"Holy smokes, this fool's house is ginormous," Max said as he let out an involuntary whistle. "You didn't tell me he was loaded. How much floss does this jackass have, anyway?"

"I don't know," Zeke said. "A lot."

"What line of business is he in to be able to afford a sweet pad like this? And more importantly, why aren't you in it?"

"Business? Vance has never worked a day in his life. He was born into money. And then I think he literally won the lottery on top of that, the jerk. He bought a dollar scratch ticket and won fifty million dollars or something like that. That's in addition to the hundreds of millions he inherited from his daddy."

They'd had to wait awhile before all the lights in the house had gone out. Max filled the time by letting all the air out of Vance's tires and relieving himself in the giant fountain in the front yard. Once things had quieted down, Max broke a window and they wiggled their way inside.

The decor was ostentatious and, quite frankly, pretty tacky. There were a lot of pictures of Vance with his shirt off flexing his muscles hanging on the wall, along with numerous portraits of bikini-clad women stretching out on top of fancy cars. There was a gold colored motif to the picture frames as well as the wallpaper and doors. All in all, Zeke thought it advertised someone who had a lot of money, but not much in the way of class or good taste.

They passed by more than one room that was full of weights and other sorts of gym equipment before emerging in what appeared to be the living room. A ridiculously large television took up an entire wall, while an oversized red leather couch dominated most of the floor space. A few zebra-striped throw pillows rested on the couch along with a couple of open condom wrappers.

"I was going to suggest we watch a movie or something to pass the time, but I don't think I want to touch that couch," Zeke said with a shudder.

"I hear you, big guy," Max said. "If you look close enough at it, I do believe you can see the chlamydia swimming all over it. Let's go find the kitchen and raid his fridge."

They found the kitchen just down the hallway. It was bigger than Zeke's apartment and filled with black marble counters and what looked like a couple hundred cabinets. The refrigerator was about the same size as a pickup truck and was mostly filled with pre-mixed protein shakes, although they did find some beers on the bottom shelf, which Max promptly opened and passed one to Zeke.

"Doesn't this guy keep anything to eat in this dump?" Max asked as he scanned the fridge. "I'm hungry. All I see are these stupid 'muscle-maximizer' shakes. You think they're any good?" He pulled one out and took a sip. "Nope. They're nasty. Well, I guess I could dump them all down the sink. That would probably annoy him, right?"

"Sure. I guess it probably would," Zeke said. "In the meantime we can see if he's got anything to eat in one of these thousands of cabinets he's got here." He began opening up cabinet doors. Most of them were empty, but eventually he found a box of crackers, which he split with Max.

"Let's leave all his cabinet doors open. That would annoy him, too, right?"

"Yeah," Zeke said. "Let's leave all his drawers open, too, while we're at it."

They were in the middle of pulling drawers open when they heard a noise behind them. Zeke turned around to see Sarah standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing pajamas and rubbing her eyes blearily. "Zeke? Is that you? What are you doing in Vance's kitchen? And is that a giant frog with you? What the heck is going on here?"

"Uh, you're having a bad dream, obviously," Zeke said. "There's no reason at all why I would be in Vance's kitchen hanging out with a giant frog. Isn't the subconscious crazy?"

"Toad, actually," Max said with a sniff. "And I'm considered to be perfectly normal-sized among my people."

"Man, I guess we shouldn't have gotten that late night Chinese takeout," Sarah said. "It's giving me some really weird dreams. And they're so vivid! It's like I'm really here!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't get yourself riled up, lady," Max said. "You don't want to wake up. By the way, is there any of that Chinese takeout you mentioned leftover?"

"Oh yeah, Vance put it in the fridge in the upstairs kitchen. You guys want some?"

"That would be fantastic," Max said. "Why don't you go warm it up for us?"

"Okay, why don't you guys follow me upstairs?"

"This guy has a second kitchen upstairs?" Max asked. "What are we doing wrong with our lives?"

The second kitchen turned out to be almost identical to the first kitchen, except the counters were all white marble and the refrigerator was possibly even larger. It contained even more protein shakes along with a few more beers, which Max promptly grabbed and passed around. There was also one small container of Chinese food, which Sarah popped in the microwave. While they were waiting for it to heat up, Max and Zeke started opening all the cabinets and drawers up here as well.

"What are you guys doing?" Sarah asked.

"It's a fun game we invented," Zeke said. "It's called leave all of Vance's cabinets and drawers open."

"Sounds like fun," Sarah said. "Can I play?"

"The more the merrier, sweetheart," Max said.

They all ran around the kitchen giggling and opening up cabinets and drawers until the microwave beeped. Then they sat down at the kitchen table and ate all of the Chinese leftovers and drank the rest of Vance's beer.

