Chapter Four -- Instincts and Unproven Theories

I see you slither away with your skin and your tail,
Your flickering tongue and your rattling scales
Like a real reptile.
                                   -- “Reptile,” The Church


     Dale awoke to the strong smell of chocolate. A couple of slaps to
the face helped bring him fully to the present.
     “Huh? What?” he snorted as he jerked about a bit, trying to sort out
his last remembered moments from the tangled weave of his baffled
mind. “Is it Easter already?’
     Dale, Zipper urgently buzzed, snap out it! Come on! It’s me,
Zipper!
     “Huhmm?” Dale blinked a few times, wondering why it was still
dark even though his eyes were open. He realized, with a bit of a shock,
that he was sitting on loose soil. Why was he in the dirt? Did his friends
bury him alive again?
     Wake up! Zipper bravely pressed on. A concussion has never
slowed you down before; don’t let it start now!
     “Wha... Zipper?” Dale glanced at him questioningly, then in
surprise as the events of the night finally forced their way through to the
front, past thoughts of chocolate bunnies and dangerous-yet-friendly
pranks. “Zipper!’
     Dale quickly rose to his feet, a tad woozy, but also wound-up as he
remembered how he and the rest of the Rangers had their clocks cleaned.
He frowned as he understood that during his obsession with trying to get
Foxglove back, he had lost track of the others. He also realized it was too
dark to see because he was looking directly at the wall of the pit he had
been dumped into. Glancing up, he spotted the roof of the shack. It
appeared to still be night, though he had no idea if he had been out for
two minutes or two hours.
     As his eyes readjusted to the low lighting, Dale looked back down
and could see Zipper standing before him, coated in a thin layer of...
something. It least whatever it was smelled like chocolate.
     Never to be accused of being denser *than* lead, Dale remembered
the syrup-slingers they had brought along, and mentally managed to
connect everything to the likely conclusion that Zipper had been shot with
the Syrup-Slinger.
     Wait. Monterey was using it -- did Zipper say something to
Monterey about the Aussie’s breath?
     Dale settled on the direct approach. “What happened?”
     Zipper decided not to risk Dale misreading his expressions in the
feeble light. He took a deep breath and spoke. “Lady Vitae happened.”
     Dale groaned as he rubbed his head. “Yeah, I noticed that too.” He
stopped. “Wait, how’d she get Monty’s syrup-slinger?”
     “Knocked him out.”
     “Knocked out Monty?” Dale asked in amazement.
     Zipper nodded.
     “Swell. He still down?”
     Zipper nodded again.
     “And the others?”
     “Chip’s hurt bad.” Zipper swallowed in worriment. “Can’t find
Gadget.”
     Dale shuddered as he remembered the Ranger Wing being
completely devastated by the giant armadillo. Gadget was a tough call to
say whether or not she would have been prepared for a sudden evacuation
like that. She was known to carry a first-aid kit and parachute around
with her, but also had the annoying habit of forgetting about making seat
belts and brakes for vehicles until they were already being test-driven.
     “Need help,” Zipper went on. “Can’t fly.”
     Dale peered closely at Zipper, and saw why; the chocolate ooze had
solidified somewhat, weighting down his wings and making them too
awkward to use. Zipper would have to have it washed off before he could
fly again.
     Dale bent over and scooped up his friend, so Zipper could climb up
on Dale’s back. Dale took a second to steady himself, then started up
the shaky wall of the pit as fast as he could.
     “You climb down here?” he asked on the way up.
     Zipper squeaked an affirmative, and Dale nodded.
     “Any idea how long I was out for?”
     Zipper explained that it took him a while to dig free of the syrup,
then look for the others, make sure Chip and Monterey weren’t in
critical condition, and then finally climb down the pit, so it had to have
been at least an hour by now.
     Dale sighed. “We don’t have much time.”
     A series of buzzes from Zipper conveyed that the housefly knew --
he was still conscious and had overheard everything that Raset had said.
     As they reached the top, Zipper immediately hopped off and headed
over towards the general area where the Wing went down. He signaled to
Dale where Chip and Monterey were, but he felt their first priority was to
locate Gadget.
     Dale agreed without a word and took up sorting through the left
side of the area while Zipper handled the right. Zipper crawled under
most of the wreckage while Dale lifted the debris up, always fearful that
each time he did, he would inadvertently uncover the inert form of
Gadget.
     Several minutes passed, and now the general feeling between the
two searching Rangers was one of confusion. They had combed over the
entire area, but still no sign of the lady mouse. Dale was afraid at first that
maybe she had been taken, as well, but he would have figured that Raset
would have added her name to the list of hostages he had.
     Zipper tugged at Dale’s tail, and pointed up to the side of one of
the rafters. Dale swung his head around, and grimaced at the side of
Gadget’s still form hanging from the wooden column. She did indeed
have her parachute on, and had apparently managed to pull the chord in
hopes that enough draft would at least slow her descent, but the chute got
caught on a nail in the pillar as she passed by. Like a pendulum, the
momentum must have swung her up, before swinging her back down to
ram into the pillar.
     Dale turned to Zipper. “I’ll get her down. You see if you can get
either Monty or Chip up.”
     Zipper gulped and nodded. He knew what Dale was thinking: they
had to leave as soon as possible, no matter what condition the others were
in. They had less than twenty-three hours by now to get to the A.P.F.,
convince McDugell to let Osiris go, and then head back on out to the
rendezvous. If any of the Rangers were in bad shape, they’d be forced to
split up -- never a good tactic for a team in a hostage crisis.
     Knowing the extent of Monterey and Chip’s injuries, Zipper opted
for the mouse; Chip had been battered around the worst, it seemed, and
might not be able to be revived without some medical assistance.
     While Zipper headed off to try and bring the musclemouse of the
group around, Dale skillfully scampered up the side of the pillar, carefully
perching next to Gadget. He wasn’t very good at diagnosing his
teammates, but she was breathing, and he couldn’t see any blood.
     “Gadget?” he gently poked her with one hand. “Hey, can you hear
me?”
     To his relief, she stirred a bit, eyes slowly opening. “Dale?”
     “Hey, I hate to rush things, but we don’t have much time. Are you
okay? To walk and stuff?”
     Gadget took a shuddering breath as her brain did a quick body
check; nothing was reported as broken or sprained. “I think so,” she
replied, her nerves from the crash fully enveloping her and causing her to
shake a bit. But it passed, and she nodded with confidence to Dale. “I’m
okay. Just was shook up a bit.”
     “You need any help down?” Dale offered, and for the first time
since awakening Gadget realized she was dangling from her parachute a
few feet off the ground.
     “Whoa...” she blinked. “Talk about getting up on the wrong side of
the bed.” Then, turning to Dale. “I can unhook myself from my chute,
but you’re a better climber than I. Could you give me a lift down?”
     Dale nodded, then moved under her. She carefully released the
safely catch of her parachute harness, and lightly dropped onto Dale’s
back, hanging on tightly. Dale himself tightened his grip on the pillar to
make up for the additional weight of the inventor, and slowly climbed
down to the ground. The last thing they needed was for him to slip and
involve them both in another crash.
