"Play nice now kids," Gutt warned, and broke camp.
I followed at a brisk walk, over to where a narrow set of stairs rippled away from the luxurious Rink. = We leapfrogged the three steps, stomping towards a ramp beside the bar. The ramp lay alongside a wall near the left side of the Front doors, & ascended to unite with a balcony situated overhead the bar. There was an ongoing feud as to its bona fide name. Gutt called it The Wooden Leg; I called it Peggy (short for peg leg) -- right now a butterball cow could name it and we'd both give two thumbs up.
We dashed up the slope where our feet traded shag furs for thin carpet, and pivoted to the right, whizzing beside a collage of antlers that made up the Terrace railing. Perched on the opposite side of the headquarters there was another Great Blue balcony that was dissimilar in style & geometry: It's front edges were triangularly jagged, with less amounts of exposed lumber, and without a railing to enclose its perimeters. That wing was for lounging, or raining down ambushes at the unsuspecting.
But The Peg-Leg was exclusive, even confidential access. Gutts once said he'd ward the ramp with caution tape if it wouldn't attract curiosity like unwanted bugs to a light bulb. He'd briefly made mention of the unspeakable assets under Peggy's protection, but that's only about as good as knowing that Area 51 is in Nevada -- when you never get to visit.
After all this time Malibu was supplying infinite room and board to mystery somewhere in the bowels of the shack, amidst all the cover up which he never showed remorse for the martyrdom of my imagination's jillion theories; I was about to become a commemorative patch-wielding Peeker at top secret material, thanks to this catawampus day.
We zoomed through a dim, narrow space, heading through some dreary curtains, which served to obscure the depth of this hallway from a downstairs viewpoint. Gutt instinctively swept them out of the way, unveiling a pole. It attached to the ceiling and sank through a silver box, lined with small beeping lights. Were it not for the pipe I'd have assumed the box was simply a container, but like this it was certain to be some unpredictable device altogether.
Then from his shirt pocket Gutt produced a round, gooey substance, rolled it around on the fingers of his left hand, knelt down, & began punching a code into a keypad on the far side obscured from my view. I danced closer & peered around his belly that I might dedicate the sequence to memory. A closer look revealed there weren't numbers on the buttons, but abstruse symbols instead.
Gnarly lock.
When he squashed the last button, the lights flashed faster, faster, lower & Sharper, until a series of interwoven clicks spawned from inside. Cracks slowly transpired ever-wider along all the cube's surface. An icy glow scattered from between the gaps, like Sun rays through a dying glacier.
Extravagant padlock.
"Now you begin to see the underpinnings," he warned, as we watched it break apart and lift to expose a wide hole it was concealing./-\ I ogled at the pieces. Eight pieces hovering about what I now recognized as a fire pole. My imagination resurrected completely. I had known more before the onset of this anti-gravity element. Now I knew I didn't know the half of it. (Like i didn't know gravity was absent inside EnviroSpins)
"Neat-O!" I gasped with the arctic on my tongue… goosebumps of suspicion sneaking into my Gut.
We slid down the pole, Malibu leading the tour, & I trailing from above, almost queasy with anticipation. I wasn't even to the bottom of the floor yet when the parts reassembled as a single unit over the hole, & dumped us into darkness. Hazy back-up lights eased on no later than I had reached the concrete of a decently-sized square Base[__]Mint.
But suddenly, I was swarmed with a sinking feeling that Notorious locales like Area 51 did not house all they were alleged to censor. Stony walls were white but appeared dirt-smudged; pipes zig-zagged in and out of sight in 3 of the 4 corners. The floor was barren—except for a tub with a possum advertised on the Side, near the center of the room brimming with a dark trove of Glocks. Granted, there were shelves upon shelves lining the exterior of the cellar, but I could make out nothing more than pistols.
"This is it?" I demanded.
"This is the Treasury," he repeated, gladly.
I stared at the back of his greying head, severely disappointed. I. have. been. scammed. A palace empty as a shell. "Commme Awnnn! Measly, fucking, HANDGUNS?"
He raised a brow. "Not reveling in its glory?"
I bristled. "Doesn't really meet my Ex. Pec. Tations."
"Welp. This is where the magic happens," he guaranteed, rubbing his hands together. "But unlike so many other things, son, this won't disappoint."
