Chapter Six -- Welcome to the Edge of Sanity

          “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
     death, I will fear no evil”
                                             --Psalm 23:4


     Foxglove had been looking at Glyph for a long time before she
realized she wasn’t trembling. This amazed her.
     It amazed her more when she heard herself finally ask, “What do
you what?” She never felt that she would ever have been able to get past
her fear of armadillos to actually speak to one, until now.
     Glyph didn’t answer at first. He finally said, “I like your charm.”
His voice was almost unnaturally deep and low.
     Foxglove’s state of amazement continued. This creature liked her
*charm*? This type of line she would have wanted to hear from Dale, not
from something from her nightmares.
     She blinked, then, as she noticed that he had been looking at her
neck when he said that. Suddenly, she registered the light feel of the
necklace that Zinger had given her. The bewildered bat, in the terrifying
ordeals she had just gone through, had completely forgotten about it after
Dr. Speck mentioned it.
     She glanced down at it and gently used her wingtips to fidget with
it. “It’s supposed to keep away the evil spirits,” she managed in a small
voice. It almost sounded silly, now, but the simple, handmade charm
seemed to lend some type of credibility to its suggested purpose, so that
now, even in the face of her current crises, Foxglove believed that her
soul was guarded.
     “Didn’t work too well,” Glyph disagreed with her hidden
thoughts, “as I’m here in front of you now.”
     “You’re not a spirit,” Foxglove replied, a bit shakily. She took a
step back from the cage wall. Glyph’s snout was hardly an inch away
from it. He could rip through that cage in an eyeblink if he so desired.
     “But I am evil, am I not?” He grated out, his eyes no more than
narrow slits.
     Foxglove only looked back at him, unsure as how to respond. His
dead calm was more than slightly unnerving. She had to wonder if he had
come down here to torture her, or maybe even kill her for some reason.
Despite what Dr. Speck believed, Foxglove saw nothing beyond horror
dwelling in the beast before her eyes.
     But then again, she never expected to be talking to one, either.
     As if to punctuate her point, Glyph tapped the cage with one
massive claw, jarring both it and Foxglove. “Well?” he prodded, still in a
low, steady tone. “You said I was some type of evil creature to Dr.
Speck. Why won’t you say it to my face?”
     “You heard that?” Foxglove swallowed, nervous but not petrified.
In the back of her mind, part of her was still stunned over this
development -- conversing, if somewhat stiltedly, with an armadillo,
without breaking down in fear. Where had this courage come from?
     Glyph nodded slowly. “I heard it all. It’s why I came down here.”
     Foxglove’s knees shook a bit. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
     “Oh, stop it!” Glyph snapped angrily.
     It didn’t help ease the bat’s nerves.
     “If I came down here to punish you I wouldn’t be talking to you
now,” he explained gruffly. “Regardless of what you think of me, I’m
not entirely sadistic.”
     Foxglove merely kept her distance from the cage wall, and clutched
her charm tightly.
     “I wanted to tell you to stop being a bigot.”
     “WHAT?” Foxglove had no trouble finding her voice after that one.
     “You’re going to deny it?” he balked. “After the way you’ve
condemned every armadillo ever alive?”
     “Don’t you *dare* try and pull that with me!” Foxglove replied,
infuriated. “You know darn well that between the two of us, bats have
had the worse time of it! You never were degraded in movies as some
evil creatures--”
     “We’re just evil naturally, right?” Glyph cut in.
     “Oh, and I suppose you’re not?” Foxglove huffed. It was
astounding what a dash of anger could do to calm the nerves.
     “I never denied my own actions,” Glyph replied evenly. “I also
never claimed to be a good example of my species.”
     “What?”
     “I know full well of the work I’ve been doing recently, and its
consequences,” Glyph grumbled, slowly circling the cage. “But it was my
choice, and I made it. Me. Myself. Alone. It was not like I was born with
some evil gene just waiting to be realized. The opportunity presented
itself, and I decided to take it.”
     He halted and turned to face her fully. “But it was *my* decision.
And what I decide does not mean the rest of my brethren would have
done the same thing. But you...” he scoffed. “You never even waited to
hear that much, did you? No, you just outright called all armadillos as
horrid beasts, without even meeting one.”
     “I’ve met you,” Foxglove replied with a frown.
     “And I’ve met you,” Glyph snapped. “Whoop-de-doo. Does that
mean I should judge the entire race of bats based off of you alone? That
they all act and think just like you?”
     Foxglove continued to frown, but did not answer.
     Glyph sighed and shook his massive head. “I will freely state that
I’m not the best candidate to represent armadillos. I’m probably the
scum of the barrel right now. But don’t let my actions speak for the rest
of them.” He straightened up. “Call me what you want. Fine. I can live
with it. I’ve lived with the monster label before. I can do so now, too.
But leave the rest of them alone. I have nothing to do with them.”
     “But you *do*,” Foxglove pointed out. And the amazement
continued, as part of her realized that she no longer afraid of this creature
anymore; not as something other than just a large animal. “Your actions
are going to reflect on the rest of the armadillos, no matter what you say.”
     “Now you’re not making any sense,” It was Glyph’s turn to
frown.
     “Oh no?” Foxglove snorted openly. “How do you think I feel right
now? You’re the first armadillo I ever met, and look how you acted.
You think that isn’t going to influence my outlook on the rest of them?
Especially since I don’t know any on my own?”
     Again, it was Glyph’s turn to be silent.
     “I... may have been judgmental,” Foxglove said hesitantly -- she
still wasn’t entirely sure what her feelings towards these animals were;
this one may just be trying to trick her, “but you’re just as responsible
as anyone for portraying how you guys all act.” Her eyes got big.
“Maybe--maybe if you let me go, I’ll look at you guys in a better light
from now on. It’ll be a step in the right direction, that’s for sure. Show
me that you really mean what you say, and you’re not just lying to get
me to trust you.”
     The silence between them stretched out for minutes. Foxglove
looked hopefully at the object of her oldest fears. Glyph stared off into
the distance.
     “You can trust armadillos,” Glyph said slowly, then turned away
from her. “But you shouldn’t trust me.”
     He lumbered away, mumbling, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have
to get back to being a monster.” He opened the door and stepped
through, but Foxglove’s ears picked up his last line before the door
closed:
     “I’d hate to disappoint you.”