     Touching down, Gadget looked on in dismay at the ruined remains
of the Wing. “Oh, shoot! That’s going to take a long time to fix!”
     “Too bad we don’t have a long time,” Dale added glumly.
     “Huh?”
     Before Dale could explain, they both heard a sharp whistle off to
the side. Glancing over, they spotted the beckoning figure of Monterey,
hunched over a prone and deathly still Chip.
     “Over here, mates!” Monterey called out. His head was still ringing
from whatever Lady Vitae had Pearl Harbored him with. He had to give
the girl credit for that; not many things could drop him in one shot.
     Zipper was double-checking Chip’s vital signs when Gadget and
Dale ran up. Monterey tossed Dale a red piece of cloth with yellow on it.
Unfolding it, Dale recognized the dirty and ripped piece of fabric as his
shirt.
     “Seen better days, mate,” Monterey remarked dryly while Dale
slipped it on.
     We all have, Monty, Zipper’s resigned gaze read.
     “How is he?” Gadget asked, taking a hesitant step forward.
     Zipper shrugged reluctantly, expressing that he couldn’t tell for
sure. Chip seemed to be in shock, or something close to it. He was
breathing, had a steady heartbeat, and didn’t have any open wounds or
anything. But he was out cold, and Zipper didn’t want to risk injuring
the chipmunk further by trying to jar him awake.
     Dale nodded. “Good thinking, Zip.”
     “What happened to him, anyway?” Monterey asked as he stood,
unsure what else he could do to help at the moment.
     “Got hit by that armadillo,” Dale said quietly. “Same one that got
away with Foxglove.”
     “Oh, Dale...” Gadget lightly touched his arm in compassion.
     “It’s okay,” Dale said, sniffling a bit. “I mean, Raset said that
he’ll give her back with Dr. Speck--”
     “Raset?” Monterey asked in confusion.
     “He has Dr. Speck?” Gadget tacked on.
     “Tore,” Dale tried to explain. “Remember that chameleon from
Cassy’s circus that got away?”
     “Him?!” Gadget and Monterey gaped in astonishment.
     “Yeah, that was his falcon that was swooping around. He snatched
Dr. Speck and Foxglove, and says he’ll turn ‘em over tomorrow at
midnight at the J.J. Roberts Department Store Distribution Center, but
only if we have Osiris there to trade.”
     “What?” Monterey balked. “Why in the name of pasteurization
would Tore -- or Raset, whatever -- want Osiris?”
     But Gadget frowned as she spotted the connection. “They’re both
crooked hypnotists, Monty.”
     Zipped nodded, and gestured that Raset had even mentioned that
Osiris was an old business partner.
     “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a bloomin’ jail
break,” Monterey snorted.
     “I don’t care,” Dale quickly pointed out. “He said he’ll kill either
Foxy or Dr. Speck if we don’t bring Osiris tomorrow night. That’s all
that matters to me.”
     Monterey nodded in understanding. “And we’ll have Osiris there,
mate. You can bet on it.”
     We have to get going, Zipper motioned to the others, so we can at
least get Chip to some sort of clinic.
     “Hey,” Gadget snapped her fingers. “We’re not too far from the
docks -- there’s that one place that we brought Tham to; I think I
remember how to get there once we get outside.”
     “Sounds good, luv,” Monterey said. “Zipper can wash that gunk off
his wings there, too. Too bad we don’t have anyway to get there with
the Wing busted.”
     “Hmm....” Gadget cast her eyes back over the wreck, then turned to
look around the shack. “Give me a few minutes to check what is actually
destroyed versus what is just in need of a tune-up in terms of parts.”
     She shot off towards the wreckage of the Wing, inspecting each
piece with one direct glance and separating the pieces into two separate
piles. A few moments later and she was finished, now focusing her
attention on one pile.
     Dale, Monterey, and Zipper could only watch in amazement as she
transformed into a blur of activity, snapping parts together and snaking
wires out of tubes to attach to electrodes while shoving one oddity into
another that was slightly larger. Monterey didn’t think he could have
blinked more than ten times before she was finished. She sat up and
wiped her brow with a gasp.
     “Golly, I need to start bringing my portable tool-kit from now on.”
She pointed up to one of the shelves. “Okay, now, just toss down items
as I call them out. Zipper, I’ll need you to help me as we build this,
especially since you’re small enough to fit inside propeller engines and
reconnect the main wires.
     Zipper saluted, not fearing the combination of “you” and
“reconnect the wires”.
     Quickly, they set to work, with Dale and Monterey running back
and forth throwing down objects as Gadget called for them. If she was the
surgeon, they were the nurses, and Zipper often acted as the scalpel,
squeezing into tight spaces to align parts or hold them steady as Gadget
fastened them in place. Finally, Gadget pointed to one of the fishing nets.
“Grab me that net, guys, and we should be all set.”
     “Heh,” Monterey quietly grumbled. He didn’t like the word
“should” in context with one of Gadget’s inventions. He and Dale
chewed through the rope, freeing the net from the metal pole, then tossed
it down.
     “There ya go, luv,” he called out to the blonde-haired sorceress of
scraping.
     “Thanks, Monty!” she cheerfully called out, fully confident in her
quick-fix solution. By the time the two Rangers had climbed back down,
she was finished. “Okay, just move Chip over here and we’ll be all set.”
     Carefully, so as not to jostle the injured chipmunk, Monterey and
Dale hoisted Chip up and smoothly moved him down to where Gadget
and the... “transport” waited. Monterey did a fairly good job of managing
to look open-minded about it.
     Gadget had taken the wing from the Ranger Wing which wasn’t
snapped in half and used it as the base for this ground vehicle. The
propeller motors were now the drivers for the rear tires, made from a
couple of large nuts with strips of dirt-filled tarp working as tires --
Gadget figured it would help cushion the ride, seeing as there were no
shocks. The original wiring was used to keep the wheel drivers in sync,
while some old, small jar lids from shack provided the front steering
wheels. She had managed to salvage the power source from the dead
Zapper, and rigged up some seating from the Wing’s original seats. In
order to make sure they didn’t worsen Chip’s precarious condition, she
had used the net to act as a make-shift combination hammock-gurney. It
was fastened in place, but the net hung free from the supports. When they
hit the road -- and when the road hit back -- Chip’s body would be able
to swing through most of the major bumps, keeping him from getting
jostled further.
     Chip was loaded up to it, the others got in and took their seats, and
then Gadget fired up the motor and shot off in a cloud of dirt and spilled
voltage.
     They rocketed out of the shack, down to the waterfront, and along
the coastline, heading up towards the clinic. They were silent for the
majority of the trip, until Monterey, as they pulled up to the clinic,
managed to crack a smile. “Ya know, we really should look into gettin’
an HMO plan.”

*     *     *

     “Well?” Gadget asked, a bit more fearfully than she would have
liked to admit.
     Dr. Mento smiled as she removed the stethoscope from Chip’s
chest. “He’ll be just fine,” she assured Gadget. “His system had a nasty
shock, but nothing was severely damaged. He was lucky -- he was hit
with enough force to snap his spine. A very durable chipmunk you have
here.” Her smiled faded slightly as she became more serious. “But I
would highly advise he get some rest over the next few days. Too much
exertion and he could collapse without warning.”
