"Did we make it?" Zeke asked as he lay on the ground where he had fallen in a heap as they emerged from the door. "Are we back in Quartzwater City?"

A llama in a bright red Hawaiian shirt eyed them warily as he passed by.

"Looks like it to me," Max said. "I'd say this calls for a celebratory drink, wouldn't you?"

"Don't forget we're still in the past," Zeke said. "We have to go back through the time travel door again to get to our proper time. Assuming it still works and we didn't screw up somewhere along the way and strand ourselves in an alternate universe."

"We delivered the door to the Doc," Max said. "I'd say mission accomplished. I don't think there's too much more we could screw up back here. And since it's the past I probably haven't been banned from most of my favorite bars yet. Come on! Let's get another drink! All that running and hurrying sobered me up way too much."

"What if you run into yourself at one of your favorite bars? We could still strand ourselves in the wrong universe. Let's just get back and then we can have a celebratory drink."

"Eh, you're no fun. Say, I've got an idea. Before we go back to our time, how about we go just a little bit into the future? Say just far enough to find out who wins the next Gravity Ball championship? Then we can go back to our time and place a bet and score some major floss!"

"If it's all the same to you, I'm pretty burned out on time travel right now. Can we just get back to our time? Maybe Dr. Octavius will let you take the door out for a spin later on your own and you can do whatever you want."

"All right, all right. I can probably have more fun anyway without you dragging me down. We'll go back. Maybe the Doc will slip us some extra floss as a reward for a job well done."

They set the time travel door to the zero position and stepped through. To Zeke's great relief they reappeared back in Dr. Octavius's lab in Quartzwater City where they had originally departed from. However, there was no sign of Dr. Octavius or anybody else for that matter.

"Well, we made it," Max said. "Let's go grab that celebratory drink we were talking about."

"Sure," Zeke said as he glanced at the work table. "Hey, isn't that the door to Quartzwater City that we just delivered to Dr. Octavius back in the past?"

"What are you talking about?" Max asked. "How can it be here when we just dropped it off there? Uh oh, maybe we did screw up the timeline somehow."

"Or maybe the time travel door took us back a little bit earlier than when we left," Zeke said. "Lothar did mention it wasn't totally accurate."

"Oh. Well, no big deal. So we just go hit a bar and lay low until we catch up to the time we left."

"Except someone's coming in the door right now," Zeke said as he heard the doorknob to the lab starting to turn.

"So what?" Max said with a shrug.

"So what if it's us? We didn't see ourselves before we left. There's still time to screw up the timeline. Quick, we'd better hide."

They ducked into a cabinet which was barely big enough to hold them both just in time as the door swung open and Dr. Octavius walked in whistling a tune to himself.

"It's just the Doc," Max whispered. "Let's just go out there and tell him we succeeded in the mission he's about to send us on."

"Yeah, but he didn't say anything about us telling him we'd already succeeded when we left. Don't you think he might have mentioned that to give us some confidence? I don't think we talked to him. We'd better stay hidden in here. We'll probably see ourselves come in here in a few minutes so he can send us on our mission. See? Here comes Lothar right now."

"Ah, Lothar," Dr. Octavius said. "Did you bring the nose plugs?"

"Right here," Lothar said as he handed one to Dr. Octavius and pinned one to his own nose. "May as well do some science while we're waiting for Dennis to find those two young men, right?"

"You got it, L-Dawg," Dr. Octavius said. "And I've got that new weapons grade stink bomb I was telling you about ready to test out. My new smell-o-meter machine will tell us exactly how stinky it is without us having to smell it ourselves. Are you ready?"

"I was born ready, O-Bro."

There was a flash of light accompanied by an explosive sound. A moment later a thick, noxious gas began to fill the room, penetrating the cabinet where Zeke and Max were hiding. They attempted to cover their noses, but the extraordinarily intense disgusting smell was causing them to retch.

"Oops, I forgot to switch on the smell-o-meter, so we were unable to get a reading on that. Better light off another stink bomb."

There was another flash of light and loud boom. Zeke and Max shifted around and buried their faces in their shirts in a futile attempt to avoid the second round of intense odor that bombarded them.

"Oh wow, that's off the charts on the smell-o-meter. Well, we'd better light one more just to confirm our results."

A third explosion went off and an even thicker gas cloud filled the room.

"Wow, the smell-o-meter says that one was even stinkier than the last one. I think I can smell it a little even with these industrial strength nose plugs. Well, I'd say our experiment was a success. Let's set up the fans and see if we can clear the stench out of here. Just aim them towards those cabinets in the back there and we'll be sure to steer clear of that area until all the gas is gone."

A couple of high-powered fans were set up and proceeded to blow all of the gas directly towards Zeke and Max inside their cabinet. Zeke attempted to hold his breath, but the smell continued to linger on much longer than his lung capacity allowed him to resist it.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the stench began to dissipate.

"Still no sign of those young men?" Lothar said as he put the fans away. "Well, while we're waiting we could listen to some music. I brought my favorite album, which contains the 100 greatest polka hits of all time." He put it on and cranked the volume to skull-rattling levels.

"Oh my lord, what is this horrible racket?" Max asked. "I don't know how much longer I can take this! We'd better show up soon so they can send us into the past and we can get out of this cabinet."

"Surely we have to be coming in a few minutes, right?" Zeke whispered back. "This can't go on forever."

They made it through fifty-eight of the polka songs before Dennis finally led their past selves into the room. There was a further delay as Lothar and Dr. Octavius sent Dennis off on a bagel run and had to go through the order in painstaking detail multiple times to ensure he had it correct. Then they had to sit through lengthy instructions for a second time as Dr. Octavius and Lothar explained all the nuances of time travel to their past selves. Finally, they watched themselves disappear through the time travel door. Max flung the cabinet door open and they tumbled out onto the floor.

"Finally!" Max said. "I thought we'd never leave!"

Dr. Octavius turned to the new arrivals. "What are you two doing in my cabinet?"

"We've been hiding out in there for hours waiting for ourselves to leave so we wouldn't screw up the timeline at the last minute. The mission was a total success, by the way. You're welcome."

"Why didn't you emerge immediately and tell me the mission was a success? I knew I was going to send you back in time, so it's not like you would have really changed anything for me, other than I could have breathed a little easier when I sent you off just now."

"We didn't come out because we thought we hadn't before," Zeke said. "We never saw ourselves when we left because we must have been hiding in the cabinet the whole time."

"Yes, well, what's done is done now. Can't change the past, as we all know well here. Not without creating a parallel universe, at any rate. The important thing is the mission is a success. And none too soon, because I think Vance may have just arrived to blow this place up."