KOLT WAS IN HIS WORKSHOP, cutting wood to make small ladders for Robot Rabbit Boy, when Gertie burst in. She was so out of breath it was hard to speak.
“It’s gone!” she gasped. “It’s . . . not . . . there!”
Kolt dropped the tool that was in his hand. “Gone? Robot Ra—”
“The . . . B.D.B.U. . . . it’s . . . not . . . there,” Gertie cried out. “The B.D.B.U. is missing! Blown up! Burned out! Stolen!”
Kolt’s face turned completely white.
“No!” he stammered. “It can’t be!”
« • • • »
When they reached the top of the tower, Kolt rushed in and inspected the stone pedestal that was still charred and smoking.
“Oh this is bad!” He shook his head gravely. “This is very, very bad.”
“Has it ever happened before? Maybe it’s lost?”
“It’s definitely been stolen,” he said, closing his eyes. “The source of all knowledge in the universe has been swiped from right under our noses. This is the work of the Losers.”
“But the door was closed when I came up here! I had to use my hand print to gain entrance.”
“I don’t understand,” Kolt said. “But it doesn’t matter, we’re going to have to give chase. The pursued must become the pursuer! Action is eloquence!”
They rushed back downstairs, where Robot Rabbit Boy had woken up and was binky-jumping with excitement to see Gertie.
“Eggcup! Eggcup! Eggcup!”
Gertie scooped him into her arms. “I’m glad you’re awake, but there’s an emergency going on because a group of very bad people have stolen something precious.”
“A dollop of mashed potato?”
“No, something much more important than a crushed vegetable.”
Kolt paced up and down, muttering to himself, trying to devise a plan to rescue the old book.
“Maybe we try to find out where they’ve been hiding?” Gertie suggested.
“We have no way of knowing where that might be. They could be headquartered at any point in history, depending on Vispoth’s calculations.”
Gertie thought for a minute.
“If I were the B.D.B.U.,” she said slowly, “and I needed rescuing, I would summon the Keepers by demanding the return of something from where I was being kept prisoner!”
“—Thus reuniting Keepers and book!” Kolt rattled off excitedly. “That’s brilliant, Gertie! Let’s go under the house and see if the cave sprites have noticed anything glowing, vibrating, or bouncing around. That could be it!”
He swept the rug from over the trapdoor, then jumped back in horror.
“Noooo!” he roared. “No, no, no, no! We’re doomed.”
Gertie scrambled over with Robot Rabbit Boy still in her arms like a fluffy baby.
Kolt was hysterical. “They’ve gotten under the cottage! And locked the trapdoor behind them!”
Gertie bent down and examined an enormous combination padlock of shiny black metal, with thousands of digital numbers scrolling over its surface.
“What kind of lock is this?” she asked.
“A Flux Bandit,” Kolt groaned. “A Japanese padlock from the middle of the twenty-third century that’s impossible to break. Those numbers you see flashing over the metal are all variants of the combination, which changes one hundred times a second. If only we could get it off—then at least we’d know if they stole anything from downstairs, and perhaps get hold of an item that will lead us to where the B.D.B.U. has been taken.”
Gertie glared at the numbers flashing silently over the black steel. “There must be a way!”
“It’s no use,” Kolt said. “Everybody knows the Flux Bandit is indestructible.”
Gertie was holding Robot Rabbit Boy in one arm when he began to wriggle. She put him down, and he hopped over to the trapdoor casually, his metal legs clinking.
“Eggcup?” he said, touching the padlock with his paw.
“Poor little creature,” Kolt said. “He probably thinks it’s a toy.”
Robot Rabbit Boy sniffed the lock, then looked up at Kolt with his nose twitching. “A dollop of mashed potato?”
Kolt smiled. “I would love a dollop of mashed potato—but first we have to think of a way to get past the most secure, sophisticated, unbreakable superpadlock ever made, which I’m afraid is impossible. There’s nothing in the entire universe that can penetrate such an impenetrable mechanism.”
Robot Rabbit Boy touched the Flux Bandit again, his nose still twitching like mad.
“That’s strange,” Kolt said. “I wonder what he’s doing.”
Gertie couldn’t figure it out either. “Maybe he’s about to sneeze?”
Then suddenly, from out of nowhere, a bolt of high-intensity, scorching-hot laser-beam shot from the little X mark below Robot Rabbit Boy’s nose, and in a flash of blinding light the kitchen was sprayed by thousands of exploding Flux Bandit pieces.
Robot Rabbit Boy pointed at the blackened, smoldering hole in the floor with his paw. “A dollop of eggcup.”
“B-b-b-big . . . d-d-dollop.” Kolt whimpered, his hair blown back from the explosion.
Gertie patted her little friend on the head, then turned to Kolt through the smoky air.
“Guess I’d better read the instruction manual after all.”