     The rest of the Rangers gave a perfectly synchronized snort. Chip
would have to be chained to the bed frame if he was to take any type of
medical leave.
     Dr. Mento rolled her eyes. “I was warned about you guys from
some colleagues of mine. I should have been expecting this. But don’t
come crying to me when he passes out in the onion dip at one of your
little soirees,” she patronized them, “because I’ll just to point and go
‘Neener neener neener!’ to all of you first. And then gloat about it for
the rest of his stay here.”
     The others shrugged helplessly. No point in denying the obvious.
     “Dr. Mento,” the small P.A. system announced outside, “Dr. Dee
Mento, please report to the nurse’s station.”
     “Excuse me,” she nodded politely to them all as she rose from
Chip’s side. “He should be awake in a short while, and then no one can
stop you if you want to leave.” She smirked knowingly at them as she
walked to the door.
     Gadget returned the smile. “Thanks, Dr. Mento. And sorry about
not following doctor’s orders and all.”
     Dr. Mento shook her head dismissively. “Like I said, your
reputation proceeds you. At the very least, stop by the nurses station, and
I’ll have them give you some medicine to help him out until you can
afford to slow down.” She nodded to them all again once more before
taking her leave.
     Gathering around Chip, Gadget glanced at the others. “We have to
wake him up somehow.”
     Monterey nodded grimly. “I know, luv. We’re burnin’ daylight,
and the sun ain’t even up yet.”
     Dale looked at his best friend, and sighed. “I don’t wanna hit him
or anything to wake him up, though. Not since he got like this from being
hit.”
     Zipper nodded, but shrugged as to how to wake him up gently.
     At that moment, Gadget remembered something from their trip to
Japan, which seemed so long ago by now. But, despite the passage of
time, she recalled with crystal clarity the same situation: Chip
unconscious, but they had to wake him up right then. Her close friend,
Kan, had pointed out a method that worked surprisingly well.
     A light warmth spreading across her face, Gadget leaned over and
caressingly blew into Chip’s unprotected ear.
     “History exam!--huh?” Chip exclaimed as he snapped awake. He
rubbed his ear in confusion, then caught sight of Gadget, her cheeks
delicately painted pink as she beamed at him.
     “Welcome back,” she softly said.
     Given the circumstances that put him in his current state, Chip had
to admit, it may have been worth it to wake up in such a manner. True, it
would have been better if he hadn’t needed to have been clobbered first,
but every dark cloud has a silver lining, he reminded himself.
     “Chip, no time to explain,” Dale said urgently, “just trust us. We
have to leave.”
     “Now?”
     “Now,” Dale nodded somberly. “Can you move around okay?”
     “I just woke up, Dale,” Chip reminded him. “My head is killing
me.” He rubbed it gingerly, checking for bruises. Carefully, he moved
himself to an upright position, and swooned a bit. He saw the need for
expediency in Dale’s eyes, however, and took a deep breath before
nodding.
     “I’ll need help,” he was forced to admit, “but I can move.”
     Monterey nodded and immediately was at Chip’s side, helping
him to get to a standing position. Zipper flew over and handed Chip his
hat, telling him they’d explain their current emergency on their way
back to the Ranger Tree.
     “Never a dull moment,” Chip was able to chuckle. “How’d we get
here?” He asked suddenly. “Wasn’t the Ranger Wing busted up?”
     Gadget nodded. “I whipped up a temporary transport to get you
here.” She shrugged. “We’re under another deadline.”
     “A real deadline,” Dale remarked gloomily.
     “You’d better ride back in the net, Chipper,” Monterey advised as
they slowly started out of the room. “The new car rides like a nickel
jalopy.”
     “Net?” Chip warily asked.
     “Did I tell you my tires are filled with dirt?” Gadget asked brightly.
     “Uhm, don’t worry about it.” Monterey advised Chip.
     “Yeah. Right,” Chip grumbled.
     “Zipper?” Gadget asked. “Could you grab the medication Dr.
Mento told us would be waiting at the desk? You’d be able to grab it
and meet us by the... uh... transport by the time we got Chip safely loaded
and secured, after all.”
     Chip was really starting to dread this trip.
     Zipper nodded in agreement and flew out of the door as the others
slowly headed outside, helping the shaken leader along, who was
muttering to himself all the while. When he saw the vehicle they wanted
to secure him into, he was only too happy to show his faith in its
reliability.
     “I must be crazy.”

*     *     *

     “You must be crazy!”
     McDugell glared down at Chip with a scowl he normally only
reserved for the bottom of the barrel crooks he dragged in.
     “Sorry, McDugell, but I’m serious,” Chip replied, somewhat
tentatively. “We have to get Osiris to the exchange by midnight or one of
two hostages will die. I told you all this already.”
     The large squirrel turned away with a growl, roughly rubbing his
temple with his free paw, while the other clenched the side of his desk.
     Chip and Dale exchanged glances, but there wasn’t anything they
could really do besides wait for the sergeant of the A.P.F. to speak again.
Dale shifted self-consciously in the chair, while Chip started pacing
slightly; the hammering in his brain had subdued a bit, but the stress he
felt building couldn’t be helping. Dr. Mento had prescribed to Chip a
capsule filled with pellets, with instructions to take two every four hours
until he either a) was out of medication, b) took a few days off to fully
recover, or c) died while on the job. Chip had to smirk at the way the note
had underlined that last bit as a “subtle” reminder that he was pushing
himself too hard. Dr. Mento  had him pegged.
     But this was something more important than him; Foxglove and Dr.
Speck never asked to be put in such a situation. Chip knew that any other
of his teammates would gladly give their lives for the hostages, and Chip
fully counted himself in their ranks as sacrificial lambs. Besides, he had
survived the ride home in the “Deathtrap,” as Monterey so aptly named it
-- when Gadget was out of earshot, of course.
     McDugell’s teeth ground together, bringing Chip’s wandering
thoughts back on track. 
     “You’re positive that we have to give him up?” the gruff squirrel
finally said, but he had calmed down.
     Chip nodded. “You know me well enough, McDugell. I wouldn’t
ask unless there was no other way.”
     McDugell scratched his chin, hating the thought of Osiris getting
away from them yet again. But the term “hostage crisis” was coined for a
reason. “Fine. You want the bum now?”
     Chip breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head. “Not just yet, no.
We still have over twelve hours, and there’s a few things I want to check
up on before we leave. We’ll return here at around ten or so, and then
just drive Osiris straight there.”
     “And you’re sure we can’t tag along?” McDugell grumbled once
more.
     “Sorry, but this guy was very explicit about that,” Chip said.
     “And,” Dale added in a low tone, “I think he’d really go through
with it, too.”
     “Rragghh....” the A.P.F. officer growled in frustration. He sighed.
“Fine. If it’s all the same to you, though, I’d rather not tell the bum
about it until you come to get him. Last thing I want is for him to gloat or
preen or anything else the punk likes to show his arrogance with.”
     “Fine by us,” Chip nodded as he and Dale started to leave. “Oh,
and McDugell?”
     “What?”
     “Thanks,” Chip said with a smile.
     McDugell merely grunted in response, as he sat back down behind
his desk. Chip took it as about a polite reply as the squirrel ever gave.
