A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

"Ugh!" Clo exclaimed. "Don't yell at me! I'll have you know those shoes cost more than that can and your trash combined!"

She smirked. "And you can have those shoes if you answer the question!"

A.N.T.I.: The Rebellion

Boe Ring saw the signal, and was more than happy to oblige. He held up the SPELR and aimed it toward the base of the trashcan. "Answer him like he says. One shot of this stuff at the bottom of your can, and you'll be on a roundtrip excursion to the moon." He flashed a blinding grin, but then the grin faded as he rethought his threat. "No, wait, not roundtrip. Just one-way. Because you won't get back." He thought some more, seemingly straining his brain. "Or, maybe you will get back, cause what goes up must come down, right? Yes, that's the law. So don't get any ideas of staying up, cause then you'll be breaking the law!" He glared at the hobo menacingly.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

The man's eyes widened.

"How much are we lookin at for those shoes? My old'ns here are rather... well... I don't have any shoes. I'll take the deal."

CyKo passed the shoes to the man, who jumped back into his trashcan, landing with a *thump*.

"Great," lamented CyKo, "We just got scammed, I think. I should have him tell me BEFORE I handed him the shoes."

The man reappeared. "Follow me, yes. Down my vortex of doom. "

CyKo was reluctant. "Tell me what I want to know, now."

The hobo stared at him, then rolled his eyes . "Whatever, man. I don't see how it makes much of a difference out here than it does down here. Anyways... Look, behind you!"

CyKo looked. He turned round again, to see that the man was gone, the trashcan lid rattling.

"The old 'Look behind you cuz there's something cool!' trick. Oldest trick in the books... Shoulda seen that coming. Just great. Now we HAVE to follow him."

CyKo delved into the trashcan, motioning for the others to follow him.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Clo stared at the rattling trash can lid. First she had lost her favorite pair of shoes to curiosity and a hobo. Second she was being beckoned to follow CyKo down a stinky, dirty tunnel through a trash can.

She grabbed Agent Boe's arm, horrified, and said, "I am NOT going down there."

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Agent Boe Ring glared at Agent Clo Verz and pulled his arm away stiffly. "Don't you know it's against ANTI Regulation Code 314.625 Section 3 Paragraph 12, for any Agent to grab the arm of another Agent who is carrying a loaded dangerous weapon!?" He stated in a very matter-of-factish way. "Consider yourself warned, Agent Clo. Next time you may be in danger of receiving the sanctioned punishment of repeated banana-squishing to the face."

He moved forward and examined the trashcan. "Looks safe to me. Orders state that no agent may stand aside while another agent treks dangerously into an evil trashcan vortex. Therefore, we must follow!" He charged down inside, banging his head against the can and yelping a few times as he fell through.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Princess Lia looked from Agent Clo to the trashcan. "Well," she said. "Here goes nothing." She wrinkled her nose and tried not to mind the stench of banana peels and smelly socks as she plunged head long into the trashcan.

A.N.T.I.: The Rebellion

"My head. . . ." Agent Thorn moaned several hours later in a dark bus, her skull pulsating with pain. Voices up at the front of the bus floated back to her. . . .

"Good idea, stopping for a bite to eat," one of them said, their voice guttural.

"Yeah," said another. The driver, the agent thought. "I needed some fuel. Especially since we've got to lug that snoop all the way to that freighter. She's as heavy as Big Beard."

Agent Thorn's jaw dropped indignantly, but she didn't make a sound. How am I going to get out of here? She thought, switching to the more pleasant subject of how on earth she was going to keep from getting caught and beaten by thugs.

Biting her lip and willing her limbs to be silent, she slowly got to her hands and knees and slipped out from under the seat where the thugs had left her in a heap.

The safety door, she thought abruptly. She was already at the back of the bus—she could reach the door, get it open and vanish into the night before the thugs could set down their burgers. Couldn't she? Only one way to find out.

Heart pounding, Agent Thorn jumped up from where she had been hiding behind the seat and threw herself at the door. She wrenched it open, and half-jumped, half-fell out of the bus. Scrambling to her feet, she took off running.

She hadn't sprinted fifty paces before she reeled to a stop. She gasped, realizing that if she had gone a step further, she would have fallen clean into the ocean. This was a port—a huge industrial port from the looks of it. While dryads could float pretty well, she couldn't swim. And floating around like a sitting duck wouldn't help her right now.