*     *     *

     Arc reached out and hit the play button on the cassette deck. The
volume level was too low for anyone outside of the Edge to even hear it,
but in the small shack she lived in, it was still enough to rattle the loose
parts lining the shelves. Arc bopped her head to the heavy pop beat as the
somewhat off-key voice sang:

“Food! I’m so hungry I could eat a horse
Another plate of steak and fries,
Just call me thunder thighs,
I’ll have dessert of course...
I’m on a ‘See-Food’ diet!”

     Arc mouthed the words to herself as she settled down next to an old
circuitboard and started to carefully dissect it.

“I quit Weight Watchers
And Jenny Craig
I need a U-Haul just to move one of my legs
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I stuff my face all day
I’m the kind of girl who likes an all-you-can-eat buffet”

     She was a tall, surprisingly thin squirrel, which a lot of her old
“acquaintances” didn’t trust. Most thought of her as an anorexic until
they saw her go to work at a dinner table. Then they switched to labeling
her as a bulimic -- she ate at a practically non-stop rate, even besting her
large brother in how much she could pack away.

“I eat too much
...oh, no -- I -- eat too much
I really eat too much
...e -- a -- t -- too much
I eat too much
...oh, no -- I -- eat too much
I really eat too much
...e -- a -- t -- too much”

     But it was only those that scarcely knew her who categorized her as
such. Everyone else knew she didn’t have any eating disorder, just an
extremely fast metabolism. Unfortunately, this had only served to alienate
her even further from the other girls as she was growing up. Eating as
much as she did and never gaining weight was something dozens of the
supermodel wannabes she lived around wanted to kill her for. They had
enough morality not too try, but not enough to keep them from assuring
everyone else that she was, indeed, a bulimic.