     Chip nodded respectfully as he and Dale left, closing the door to the
new office behind them.
     “Well?” Dale asked. His voice was still slightly off-kilter, but his
nerves had calmed considerably now that they gotten the green light from
McDugell to take Osiris.
     “Well what?” Chip asked, leading through the maze of small desks
and bustling activity of the newly-constructed A.P.F. station.
     “Well, now what do we check up on?”
     “Oh, that,” Chip stopped for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ll
tell you in a minute.”
     Dale wasn’t sure, but from the way his friend was acting, it
seemed as if Chip didn’t want to risk any A.P.F. officers from
overhearing them. Puzzled, Dale followed his best friend through the exit
and up the narrow stairway between the walls of the human’s police
station. A string of white Christmas lights shone brightly along the
handrail, making the long trip to the ceiling a safe one, even if it was a bit
of a climb. Dale was slightly out of breath as he and Chip crested the top
landing, at which point Chip leaned back against the wall for a moment,
contemplating. Dale gladly plopped himself down on the last set of stairs
leading up to the roof entrance. He took the time to get comfortable, as
Chip seemed to be in the mood to speculate.
     “We don’t want to rush into this thing blindly, right?” Chip asked,
referring to the question that Dale had asked down below.
     “Right,” Dale agreed.
     “Now, Dale, I’m going to do something that is a bit hard for me to
do.”
     “Admit you’re wrong?”
     “Not quite,” Chip growled through his gritted teeth. He would have
bopped Dale for that, but he didn’t have the energy to spare. “I’m
going to have to rely on second-hand information; yours, to be precise.”
     “Uh, thanks,” Dale replied, deciding to take it as a compliment.
     “Now think back,” Chip restrained himself from making a
comment as to the difficulty undoubtably involved in such a task for
someone like Dale, who had problems remembering to close the
refrigerator door. “You had a good view of that hole when that flacon
was holding you up. Do you think you could guess as to how wide it
was?”
     Dale thought for a moment, then stretched out his hands. “Lemme
see... uhm, I really wasn’t paying that much attention to it, but I think it
was pretty big. Like, bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a slug bug.
Maybe like three feet or something--” Suddenly, Dale’s axons flashed
like the fourth of July. “Hey! You think that it was the same armadillo
that was at our tree and at Sewer Al’s, dontcha?!” He was amazed with
his own insight.
     Chip openly gaped for a brief second, then regained his composure.
“Yes, I do.” He chuckled approvingly. “Pretty impressive, Dale.”
     Dale just smiled smugly. Boy, wait ‘till he told Foxy that--
     His face fell as he remembered that she was currently a hostage,
and he didn’t know where she was or if she was hurt. He had to get her
back.
     “I think it’s fair to say from your and Zipper’s accounts that this
giant armadillo is obviously working for -- or at least with -- Raset.”
     “So you think Raset is behind the Sewer Al beating, and visited our
place?”
     Chip nodded. “It all fits together, at least.”
     “But why did he beat up Sewer Al? I mean, you said it was
information, but what?”
     Chip shrugged. “I don’t know. Sewer Al is up to his considerably
high snout in all sorts of things that we probably aren’t even aware of.
The only thing I can guess is that it had something to do with Osiris.
Maybe not directly, but since he’s trying to spring his former partner,
it’s the best reason I can think of.”
     Dale gulped. “So why’d he stop by our place, but do nothing?”
     Chip grimaced. “I haven’t figured that out, yet.” He shook his
head and straightened, then started up the final flight of steps. “In any
case, at least we know of one lead we can follow up on.”
     “Huh?”
     “The Malek Research Center. I’m willing to bet it was a giant
armadillo they’re missing, and that we were the ones to unexpectedly
find it.”
     Chip allowed Dale to fly them home; the Ranger Plane was
inherently slower than the Wing, so the chances of them crashing were
significantly less. More importantly, as much as it pained him to admit it,
Chip didn’t trust himself behind the wheel in his current condition, not
when there was someone who could fly and didn’t have a concussion
and a painkiller in his system.
     Both chipmunks didn’t say a word, but their thoughts fixated on a
single point: they had ten hours.

*     *     *

     “Foxglove... Foxglove? Ah, you’re coming around. Good. I was
worried for a while that you may have been somehow injured during the
kidnaping.”
     Foxglove’s mind slowly broke through the heavy surface of
unconsciousness, hearing a voice talk to hear, a voice that she recognized,
but couldn’t place in her current state of befuddlement. She was lying
face down, on top of something that seemed to be made from metal and
wood, from the feel of it. Carefully, she opened her eyes, the low lighting
around her slowly focusing the incoherent shapes into objects as she
eased herself up to a sitting position.
     She was being assisted, and now that she could see her helper’s
face, she actually felt a bit of relief.
     “Dr. Speck!” she cried out, letting out a deep breath. “Thank
goodness you’re okay!”
     The doctor smiled and nodded. “I can say the same for you,
Foxglove. You were out like a light we they dropped you in here.”
     “In here...?” Foxglove glanced about, now fully aware. She was in
some sort of cage, constructed from bands of metal mesh. The cage itself
was resting on a wooden floor, accounting for the metal and wood texture
she initially felt upon awakening. They seemed to be in a rather large
room, but she didn’t know if it was a storeroom, or a stock room, or
something else. Several human-sized objects -- she guessed they might be
chairs, sofas, and clothing racks -- were covered in heavy, dust-laden
tarpaulins. Quite a few rows of aged, wooden support beams held up an
equally old, but sturdy-looking ceiling, twenty feet above them. The
feeble light being provided came from some low-watt bulbs hanging
overhead. The musty smell and creaking walls made it clear that
Foxglove and Dr. Speck were probably some of the most recent
occupants in quite a while.
     “What happened?” Dr. Speck asked Foxglove. He had known of
the friendly bat for a while now, though mostly through indirect contact
with the Rangers. On the rare occasions that he did talk to her in person,
she seemed to be a very affable sort, but she also seemed to bit
somewhat... eccentric. He had no clue if she was phobic of cages --
numerous small animals are -- and thus was trying to keep the
conversation going to prevent her mind from dwelling on such unpleasant
issues.
     Alas, for the good intentions of the doctor, his seemingly innocuous
question only served to bring Foxglove’s greatest fear to the front of her
thoughts.
     “Oh my God....” she shuddered uncontrollably.
     “What?” Dr. Speck looked around, thinking perhaps the bat’s
keen hearing had picked up on something beyond his admittedly aging
vision.
     “We’re being held captive by a... a...”
     “Chameleon?” Dr. Speck suggested.
     “What?”
     “His name is Raset,” Dr. Speck said in a downcast voice. “But
you’ll remember him better as Tore; that crook from the carnivel that
escaped. From the beginning of the year, remember?”
     Foxglove slowly nodded distractedly. She might have been more
appreciative of this information if she wasn’t still stewing over the other
assialant she ran across in that shack.
     “I mean the other one, though, the big one that lives underground.”
     “The armadillo?”
     “Shhhhh!” she hissed, glancing about as if the very utterance of its
name would call it forth. “Don’t say that!”
     Dr. Speck looked at her curiously. “Why?”