"This has been a really fun dream," Sarah said. "It feels so real though. I'm worried I'm going to feel tired in the morning! Maybe I should get back in bed."

"That's probably a good idea," Zeke said. "Maybe you're sleepwalking. Wouldn't it be wild if you woke up in the morning and all the cabinet doors in the kitchen were still open? You would definitely have to conclude that you did it in your sleep."

"You're right, maybe I am sleepwalking," Sarah said with a laugh. "All right, well I'm definitely going to get back in bed then. You fellows want to tuck me in?"

"Uh, okay," Zeke said as they got up from the table. They followed Sarah down a long hallway, in which they could already hear Vance snoring loudly. They walked into a bedroom with thick blue shag carpeting. Vance was sprawled out on a king-size waterbed covered in red silk sheets. He was taking up most of the space by himself although Sarah managed to wiggle her way in next to him.

"Good night guys, thanks for an entertaining dream."

"You're welcome," Zeke said. A couple minutes later she was snoring softly.

"All right, now we know where Vance sleeps. Want to get that warm water and dunk his finger in it?"

"Gee, I feel kind of bad making him wet the bed while Sarah's sleeping in it," Zeke said.

"No, this makes it even better because she'll totally witness his shame!"

"Yeah, you're right. Go grab a glass from the kitchen. Also, I found a magic marker in one of the drawers. Are you ready to draw some penises on his face?"

"You know that I am," Max said.

*

They found a game room that had a dartboard, a pool table, and several stand-up arcade game consoles, so they stayed up the rest of the night playing games. Shortly before sunrise they decided it would probably be wise to slip out so they weren't caught in the house by Vance or a possibly more awake Sarah.

"Now what are we going to do?" Max asked. "The sun's not even up and the Doc said he didn't get the door to Quartzwater City juiced up with electricity until the morning. I doubt he's gone into his lab this early. It seems to me we've got a few hours to kill still. Anywhere we could get a drink around here?"

"Well, the bars are closed and I don't think we could take you into them anyway," Zeke said. "There is that 24 hour liquor store on Main Street."

"24 hour liquor store you say?" Max perked up. "Let's go there. I can wait outside while you get us some booze."

"Yeah, the only thing is I don't have any money. They don't accept floss in this world. And I don't really have any of that either."

"How about all this green paper stuff I swiped out of Vance's wallet?" Max asked as he held out a wad of bills.

"Now that will work nicely," Zeke said. "There's a park near the store. You can hide in some bushes while I go inside and I'll meet you there with the liquor."

*

The sun was well up in the sky by the time Max polished off the last of the bottle of whisky Zeke had bought. He slammed it down on the picnic table they were sitting at and let out a loud belch. They were both feeling pretty tipsy by this point.

"Well, that was fun," Max hiccupped. "What should we do next?"

"Isn't there something we're supposed to be doing?" Zeke asked.

"I don't think so. Unless that something you're thinking of is going back to the liquor store and buying another bottle of whisky."

"Uh, I don't think that was it. I feel like it was something important. Are we forgetting something important?"

"Holy smokes!" Max said as he bolted to his feet. "We've got to get back to the lab and get through that door before the Doc returns from his errand!"
"Oh crap," Zeke said. "What time is it? I don't have a watch!"

"Neither do I. We'd better hurry over there."

"Yeah, we've come so far. I don't want to get stranded in an alternate universe now!"

They ran all the way to the lab, huffing and puffing to catch their breaths as they finally arrived.

"I don't know if Dr. Octavius is here or not," Zeke said as he looked at the front door. "He doesn't drive a car so there's no tell-tale sign whether he's in the lab or not."

"Should we knock? Maybe he hasn't left yet."

"Or maybe he's coming back right now," Zeke said as he glanced over his shoulder and spotted Dr. Octavius walking down the street with a bag from the Mad Scientist's Depot. "We've got to get in there! There's no time to lose!"

Zeke was relieved to find the front door was unlocked. They raced over to the bookcase that concealed the secret room. "How do you get this thing open?" Max asked.

"I don't know! You used to pull on the Tourist's Guide to Quartzwater City, but he hasn't been to Quartzwater City yet, so it would be really weird if he had a tourist guide for it already. It's got to be one of these other books. Start pulling!"

They started yanking on every book on the shelves, letting them fall to the floor in their haste. Just as Zeke heard the doorknob to the lab starting to turn the bookcase swung open and they raced inside. They could see the door they'd dropped off the previous night floating in mid-air. "Pull the lever! Quick!"

Max threw the lever into the on position and the door sparked with a loud crackle of electricity. They flung the door open and jumped through just as Dr. Octavius was stepping into the secret room, surprised to see that he had left the electricity turned on.