She glanced around—she could hear the shouts of the thugs. They seemed to be alerting others. Suddenly, sirens were blaring to a beat that sounded suspiciously like "Stayin' Alive," and disco lights were sweeping across the water and the piers, trying to locate the fugitive.

What am I going to do? Agent Thorn thought frantically. She ran along the row of warehouses, trying to find a place to hide. She slipped on a dead fish, and tumbled head over heels into some cargo.

It was her dumb luck that suddenly a cargo net drew up around her from all sides, and she and the cargo were lifted onto a nearby freighter without delay.

"Good grief," Agent Thorn muttered, sounding for all the world like Charlie Brown.

Thinking quickly, she tore a rose out of her braid, and weighting it down with her beloved A.N.T.I. keychain, she threw the little bundle onto the dark pier down below. It wasn't much, but it gave her a little hope. At least she was leaving some kind of trail, pitiful though it was.

Seconds later, she was being lowered into the dark, damp depths of the ship's cargo hold. A grated door slammed shut somewhere over her head, and she could hear laughing. It wasn't the bus driver's—he was a lightweight, after all, though she remembered him from her first altercation with these mutants. No. It was someone else. Someone much more dangerous.

"You'll never get away with this!" She cried, shaking her fist. "And there had better be something to eat down here! Cheese puffs, preferably!"

But the laughter only continued, ringing in every nook and cranny of the metallic fortress that was now her prison.

A.N.T.I.: The Rebellion

Whit follows a bit behind the group, slightly nervous about what will come to them below. Also trying to stop the continuous bleeding still flowing from her leg- still coming through the band aid she applied.

Questions flew through her head, Why Agent Thorn? What were they planning to do to her? And then as the other group going to Muppetzylvania to try and stop the bad people, were they going to be able to do it? What could happen to her best friends and her little brother?

she was next in line to go in the dark hole into the deeps of the trash can, quickly thinking how she was definitally going to have to fix her pigtails after getting to the bottom...if she makes it to the bottom...then she jumps...

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

THUD.

CyKo landed on his back, dropping almost twenty feet in what was meant to be a three-foot-high trash can. He groaned, then was grabbed and pulled away, as other agents plopped down after him. He turned to see his rescuer, the hobo, put his hand to his mouth, motioning for silence.

The hobo pointed towards a passageway to the left, which led to a dirty room full of trash... and more trash... there was a TV playing in this passageway. To the left, as he pointed, was the ocean.

"Oskar will have brought your friend by boat to the land of Muppetzylvania. I don't know why, but I've seen many come there, and not once have I seen them return. Except one. Oskar... at least, that's what I heard when I was in boating industry."

"Who is Oskar?" asked CyKo, in a quick tone that almost frightened the hobo.

"Oskar is... a Muppetz. He lives in a trash can, not much different from my own, here. He listens to nothing but junk all day long, and watches trashy television shows."

"How do you know so much?"

"I know nothing..." said the hobo, pointing towards the passageway on the right. "... I... I... Submarine... Coordinates... 30 AQ 56 BZ... trap... brain... wash..." the man collapsed. CyKo rushed to his side. He picked him up, and looked into his face- it looked strange. His eyes were completely red.

Looking from side to side, CyKo glanced at the television... which was playing a MUPPETZ tv show. "Guys, we gotta get out of here! This man has been brainwashed! Whit Send, you MUST get out of here!"

CyKo ran to the other agents in attempt to help them up and out, tripping on his shoelaces. He found them tied together. The Hobo was holding onto CyKo's foot, pulling the foot towards him. Frantically, CyKo kicked the hobo and was released.

CyKo alerted the other agents of the situation, and he ran through the right passageway, writing down the coordinates on his shirt's cuff with a ballpoint pen as he ran. The passageway led to an underground dock; inside the dock was placed a giant submarine.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Chaos, thats the only thing she realizes as the other agents are trying to get out of there safely. Someone pulls on her shirt, pushing her in front of them, but shes to confused to figure out who it is.

She's in a complete daze, trying her hardest not to look at the TV which had brainwashed the hobo who everyone thought was helping them. Could the MUPPETZ know their exact location right now.

A cry from Cyko explaining his shoes have been tied together brings her back to reality. She can't go behind to help him, one glance at the television is all it takes. He seeem to have been released quickly because he passes her heading into a tunnel

Whit begins throught a tunnel as someone pushes her in that direction, she gets about mid-way when she hears the first gunshot...