     “Because it invites trouble in,” she replied, too engrossed in her
scanning for the ineffable beast which may be lurking behind every
shadow.
     “Oh,” Dr. speck genially nodded. At least he knew that she wasn’t
phobic of cages. He decided to skip to more important matters. “Are the
Rangers okay?”
     Foxglove seemed to calm down considerably, until Dr. Speck
realized it was being replaced by shame. “I... don’t know,” she admitted
guiltily. “I passed out when... it took me.”
     Dr. Speck nodded and sat down in front of her. “It just placed you
in here, then left. It wasn’t carrying any other of the Rangers, so it’s
likely they escaped.”
     Foxglove took a deep breath. She had no doubt Dale did, but
wasn’t sure about the others; those not as Dale-like as Dale. “I hope
so.” She looked up at Dr. Speck with a questioning look, a thought finally
reaching her. “Hey, what happened with you, anyway? Why were you
kidnaped?”
     To her surprise, it was Dr. Speck’s turn to look a bit abashed. “I
was snatched on my way from the office,” he replied slowly. “And then
placed in a sack.” He shivered a bit. “I was terrified, as I thought that I
was about to be used as a part of a falcon potluck; we flew about long
enough to make me think that I was being saved for a mid-trip snack, at
least. But then the falcon landed, and I was dumped out of the sack to see
the Raset and the... other thing.” He looked down at the floor.
     Foxglove leaned forward, concerned. “What’s wrong, doctor?”
     “I’m afraid I’m responsible for your being here. At least,
partially. They were insistent on finding out the whereabouts of the
Ranger Tree, and I’m afraid I was not a tough nut to crack under their
pressure....” He ran a trembling hand through the remainder of his hair.
“I am sorry, Foxglove, for getting you into this. You didn’t ask to be
here.”
     “Well, I sorta did.”
     This caught Dr. Speck off-guard. “Come again?”
     “Well, when I arrived at the tree, the rest of the group were getting
ready to go pick you up, and I thought I could help.”
     “What? You weren’t captured at the tree?”
     “No. We were getting ready to follow Lady Vitae, and--”
     “Who?”
     “Lady Vitae. I -- omigosh!” Foxglove suddenly looked alarmed. “I
don’t know if she’s okay or not! Last I saw, she had been knocked
aside by the... the creature!”
     “Foxglove, wait; who on Earth are you talking about?”
     “The creature?”
     “No, the woman.”
     “Oh, Lady Vitae. Your main squeeze.”
     Dr. Speck actually had to let that one sink in before he could
properly comprehend it. “I have a significant other?”
     “Sure,” Foxglove nodded, as if informing him that he owed five
dollars for the football pool. “Really quite a catch, too, from the way
Monty was chuckling. Attractive girl, I guess. I never can tell with mice,
really--”
     “Foxglove,” Dr. Speck gently cut in. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
     “Sure you do,” Foxglove responded, unclear as to why Dr. Speck
felt the need to hide it. Unless... of course. She smiled reassuringly at
him. “Oh, don’t let it worry you. So she’s young enough to be your
daughter, so what? You’re still adults. You’ve just had more
experience at being one than she has.”
     Dr. Speck’s look of complete bewilderment was misread by
Foxglove as one of happiness, no doubt that he no longer had to pretend
he was still alone. She beamed.
     The mouse’s well-trained mind made a few mental leaps, as well
as a hop, skip, and a jump, and finally landed on a possible explanation.
     “Just to humor me, Foxglove,” he asked politely, “could you
explain what she looks like?”
     “Sure. Middle-aged female mouse, brown fur and hair, dresses sort
of old-fashioned, speaks with a British accent, you know.”
     “Yes,” he replied dryly. “I do know, I’m afraid.”
     The tables of confusion were turned.
     “What?” Foxglove asked.
     “She’s not my girlfriend, Foxglove; she’s one of Raset’s
companions.”
     Foxglove’s eyes widened. “Wait. You’re telling me we were
set-up?”
     “I’m afraid it looks that way. ‘Lady Vitae’ never even talked to
me, let alone told me her name. But she was present and chatted with the
others in this little group during my interrogation.”
     “Why that little tramp!” Foxglove snapped. “Just walks right in a
sells us all out! We never would have been in trouble if she hadn’t
shown up.”
     “I think that was the point, Foxglove.”
     Foxglove frowned and looked off to the side. “Well, it still wasn’t
very nice of her.”
     The pause lasted for a few moments, as each of them gathered their
thoughts. Naturally, Foxglove finished first. “So, now what do we do?”
     Dr. Speck shrugged as he stood up and strode to the other side of
the cage, looking out. “I’m not sure we can do anything right now.
We’re locked in a cage, in an unknown room, in an unknown building,
at an unknown location. I don’t have anything in my pockets that could
help us, and you have even fewer pockets than I do.”
     Foxglove was always impressed with the doctor’s logic, but she
shook her head, looking a bit fearful again. “But we have to do
*something*. I mean, Dale will be here before too long, and we can’t
have that!”
     Dr. Speck turned to stare at her. He was always impressed with her
own brand of logic, even if it constantly seemed to strip gears. Then
again, it may have been precisely that quality that he often found himself
envious of. “Two questions for you. First, how do you know Dale is
coming -- does he know where we are?”
     Foxglove shrugged, and began to absent-mindedly fiddle with the
American Indian charm Dale had given her just the other night. Actually,
Zinger was the gifter, but Dale had been the one to actually put it on her,
and that’s what was important to Foxglove. “He will, I guess. I know
him, and he won’t just let us stay here. He’ll come to rescue us. I’m
just not sure when.”
     She said it with such resolved confidence that the doctor didn’t
bother to point out the current unlikeliness of the event happening; in the
bat’s mind, Dale would be there to help them out, and that was that.
     “Which brings us to the second question,” Dr. Speck elected to say,
instead. “You would *want* him to come here, wouldn’t you?”
     She shook her head vehemently. “No! Not anywhere where there’s
one of those big monsters around! I won’t have Dale risk himself like
that -- because he would. You know it and I do.”
     Dr. Speck sighed in understanding. “So... you must be of the belief
that the large animal is the physical manifestation of evil, while bats such
as yourself are the physical manifestation of good?”
     Foxglove was starting to get suspicious. None of the other Rangers
had any clue what she was talking about before, and now this mouse she
hardly knew was practically paraphrasing it. “You think it’s some sort
of stupid superstition, don’t you?” she asked, miffed.
     But Dr. Speck chuckled. “What does it matter what *I* think,
Foxglove? It’s your God-given right to believe in what you want.”
     “But you think it’s bunk, don’t you?” she continued to press.
     He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he
stated honestly. “I’m not very well-versed on the subject, I’m afraid.”
He sat down opposite of his fellow captive, his back to the cage, not
realizing how releived he was to actually have someone to talk to.
     “I’ve heard about, though,” he continued, “from various
colleagues, and a few clients. Not that I think it’s just an illusion or
mental disturbance,” he hastily added as Foxglove began to glare.
     She looked at him levelly, and if Dr. Speck ever had any lingering
doubts that Foxglove was anything short of perceptive, they were forever
banished as she coolly stated matter-of-fact, “You don’t believe in it.”
