The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder Read Free Book Online Page B

about my protective layer
of fat, but he told me to shutup. He said they’d run out of ideas, so they just
decided to just toss me down here.
    “Why don’t you kill me now? While
I’m upside down?” I said. I like pointing out to criminals when they’re being
inconsistent or their reasoning has some stupid flaw. But he just gave me a
look that seemed to say I should mind my own business. Then he actually said I
should mind my own business. So that’s what that look meant, all right.
    He told me the crooks used this
place for more than just a dumping ground for undesirables. He said they also
had a lot of food stored here in case there was ever a nuclear war. That way
they could insure that in the future there would still be criminals.
    He said they even had a selective
breeding program going on down here, trying to breed the perfect criminal by
crossing themselves with gorgeous showgirls. I asked how the gorgeous showgirl
part helps make the criminal.
    “Wouldn’t it be better to have the
women be scrawny and beady-eyed?” I ventured. “Maybe with the face of a rat?”
    “Hey, you have your selective
breeding program, we’ll have ours.”
    While he was untying my hands,
straightening my jacket and combing my hair, I pointed out that this is where
the bad guys always make their big mistake, giving the good guy, that’s me in
this instance, all the information he needs to destroy them, letting him in on
all their most criminal secrets.
    “When I escape from your clutches,
you’re screwed,” I told him.
    I waited for him to blab some
secrets to me, but he just left and slammed the door. So I figured now probably
wasn’t the time. He’d tell me later, most likely. And then he would be screwed.
I looked around. I wasn’t alone.
    There were about two dozen other
prisoners in the huge room. They were looking at me curiously, but also trying
to cover as much of the floor with their bodies as they could so as to lay
claim to that much space. Among them I recognized a couple of honest
politicians and several honest cops I’d seen around who were plainly regretting
their choice of sides by now.
    Then I saw a geeky old guy with
glasses, wearing a smock that had “Professor Groggins” embroidered above the
pocket. I was getting sick of everybody I met being named Professor Groggins,
but something told me this was the real Professor Groggins. And that something
was him.

CHAPTER NINE
    “I am the real
Professor Groggins,” he said.
    I made him show me three pieces of
I.D. before I would let him say anything more. Then I asked him what he was
doing here.
    He told me that the crooks had
broken into his home during a routine burglary, and had stolen everything from
his lab that had looked like it was valuable, including the time machine he had
invented. After they had found out the time machine really worked, they came
back and stole Groggins himself so he could invent more useful devices for
them.
    “They’ve kept me here for who
knows how long…”
    “Two weeks,” I said.
    “I’ve completely lost track of
time.”
    “Two weeks.”
    “Bush was president when they put
me in here.”
    “Two weeks ago.”
    He complained about the treatment
he’d received since he had arrived, especially the Sunday Brunch, which he felt
was uninspired, and all the evil laughing in this place was keeping him awake
at night. He probably would have kept complaining indefinitely, but I reminded
him that I didn’t work there, and if I did work there I probably wouldn’t be
working in the Complaints Department. I’d more likely have some kind of lifting
job.
    I asked him what he had invented
for them so far. He said nothing had been completed yet, but they had him
working on a machine that fixes horse races so the dishonest horse wins every
time, a machine that makes their enemies nine feet tall, so they can see them
coming, and a milk-shake machine. “I just bought them one of those,” he said.
    Then Groggins told me about