Chapter Twenty Eight

Cappy leaned close to the grate covering the ventilation port. He could hear voices, but they sounded funny. He thought it must be a trick of the sound traveling through the air vent. The voices almost sounded like they belonged to children, but he knew that could not be right.

He crawled closer to the grate, starting to get a view of the room on the other side through the fine, metal mesh covering the vent opening. He could see motion, but could not make out any details. The voices, however, were clearer. They definitely sounded like they belonged to kids.

“What do you see, Cappy?” Burgess’ voice echoed in the vent.

Burgess grunted as Cappy responded with a kick at Burgess’ face.

“Sorry, Cappy, won’t happen again.” Burgess said, this time in a whisper.

“Keep your trap shut for a minute, you simp.” Cappy snarled. “Whoever is messing with our place is right outside the vent. Trouble is, they are right there. I can’t get in there without them seeing me.”

Cappy was silent for a few moments and then kicked out at Burgess again.

“What? I didn’t say anything.” Burgess protested.

“I know, I wanted a suggestion. Is there any other way in there?” Cappy hissed.

“I can only think of one, and it won’t be comfortable.”

“Fine, I can do uncomfortable. Let’s get out of this vent and you can show me the other way.”

Cappy began backing out of the ventilation tube the way they had come. Burgess had to scramble to keep Cappy’s boots out of his face.

Burgess tumbled out of the vent back in the control room. He splashed in the standing wastewater on him rump, splattering even more of the foul liquid on the walls. Cappy followed, more carefully. He jumped down, trying to land on one of the chairs to stay out of the waste water. The chair tipped over under Cappy’s weight, sending him face first into the gunk. Burgess had to fight hard to stifle a laugh.

“By thunder, I’ll kill them kids!” Cappy bellowed as he picked himself up out of the gunk, dripping with filth. “I don’t care who they are, they’ll pay for this.” He turned toward Burgess with murder in his eyes.

Burgess’ blood turned to ice water. He had seen Cappy mad before. In fact, it was Cappy’s normal mood, but he had never seen this kind of rage.

Cappy fixed Burgess with a steely glare. “You better find a way into that room, or I’ll use your head for a battering ram. You got that straight?” Cappy growled, his voice strangled with anger.

“You betcha, Cappy. I got an idea, but like I said, it ain’t comfortable.”

Cappy nodded, still angry, but seeming satisfied with his answer. Relief flooded into Burgess.

With a quick nod Burgess went back to his workstation and picked up his toolkit. He fished out an autospanner and walked toward a pile of crates stacked in the corner of the room. With a sigh he slipped the autospanner into his belt and began to drag crates away from the wall. He finally succeeded in clearing all of the crates away, revealing a removable panel. He sighed, shaking his head. Cappy would not like this idea, but it was the only way Burgess could think of to get into the other chamber.

Burgess removed the panel using the autospanner. As the panel came off, he was hit by a wave of heat. Burgess knocked the autospanner against a large pipe inside the panel, making it resound with a hollow ring. The sound caught Cappy’s attention.

His eyes grew wide when he finally understood Burgess’ plan.

“No way, Burgess. I’m not crawling through the slag pipe. It’ll burn me alive.”

Cappy shook his head. “Nope, not right now. Those kids turned it off and the automatic system emptied it out so the slag wouldn’t cool inside the tube.”

“But it is still hotter than blazes in there.” Cappy said.

“Sure it’s hot, but if you put on one of our toaster suits you’ll be fine.” Burgess responded.

“When you said uncomfortable I didn’t know you meant this.” Cappy said as he shook his head.

“Well, I think it is your only choice.” Burgess said as he opened one of the nearby cases and retrieved a jumpsuit made of silver, quilted material. He held out the toaster suit to Cappy, who took it reluctantly. He reached into the case again, retrieving a matching set of gloves and boots. He held them out as Cappy struggled into the jumpsuit, the presslock fastenings barely able to close over his large belly.

With a look of irritation Cappy took the rest, pulling on the books and then stuffing his chubby hands into the gloves. Burgess had to stifle a laugh. Cappy looked like on overstuffed silver teddy bear in the quilted suit. With an oddly appropriate growl, Cappy pulled on the hood attached to the back of the suit and sealed it tightly. The suit plumped even more as the built in circulation system began pumping cool air through the suit to keep Cappy safe inside the still hot slag tube.

Cappy shoved Burgess out of the way and unsealed the access hatch on the side of the slag tube. Burgess involuntarily stepped back up several feet as a new, more intense wave of heat hit him. Cappy clumsily got to his knees and crawled through the hatch.

The hatch automatically closed behind Cappy, leaving Burgess alone in the control center. He thanked goodness that the heat was gone, but something was still bothering him. He could not quite decide what it was. He was not hungry, or uncomfortable, or sleepy or even bored. Slowly he began to listen to that little voice in his head. It screamed at him that what Cappy was going to do was wrong. Burgess argued with the voice, telling it that there was nothing he could do. With great effort Burgess battered drowned out the little voice, pushing it out of his mind.