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Clo's feet were rooted to the cement. There was nothing that could change her mind about jumping inside of the trash can. She had lost her shoes, but she still had her dignity and she didn't intend to lose it, no matter what.

She crossed her arms and watched the trash can. She knew she was disobeying orders and her commander would give her a what-for later, but going down dirty, disease-ridden garbage cans was not part of her contract.

She fluffed her blonde curls and smirked lightly. From her purse, she pulled out a green, square compact mirror. Flipping it open with her thumbnail, she smiled into the mirror and said, "They've gone down the can, sir."

An image of a googly-eyed, furry MUPPETZ came into focus. "Very good, Miss Verrz. I see you did not follow them, though."

"Of course not. I just bought this outfit. I don't want it to smell like rotting bananas and rat spit." Agent Clo growled. "But give me half an hour and I can tell you exactly where they went."

"You have have 29 minutes and 54 seconds. Go." The image of the MUPPETZ was gone and the regular mirror returned. Clo snapped it shut with a grimace.

She returned the mirror to her purse and pulled out a pack of tic-tacs, though they were a strange neon blue color and larger than usual. She tapped one out onto her palm, kissed it and then ceremoniously dropped it down the trash can.

The tiny blue mint fell down the tunnel, sprouting into a tiny white bat on the way down. Inches from the ground, it caught itself with its tiny wings and then glanced around, sniffing the air. Finally, he flew down a passage, squeaking excitedly the whole way.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

As the other agents followed CyKo into the passage to the right, Agent Boe closed his eyes and tried to use only his sense of hearing to aim his SPELR at the TV set, not daring to risk actual eye contact with the horrendous program. After a few seconds, he fired blind in the general direction of the TV. It was only after he fired that he remembered what a small enclosed compartment they were in, and he began to realize that a silly-putty explozion in the chamber to the left would create a condensed blast that just might be powerful enough to...

While he was thinking it, the blast hit him, and he flew back through the tunnel to the right, eyes still closed, with bits of trash flying all about him. He finally rolled to a stop at the end of the passageway, which opened up into an underground dock. He stood, brushed himself off, and cleared his throat in an attempt to regain dignity.

"I think I may have missed the TV..." he mumbled. "Oh, Submarine! Excellent. I say we commandeer this vessel for ANTI use. I've always wanted to ride one, after all."

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Princess Lia landed at the bottom of the trash can with a thuwmp. Her head was spinning and she began to wonder why she had decided to throw herself head first down a trashcan. So far the only reward had been a nose full of old oatmeal and Agent Boe's Silly Putty.

She had heard the cries coming from the tunnel, the gunshot, everything on her way down. The TV had her attention. It was covered half covered in Silly Putty, but it had been built to last. She groaned as she heard the Muppetz singing their brainwashing song on repeat. She pulled out a long thin silver tube. It looked like a super sized double A battery. Princess Lia hit a hidden button and out sprang a long teal energy blade. She swiped tiwce the TV, leaving it a fizzling melted lump of an electronic device. She smiled rather proudly, then hurried off in the direction of Agent CyKo's voice, unsure of what she would find at the submarine.

The only thing she didn't notice was the small white mechanical bat that followed her, videotaping everything and sending it back to Clo Verrz.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

as the last of the group shows up the sub (besides Clo- still to stubborn to get dirty) suddenly we realize we have no clue how to get in!

looking around Whit finds a giant key with an arrow pointing to it saying "key to get inside submarine and to start submarine HERE"

"I found the key! and it will start the sub too!" Whit explaims to the group. Finding the Key hole she puts the key swiftly into the hole(while she is doing this she hears a very light buzzing noise- but she dismisses this) Lights shine from the inside and music greet the group as the submarine door opens.

a slight reluctance group makes Whit put on her greatest brave face

"Come on guys! Follow me!"

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Eula Summerson was snoozing in the submarie. A few hours earlier, she had been trying to break out, but she was locked in. Finally, she had given up trying and passed out, but later when the door opened, she immediately woke up. Huh? What's going on? she thought anxiously. Am I free at last?

Sure enough, she poked her head out to see a couple fellow agents staring at her with suprise. Slighty embarassed to be caught like this, she greeted in her cheery British accent, "Hello, guys! I know this looks bad, but I tried getting in here before but got trapped. Thank you!"