"Ha! That'd be the day! YOU looking for a little ACTION? You've got girls begging to go with you!" Jeanie half joked!
Larry gave her a disgusted look. "Not THAT kind of action!" he said, "But thanks for the compliment about the girls. I HOPE I'm not interrupting anything, Doc. Hey why does everyone look so discouraged?"
"Oh, no reason in particular, just have too many mysteries to solve, that's all, especially about Mike's picture, here."
Larry looked at it quickly, then screwed up his handsome face into the funniest expression!
"What the hell....." he laughed. "haven't seen anything like that since I saw one of those runabouts crash on the main road years ago! What is it, a screw, or some nuts and bolts?"
"How you ever got to be a technician amazes me sometimes, son," Cooper teased. "That's neither. It's an MLC, one of our great American defense systems. But it's too long a story to explain again. It's just that Mike's been drawing it and he doesn't know why. He's never even SEEN one! If you have any clues, let us know. So far I don't believe there's an answer in THIS world!"
"You give me the shivers, Doc!" Larry replied. You could see the goose bumps appear on his bear arms. He hadn't been as conscientious about the weather as Mike, and wore his short-sleeved shirt, as usual, with his favorite tight blue jeans.
"I'd like to give you guys a good boot out of here!" Cooper said, looking at Larry and Jeanie. "I think it's the only way I'll get you to do what you've been told."
Mike laughed, Jeanie moved away from him with a disappointed look, and took her sweater from the nearby coatrack. While the others were talking something on the workbench caught Mike's eye. It was an odd-looking thing. It looked like two old-fashionedold-fashioned car transmissions put big end together. As Mike looked at it he realized it was hermetically sealed.
"Hey, Doc, what's this thing?" he asked.
"That," said the Doctor, "is the main element of The Matter Dispersing Unit. That's what is supposed to spread the atoms in the object out, so they can be drawn into The Transport Beam! I sure would like to get it apart, but it's vacuum sealed. I've got to send it to the big shop down south to be disassembled. That's the only piece that's got the hydraulic equipment strong enough to pull out that valve and let the air in. Then it takes a pretty good machine to pull the two sections apart."
"Oh, you mean this little thing here?" Mike asked, putting his finger through a ring-like fixture on the side of the device.
"Yes," said Dr. Cooper, "but you couldn't budge it...no human being could."
Mike put his other hand on the device and pulled gently on the ring. It withdrew about a quarter of an inch,