     He paused, but didn’t see any reason to tap-dance around it. “No, I
don’t.”
     She looked at him a bit more, as if she was somehow scanning him
with some other sense yet unknown to science -- trying to see how his
belief affected his outlook on her. “But you don’t think that it’s foolish
for me to believe in it?”
     He shook his head. “I doubt Leonardo Da Vinci had many
supporters of his belief that a helicopter was realistic, nor did many
believe Einstein’s initial warning about an atomic bomb. Popularity of a
belief does not constitute its actual truth.”
     “Hmph.” Foxglove was not convinced.
     “Please, Foxglove, believe me. I do not call any one religious or
philosophical belief to be the one and only universal truth in the universe.
I have my beliefs; you have yours. We may both be right, we may both be
wrong. Since we’re in the same position, why waste time arguing about
it? Especially given our current circumstances.”
     “Well, yeah. Sorry,” she sighed in reply. “It’s just a nerve with
me. I’ve met others who think I should be embarrassed for holding to
my feeling’s of a balance.”
     “Don’t the other bats have the same belief?”
     She shrugged. “I guess. It never really comes up in conversation.
It’s not something we like to talk about, I think. Too unpleasant. Those
monsters are just... unnatural.”
     Dr. Speck thought for a moment. “Have you ever met a nice ar-- er,
I mean, a nice one?”
     “Goodness, no! I would run away if I even saw one! I tried to in the
shack, but I just couldn’t leave Dale.”
     “Hmm. Maybe there are nice ones out there that you never met.
Could this be possible?”      Amazingly, Foxglove couldn’t detect any
sarcasm or patronization in his tone. He was honestly interested in
hearing her thoughts.
     “...I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She shuddered. “It’s more
basic than that. I *felt* a horrible, burning fear before it even surfaced,
doctor! I just knew that something terrible and nasty was coming, and
that I had to get away! I never met one, and still I *knew* that we were in
grave danger; worse than anything I’d ever felt before. Even worse than
when Victoria kidnaped Dale.”
     Dr. Speck nodded; they had told him of that case a while ago. “You
said you felt a burning danger. Did you feel the danger and recognize it as
a fear of the creature, or did you feel a burning fear, and just assume that
the only thing that could cause this was the ar-- the creature?”
     “But it *was* the creature,” Foxglove pointed out.
     “Yes. It is a high probability that you are in fact correct. Certainly,
the creature was a great danger to you and the Rangers, and justifies your
belief quite well.”
     “So what are you getting at?”
     “I think there is also a probability that your fear may have been
derived from the intuition that the animal you fear most was coming, and
was not grown from any inherent evil or good within the creature itself.”
He laced his fingers together as he rested his hands on his knees. “The
whole reason I bring this up is because, to be perfectly honest with you, I
have some of those animals as friends. Good friends, who wouldn’t
harm a flea.” He watched Foxglove for a reaction. She stiffed slightly,
but that was it. “Do you think any less of me now?”
     She didn’t reply. She still knew what she had felt, and knew with
every fiber in her being that it was *right*. “I was afraid, Dr. Speck. No,
I was petrified. Worse than ever before in my life. How can you explain
that?” Like Dr. Speck, there was nothing insulting or flippant in her
manner as she asked.
     These were merely two researchers collaborating, who happened to
be on different sides of the same project.
     “Well, let’s agree that you’re correct about bats,” he said,
removing his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. “Most of the bats I
have met have been friendly, peaceful, and relatively engaging
individuals, if just a bit reclusive.”
     “Nocturnal cycles will do that to you.”
     Dr. Speck chuckled. “So, we agree that you and your brethren are,
at least, the living symbols of good and purity, correct?”
     “Okay,” Foxglove, unable to help a bashful smile at the
compliment.
     “Now, with that in mind, I ask to you consider one of the Ranger’s
oldest cases, against Fat Cat. I think Dale had nicknamed it ‘Battle of the
Bulge.’ Did he tell you about that?”
     Foxglove’s face shifted to look at the floor. “Yes,” she finally
admitted, knowing where this was going. That particular “episode” of the
Rangers’ early years involved three Jamaican fruit bats stealing jewels
for Fat Cat. Foxglove had been shocked when she first heard it, but then
realized it wasn’t too hard to believe -- her own loneliness had driven
her to work for a witch, out of a desperate need for companionship. Of
course, then Dale arrived in her life, making it a sunny day, pushing the
dark clouds away, and showing her the way to Sesame Street.
     “So what happened with those fruit bats?” Dr. Speck went on,
thinking aloud. “While they certainly weren’t violent, they were also
obviously greedy, and not adverse to causing problems and pain to others
to satisfy their own cravings.”
     Foxglove sighed, and then, incredibly, wasn’t depressed. She was
too busy thinking, trying to discover the meaning of life. “Well, I think
you get some rotten apples in every batch. Maybe they just had a sour
period, and after being stopped by Dale, gave up on crime.”
     “Very possible,” Dr. Speck agreed, nodding his head once. “Such
behavior patterns don’t happen in isolation, though -- certainly not from
all my year’s experience dealing with the psychology of society.”
     “Huh?”
     “What I mean is that if not all bats are ‘good’, then not all... of
those other animals are ‘bad’, either.”
     Foxglove kicked this around in her head for a bit. “I don’t know. I
mean, the one here certainly fits what I expected them all to act like.”
     “Unfortunately, you’re absolutely right.”
     “Hey!”
     “I meant that as a compliment,” Dr. Speck quickly clarified.
“You’re absolutely right about the example we have before us. No signs
of compassion or emotion, really. Dangerous. Brutal. And I’ve seen him
at work more than you, so I truly can appreciate your beliefs about them
right now.”
     Foxglove scratched her head in puzzlement. “So, if you agreed with
me from the start, why’d you bring this up in the first place? Or do you
disagree with... or... Dr. Speck, what are you driving at?”
     Dr. Speck smiled warmly at her. “As I said, I have some good
friends who happen to be armadillos.” Foxglove visibly flinched at the
word, but Dr. Speck continued on. “And it discomforts me to hear people
condemn them so easily without even knowing who they are.”
     He looked at her softly. “Much like you would hate for people to
condemn all bats based on Hollywood’s stereotypical view of them.”
     Foxglove made a face at the thought, but nodded slowly.
     “And take the charm around your neck,” Dr. Speck mentioned, to
which Foxglove smiled slightly.
     “American Indain,” she informed him. “Symbolizes--”
     “That bats are the guardians of the night; the cleaners,” Dr. Speck
finished, grinning at Foxglove’s astonishment. “I did a study on
American Indian beliefs with anaimal totem spirits in college. And you
know what else they beleieved? That the armadillos granted protection --
active, noctural, and protection were the main hallmarks for the
armadillo.”
     Foxglove shivered slightly, but she was unsure as to its cause.
“Well, I still know what I felt back in that shack, and it came from within
me.”
     Dr. Speck nodded. “I know. But it’d be terribly presumptuous of
me to try and explain it, using science or anything else.”
     Foxglove felt as if she should say something, but could not think of
anything to say. Dr. Speck, too, seemed to have run out of conversational
steam. The two of them sat quietly in the cage, lost in their own thoughts,
but still grateful for the presence of the other.