"What's not downright heartbreaking about those pea-shooters! You said Fryin'-gators & Staggering-rhinos-worthy!"
He was as cheerful and carefree as Larry the cucumber.
"Have a little patience. That's one of my tricks. The Element of inner smokescreen is what keeps it twice as safe as any ordinary Vault." He moved straight ahead and selected three revolvers as if picking ripe fruit, while I dogged at his heels.
He snapped up a half-baked boomerang of metal, and tilted at me in his palm. "Pop-out chamber, manuaLoad, able to pass as a child's toy. No more need to explain this one; since it's a gag!" He scrapped it over his shoulder with a clatter.
He selected something off a higher shelf. "Here, this is an upgrade by far," he began displaying. "Nice handle, plush grip, complete with a legit safety switch. Still gotta thumb the hammer for each shot, but don't let that discredit the Larger chamber, Propulsion, and of course," he peered down the barrel at me: "Better accuracy." I stepped to the side. You'd think an experienced gun handler would know better than to do that.
He set that back on the shelf, slipshod hasty, and prepared to make a genuine exhibit of the next item, roaming down the isle. "Name worth mentioning this time, is the HalterMitt revolver, hand-crafted in…" he turned to the underside of the broad case: "1872." At this point I curved my lips inward to keep from haranguing him about archaic inefficiencies.
He slid back the lid of the carton kit housing it, to reveal several other utensils of different sorts resembling spoons, syringes, tuning forks, screwdrivers, and thermometers. They were plated with twinkling gold & ruby (probably had been merely brass or copper when they had seen action in their day).
The one item I could barely identify, appeared to be a ramrod. "... Pristine trigger and swirling inner chambers," Gutt's voice phased back into my ears. "At nine or ten inches in length, this was a superior muzzle in its time." I rolled my eyes. "And who could resist these extravagant lasso and bugle engravings.?...?.."
"Vairrry Decorat–" my voice lunged, but snagged to a halt with my mouth still ajar. The man in front of me was transforming into a cannon. Gutterson reared back with the mahogany box and its antique contents, lid carelessly wide open, balancing it with one big paw as if he was about to shoot a half-court shot for the win, a mighty gleam in his suddenly child-like eyes.
"What are you doing?!" I choked -- not having the ability to insert any emotion into the plea, haunted and transfixed by the relics about to head airborne. I knew time was hopeless to even reach out & intercede its tragic flight. Gutt didn't disappoint. He bombed an arching beauty, "kuuu-Runch!" right into the wall. A shiny blaze of tools bled together & scattered, shedding tears over the metal's bruised forms.
"WHUDGYA do that for!" I beseeched of him.
Gut gestured abstractly behind me. "Oh fooey. Always gotta have somethin' on hand that looks like priceless g'embroidery for would-be thieves." Guess I wasn't going to get a straight explanation no matter how bad I wished to pinpoint his motives. "But now check this out," he entreated, scurrying over to a keypad on the wall. A humming noise filled the room when he hit Enter, and a gallery Tray began to descend into sight.
It was easy to tell what the rack carried right away. "Ah," I noted, finally intrigued. "We've arrived at a Semi-automatic station."
Malibu just chuckled. "Always a quip smearing your brow at a second's notice."
He ran over, clapped my shoulder, then stepping back and seeming to Swell with enthusiasm he, uh... twirled with arms outstretched & face uplifted to the rolling skies like a freaking ballerina. He couldn't make it worse, but he did, and ventured a caroling. "Eeeeven Theeez tooo..." he paused, as if all the coins in the universe stood on edge -- which came crashing back down as he dropped the hammer blow:
"Dee'coyyz."
He poked another button and the former mechanical construct rose out of view. Then he was strolling along into a far corner before it even latched shut. The targeted corner was spotless & empty, but did that bother Malibu? Not a bit. "You can never cover your bases too much," he recommended, and reached out for what my eyes registered as air next to a small table. But a red tarp burst into his grasp {n!~^O} ~ to which a Gatling gun popped into view beside his knees.
"Whoa dude! Invisibility is a serious upgrade!" I recoiled. "How we gonna use that? It's massive!" I huffed.
"I have it pinned to the floor," The Gutter grinned ear to ear. "So your answer would be: not in any Standard sense."