Dr. Kitchen?!”

The woman's voice answered Clyden. "I- I don't. I want them all to see why I... was so much smarter, better than the rest... And h-how the cosmos... lost a great genius... Ha ha, wheeze, look- My screen’s still going!... Musta instinctively left it on for a record, after Fuzzy did all this..."

Albert felt a chill go down his spine. "What?! Fuzzy did this?!"

The recording continued, but by now Albert and X-9 ignored it. Albert shoved the screen in his pocket as the old woman's muffled voice weakly gave the directions to Clyden, on the long, complicated sequence of keys to put the screen in an unencrypted mode. Then, her voice stopped and gasped. "Uh oh-" She said in fright. "He's back!"

X-9 said, "So, it was Fuzzy. Fuzzy is responsible for all this. I should have guessed."

Albert and X-9 ran out the door and into the hall, racing for the cafeteria. "Nina!" "Mrs. McCleer!" they called.

And far down the hallway, from inside the cafeteria, they Nina let out a shriek.

(c) 2012 drkp