     In the room over theirs, a large form stealthily moved away from an
air vent.
     It had heard enough.

*     *     *

     “Any word?” Ted asked as he entered with two pizza boxes.
     Maynard shook his head in response to Ted’s question. “Nope.
The police found another hole in the city park, so at least we know he’s
still around. They thought maybe an eccentric scientist had something to
do with it, but it he turned up to be clean.” He ran a hand through his
hair. “The committee votes on that funding soon. If we can’t get Glyph
back, we can pretty much kiss this project goodbye.”
     Doug nodded ruefully as he sipped at his coffee. The three
researchers were busy going over their own notes, hoping for any
possible leads to surface that they and the police may have missed. They
were gathered in the small conference room on their floor, and were
seated around the slick and well-polished wooden meeting table, currently
strewn with empty coffee cups, discarded doughnut boxes, and
innumerable crumpled balls of paper.
     They weren’t concerned about losing their jobs. If the project fell
through, they would just be transferred to another assignment.
     But the animals wouldn’t be so lucky. Some sort might be sold to
zoos or to institutions, but none of them would have a say in the matter.
And was to say nothing about the uncertain future of Glyph.
     “We’re wasting our time,” Maynard grumbled, dropping the
binder he had been reviewing and snagging a slice of cheese pizza. “All
of these reports we made just deal with the tests we ran. There’s nothing
in here that we don’t already know, and none of it points to who would
have taken Glyph, why, or how they managed to rig everything up in the
first place.”
     “There might be something,” Ted shrugged. “But we just don’t
know what we’re looking for right now.” He sat back in one of the
executive leather chairs; one of the perks to working late was getting to
use the parts of the office normally reserved for the higher brass. “One
thing keeps bugging me, though.”
     “What?” Doug asked.
     “Remember Glyph’s identification collar we found? Well, you can
tell it was chewed off, right? But there’s no way that Glyph could have
done it, and I just can’t see the person who stole Glyph leaning over and
gnawing it off, either.”
     “It is strange, yeah,” Maynard agreed, leaning forward as he ate his
dinner. “Especially when it wasn’t human teeth marks.”
     “How can you tell?” Doug asked, a bit surprised at the observation.
     “The collar was flush to Glyph’s shell. No way anybody could get
it between their teeth.”
     “I never thought about that before....” Ted mused, lapsing into
thought.
     “You’re right,” Doug added, speaking to Maynard. “So an animal
must’ve done it.”
     “I know. But again, what in the world possessed a person to bring
an animal for that when they could just use a pair of scissors, or razor, or
whatever?”
     “Maybe it was some eccentric pet collector,” Doug pitched. “Had a
mouse in his pocket or something.”
     Maynard thought about this. “You might be right. A mouse -- or
other small rodent -- could slip that collar between its jaws to chew off.
And the chew patterns would match, too.”
     “Should we call the police?” Doug asked. “I mean, the information
is kind of trivial, but maybe there’s some notorious criminal who has a
pet mouse or something that they know about.”
     “Sounds like a Dirk Suave movie,” Maynard chuckled. “Like with
that cat.”
     “Yeah, true. I bet you that guy talks to his pets, too.”
     “All pet owners talk to their pets. Heck, we’re getting paid to do
it, basically.”
     “Oh, yeah. Good point.”
     Maynard’s next line was cut off by Ted suddenly bolting up from
his chair and shouting, “That’s it! I *knew* I was missing something!
Wait here!” He tore out of the room before his coworkers do even
exchange worried glances. They heard him tear back down the hall to
their offices, and then proceed to, from the sounds of it, ransack the place
for a minute.
     “Yes!” Ted yelled off in the distance. “I knew it was here
somewhere! Yeah! Milkshake, baby, milkshake!”
     Footsteps thundered back down the alley, and Ted burst through the
open door, sporting a huge grin on his face as he slammed down a large
scrapbook.
     “Ted, take it easy!” Maynard advised his friend as he yanked the
pizza clear from the landing zone of the thick book. “What are you
talking about?”
     Ted took several deep breaths, bringing his composure back as he
quickly flipped through the scrapbook, scanning each page. “Look, back
when we first started this project, we had the guys down in research tag
all incoming articles that might pertain to our work, as well as dig
through our old files to find out if there was anything in past news reports
we could use. Since I was in charge of correlating all of it, I sorted
everything into these scrapbooks. Never had a chance to read through
them all, but man, some of them seemed really off-the-wall. But I
remember one, from back in the seventies...AHA!”
     Ted pounced on the page, then practically jumped over the table to
set the newspaper clipping down next to his colleagues.
     Like all true scientists, Ted was giddy as a schoolboy at the
discovery.
     “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees,” he tittered.
     Maynard and Doug both opted to concentrate on the article rather
than Ted’s impassioned behavior.
     “‘The Devils’ Eye Added to the Smithsonian,’” Doug read
aloud. He scanned over the article. “I don’t get it. It’s about one of the
world’s largest diamonds being found by a young orphan named Penny.
How does this relate to--”
     “Here’s how,” Maynard suddenly cut in, hand flashing to point at
one of the paragraphs. His trembling hand signaled that he now
understood what Ted was harping on about.
     “The orphan had gone missing weeks before,” Doug read from the
paragraph, “but still managed to not only escape her captors, but also
safely navigate her way through the deep swamp. Penny, however,
maintains her youthful modesty, as evidenced from her adorable way of
shifting the credit; ‘It was Bernard and Bianca,’ she explains, ‘the two
little mice from the Rescue Aid Society. They came an’ saved me,
‘cause they found the bottle me an’ Teddy [her teddy bear] sent.
They’re awfully nice an’ stuff.’” Doug stared at the last line for
several seconds before he finally looked up at his friends, speaking it out
slowly as comprehension battled against disbelief in his voice. “‘Penny
assured the reporter that all mice could speak and talk back to her....’”
     Ted was openly excited. Maynard couldn’t make up his mind
whether to be shocked or elated. Doug was too stunned to react just yet.
     “But wait,” Ted said with a grin. “There’s more.”
     “Oh?” was all Doug could manage. Maynard didn’t even bother to
speak.
     “This happened more recently, a few years ago,” Ted explained as
he flipped to the back of the scrapbook. “This article was tagged because
it was about this kid who had a knack with animals. A boy named Cody,
down in Australia, was kidnaped by a poacher for a couple of days, but,
like Penny, managed to escape, this time from some abandoned opal
mines, and make his way back to his mother. When interviewed, he was
very tight-lipped about the whole process, but he did mention something
of interest-- here it is.”
     He tapped his finger to the article in question, reading out the
section to the others when he found it. “‘Cody explains that he had some
help from some good Samaritans, whom he only knew as Bernard,
Bianca, and Jake. While they are eligible for a reward for the boy’s
return, Cody told reporters that they wouldn’t have any use for
money.’”
     The three were silent for a moment as Ted closed the scrapbook, his
initial rush of energy from the discovery having been replaced with a
number of questions concerning the implications.
     “When I first read it, I thought Cody had also seen that article about
the Devil’s Eye and was making some elaborate in-joke. But it never
made sense that such a young kid in the wilds of the outback would have
ever heard of that article, let alone have a copy of it.”
