26

Jody and Chris reluctantly hoisted themself off of pillows and back to their feet.

Now Jody was wearing Chris' "Sloan City, Oh Yeah!" sweatshirt. It didn't fit but she wore it anyway and Chris wore Jody's blank black t-shirt.

They walked.

"Um, Jody," Chris said, "I'm getting a little worried. How long are we going to be down here?"

Jody said nothing. Chris furrowed her brow at Jody, but tried to take it in stride and just kept on walking. They had passed from plumbing to portraits, several they recognized and at least a hundred that they didn't.

"Look," said Chris, "here's Tad Endsley."

Jody nodded. "Who is that?"

"He played 'Chip' on .. um .. I don't remember. I worked with him on some stuff. Way back before Wizard Star. He had a series."

"Weird, very weird," Jody said. All her disbelief had been used up and now she felt confused, even impatient. "Sinks ... followed by toilets, followed by bathtubs followed by love-nests--"

Chris smiled.

"Soft music, bells, waterfall sound effects, followed by portraits of unknown TV actors. No offense."

"It's okay," Chris said. "Believe me, I only know Tad 'cause I worked with him."

"Ya know, they pay well, this tribunal," Jody said.

"I'm having a good time so far," Chris smiled. "I am getting a little hungry though."

Jody nodded.

"Look Jody, here's one of Marcia Brundtland!" Sure enough, Jody walked over and saw a meticulous painting of the Norwegian leader, done when she had only been in office a few months. The odd thing about the painting, Jody thought, was the woman's streaked hair.

"Gro Harlem Brundtland?" Jody asked. "Why do I even know who that is. I'm just good with presidents, I guess."

"I went to school with her."

"Really? Voice school?"

"No, silly, high school!"

"So Gro Harlem Brundtland went to high school in the United States?"

"For a year. We called her Marcia."

"Hey, Chris?"

"Mm hmm?"

"When you were friends with her, what color hair did she have?"

"Umm, blonde I think."

Jody looked away and looked back at the portrait. "Huh." She did a doubletake. Clearly shown in the painting was a very young Gro Harlem Brundtland as a punk rocker, with her hair cut for maximum shock and provocation - with patches just above her ears completely shaved off, and the thick shock on top of her head dyed red and purple. "What happened to the.... She was just older and she had a ..."

Chris waited patiently. "Hmmmm?" she asked, giving her friend the benefit of the doubt.

"Did you see that?" Jody asked.

"See what, Jody?" asked Chris.

"That painting, of Marcia, it changed when I looked away and looked back and -"

While speaking she had looked away again and when she looked back, what she saw was a frail senior citizen with her hair in a knitted cap. But it was still Marcia Brundtland, just much older.

"Chris! Tell me what you see when you look at this Marcia painting!" Chris said, "Um, well, she looks a little older than when I knew her."

They were silent.

"Jody, I'm hungry! There's not going to be any food down here! How much further is it? We're not going to find the sink and we're going to have to turn around and walk all the way back!"

Jody staved off irritation by kissing Chris.

Now it's political, Jody thought. Don't let it be political. Don't let it be cynical, not this soon.

Chris was caught off guard but fell into it a bit quietly, and returned Jody's affection.

Once they began, both of them warmed up to the sensation. When they stopped kissing, they continued walking, holding, with palpable heat, exhaling.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, Chris," said Jody, "but there is going to be a second exit. We aren't going to have to backtrack. They asked me not to tell you. But we have to at least try our hardest to get that sink."

"Okay," said Chris, raspy. They continued walking past the portraits.

Jody blinked - realizing she had just walked away from the weird, unsettled question of the Marcia painting. She had fallen into a sexual autoclave and had her brain wiped, and just forgot.

"Jody?" Chris asked.

"Mm hmm?"

"Why didn't they want you to tell me there's another way out?"

"That's a good question, kitty. I don't know why. And there's something else weird. When I looked at that Marcia picture it was different every time."

"What do you mean?"

"First I looked and she was kind of middle aged, and then really young and then really old."

Chris blinked. "I'm really confused. But I know we can get out of the tunnel somehow, so we may as well go ahead."

"Okay." They passed gradually out of the portrait hall and entered a new one. This one was full of refrigerators.

"Refrigerators! Food!" cried Chris. "I hope they're not empty!" She opened one.

"What the hell!"

Jody looked inside. The refrigerator was completely empty.

"Try opening the freezer door, see if there's anything there."

She opened the freezer to find row upon row on cardboard boxes.

"Frozen dinners!" cried Chris. "A hell of a lot of good that does us."

Jody picked up one of the boxes and examined it. "Wolfgang Puck. Spago brand frozen pizza."

She picked up another one. "Wolfgang Puck. Spago brand frozen lasagna. Jeez."

"Well," said Chris, "There must be a dozen fridges down here so, um, at least we can try them all and see."

She went to second fridge. Like the first one there was a black dial with numbers mounted on the side. Next to the dial was a flashing red light.

"Maybe -" said Chris, opening the fridge. The contents were identical. The fridge was empty and the freezer was full of Spago pizza.

"Oh god," said Chris. "I'm so hungry I could almost just tear into one of these frozen pizzas."

"Don't do that, Chris," Jody said.

"Why not?" Chris asked with tremulous eyes.

Jody was about to answer, when she heard a man shouting.

"Stop, thief!"

Both women froze. They were startled when a man with tangled black hair crushed in from deeper down the tunnels. He was about 5'5 and wore an apron which was mottled with unidentified food stains.

"Stop! What the hell are you doing?" It took a moment for Jody to realize why the man looked familiar. His picture was on each box of Spago pizza.

"We're sorry, we didn't know," Chris protested.

"What are you DOING down here?" Puck demanded.

"We, um, we're trying to find a solid gold sink, we got hired to -"

"Look," Puck said, "That plumbing showroom, it's 443A Loyd Tunnel. This is 443C!"

"We're veryvery sorry, sir!" Chris said.

I think I'll let her talk us out of this one, Jody thought.

"We're veryvery sorry, we got veryvery hungry, we didn't know how long it was going to take and we got lost in the tunnels and -"

"Hungry?" Puck said. He brightened up and chuckled. "Well why didn't you say so? You know I am a chef? Come this way, please!"