     “You never know,” Maynard finally said. “And who’s Jake?
Maybe it’s just a coincidence.” His flat tone made it clear he didn’t
have much faith in that explanation.
     “Okay. Okay, let’s look at this rationally,” Doug prompted,
wrestling with his own thoughts as well. “How do we know that these
two events are actually related, rather than just some chance encounter?”
     “Too many similarities,” Ted immediately countered. “First, both
are kidnaping cases. Second, both are young kids. Third, both credit two
people -- or mice, my guess -- named Bernard and Bianca as rescuers.
Fourth, both kids *had* to have had some sort of help getting back to
civilization alive, considering where they were stranded.”
     “There are a number of differences as well,” Maynard mentioned,
shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
     Ted looked at him levelly. “Maynard, get over your worries about
the ramifications about this for a moment and *think*.”
     “I am,” Maynard retorted. “That’s why I’m worrying.”
     “Hold it, guys,” Doug said. “We’re jumping ahead of ourselves
here. Ted, what you’re getting at is that maybe it was a bunch of
animals that kidnaped Glyph? Or rescued him, or whatever.”
     Ted took a deep breath. “I think it’s a very high probability.
Things start to make a lot more sense all of the sudden. Mice and rats can
get into the walls and move around int here undetected. The cops found
the VCR in the wall. And mice would perfectly explain why Glyph’s
collar was chewed off.”
     “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Maynard said, holding up his hands. “I know
our own research shows that animals may be a lot more intelligent than
we thought, but listen to what you’re saying: animals that can crack our
computer codes to open the cage doors, that can wire up to security
systems undetected, and that can move VCRs inside of walls. I mean, a
lot of humans can’t do that kind of thing, and our own tests have rated
the animal’s intelligence far below that kind of brainpower.”
     “Not all humans have the same I.Q.,” Doug grudgingly admitted.
“Why should all the animals?”
     Maynard bit his lip and shook his head. “I just can’t fathom this,
guys. It looks good on paper, but how in the world did humanity go this
long without ever noticing this kind of thing before? Especially when
it’s right under our noses?”
     Doug leaned on the table. “Maybe we have, but just never realized
it.”
     “What?” Ted and Maynard asked in unison.
     Doug tapped the closed scrapbook. “Penny’s recovery of the
Devil’s Eye was important news across the nation. Maybe even the
world. She talks about talking mice right in this article, but nobody ever
stood up and noticed it in the same light we did. Maybe it’s because
we’re the first ones to look at it through the right *spectrum* of light.,”
     “You’re saying there’s more cases like this out there?” Ted
asked, a bit eager.
     Doug nodded resolutely. “If what you suggest is true, and animals
are even more intelligent than even *we* thought, there would have to be
more incidents actually reported in the news that everyone else glanced
over as a fluke or just a amusing coincidence.”
     Maynard picked up the nearest inter-office phone and stabbed the
buttons awkwardly. Like his fellow researchers, he had to find out.
     “Hello, security?” he asked when the other end picked up. “Listen,
we need to get into the  archives in the basement. Can you have someone
meet us down there to unlock it for us? Great. We’re leaving now.” He
hung up the phone and grabbed the pizza boxes as the trio left the
conference room.
     “Ted, you check up on any files that might connect with those
articles you had,” Doug said as they entered the elevator. “Maynard, you
check any reports from within the company. I’ll search the newspapers
from here in the city. And one more thing.”
     He glanced at the others. “Until we find out otherwise, this stays
between us.”
     Neither Ted nor Maynard challenged that.

*     *     *

     The door creaked loudly as it swung open into the room where Dr.
Speck and Foxglove were located. Both of the prisoners jumped at the
noise, and involuntarily shuddered as they  saw a falcon step through. It
was the same one that had kidnaped Dr. Speck, and was at the fishing
shack, but they did not yet know its name.
     It walked in noiselessly, smoothly coming up to the cage and its
occupants.
     “What do you think is happening?” Foxglove whispered.
     “I don’t know,” Dr. Speck gulped.
     They ceased their conversation as the bird of prey hopped up onto
the top of the cage, then used it’s wingtip to deftly unlatch the small
door located in the center of the cage’s ceiling. With one wing, it swung
the lid open, quickly sticking it’s leg through to block any possible
chances of Foxglove flying out. Not that it needed to worry about such a
maneuver; both Dr. Speck and Foxglove had flattened themselves against
the walls of the cage, neither one wanting to get anywhere near the deadly
grasp of the bird’s claws.
     But there was nowhere to hide. With childish ease, the falcon’s
claws swiped Dr. Speck free from his position against the opposite cage
wall, drawing him up through the opening into the bird’s awaiting beak.
Foxglove made a desperate grab for the doctor’s tail as he was pulled
out, but the lid of the cage slammed back into place too quickly for her to
react, ricocheting her back to the floor roughly.
     Fortunately, her fear of Dr. Speck being used as an appetizer was
unjustified. Struggling to her feet, she saw him dangling safely -- if
helplessly -- from the falcon’s beak as it walked back out the door. He
wasn’t yelling or screaming, just slightly whimpering at the fact that this
was the second time in as many days that he had been dangling from the
beak of a predator. This was not in his job description.
     “Dr. Speck!” Foxglove called out, pressing up against the wire
mesh of the cage. He didn’t reply, but whether it was because he didn’t
hear her or was just too shook up to reply, she wasn’t sure. She watched
with trepidation as the falcon carried him beyond the door, then swiftly
turned and pulled the door shut, cutting Foxglove off from the doctor
fully. She strained to listen, but couldn’t hear anything. The door was
too thick and too far away for any sounds to seep through, even with her
acute hearing.
     She sighed deeply and slumped to the floor. She didn’t think that
Dr. Speck was in any real danger, at least, she couldn’t think of any
reason why he might be. But then again, she couldn’t think of any other
reason why he was abruptly taken, either. She took a deep breath. She
was alone again.
     Giving a quick glance up at the trapdoor of the cage, she frowned. It
was firmly held in place by a spring-loaded mechanism; even if she could
somehow unlatch it from this side, she’d never have the strength to push
it open by herself. A ladder in the back led up to a large trapdoor in the
ceiling, but neither could help her until she escaped from the cage, first.
She looked about the large, empty room again, but saw nothing which
might be able to aid her. Only furniture covered in thin tarps, some old,
faded posters for plays scattered about the walls, and a lot of dust. All out
of reach, expect maybe some dust. Not very encouraging. Gadget might
be able to come up with something--
     Foxglove winced as she remembered one of her biggest problems.
Dale was unquestionably on his way, and whatever Dr. Speck may think
about those things that dwell beneath the light, that huge creature that was
lurking around here would surely be waiting to smash her Dale flat. She
had to warn him and the other Rangers somehow, but--
     Her train of thought completely derailed so severely that it caused
numerous casualties and drew helicopters from the media as the door
slowly creaked open again, giving her a clear line of sight with the giant
armadillo on the other side of the doorway.
     With a lumbering gait, it headed towards her.
     The door clicked softly to a close. But in Foxglove’s ears, it rang
out like a funeral toll.