“I’m such a cow
You can say that I’m big
I’ve got Roseanne Barr’s appetite
and so much cellulite
I look like Porky P-P-P-P-P-Pig”

     But Arc’s apathy was far greater than her ego, and she couldn’t
care less about what the snobs said about her. It was just another petty
insult -- one of many -- that they had used against her and her family. Her
sense of humor was stronger than her sense of self-pity, and was one of
the reasons she always got a laugh from this song. She knew really did
eat too much. For typical folk, at least.
     No one had ever accused her, however, of having a typical family.
     She grinned, as she always did, as she sang along.

“I need more chocolate and twinkies
I eat more leftovers than Dom DeLuise
Take me to McDonald’s, call up Pizza Hut
Everything I gobble goes directly to my--”

     *Click*
     “Hey, who shut off my song?” Arc demanded, standing up and
spinning around to face the culprit at the tape deck.
     Strict looked at her with a smirk, carrying a rustling bag slung over
his shoulder. “Keep it down, Arc,” he chuckled. “You don’t want to
disturb the rest of the Mentals any more than they already are.”
     “For most of them, it’d be impossible,” Arc quipped. Her eyes lit
up at the bag and its struggling contents. “You get her?”
     “What’d you think?” he said with mock flippancy. “That this is
Aeolus’ bag of winds?”
     “It’d explain where you get your hot air from....”
     “Ha ha ha, Arc,” Strict sardonically replied. He doffed the bag from
his shoulder, opened it, and overturned it to dump out a bound, gagged,
and rather annoyed Gadget.
     Arc clenched her fist in a victory gesture as she asked, “Where’d
you trap her?”
     “Up around the eighth floor, in the wall by the cafeteria. I snagged
her within seconds; her friends never even knew I was there.”
     “‘Bout time you earned your keep, Strict.”
     “Hey, this’ll give us a lot of clout with the Count, grabbing her so
fast. I’d say I more than made up for my share of debt.”
     “Now we just need to get you cracking on your hygiene.”
     For her own part, Gadget was doing a remarkable job of refraining
from feeling anything more than inconvenienced. Mostly because she had
never seen her captor until now, and was trying to take in as much
information about him and her current surroundings as possible.
     “Strict” was a large, dark brown rat, with a mop of unruly dusty red
hair which hung slightly over his black, horn-rimmed glasses. Despite his
massive size, Gadget got the impression that he wasn’t any older than
twenty. Surprisingly, to Gadget at least, he wore a fairly conservative
pin-striped, button-down short-sleeved shirt, complete with pocket
protector and hard-backed case for his glasses. Arc wasn’t too far off
about the hygiene -- Strict’s teeth were a dark, mottled yellow, while his
hair and fur had the distinct glean of built-up oil, probably from all of the
residue from various lubricants within the insides of the building.
     The one called Arc was a female squirrel, looking a bit older than
Strict. Her fur was a close shade to Strict’s, and she too wore glasses,
although her’s were a peaked wire-rim variety. A banana clip held her
straight, brown hair away from her face. She sported a pair of dark
slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a dark green vest. The strange part
was that as smart as the outfit was, it was peppered with dust, pop, and
soot stains, as if Arc had been using it as a gym outfit rather than a
business suit. But at least her fur didn’t have the same oily gloss that
Strict’s had.
     “Well honey,” Arc shook her head at Gadget, “sorry you got pulled
into this.”
     “Parled unta hwha?” Gadget asked around her gag as best she
could.
     “Quite a looker, isn’t she?” Strict asked Arc with a grin.
     Arc cocked her head and glanced at Gadget. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Arc was more concerned with other potential problems. “You’re sure
she doesn’t know where we are?”
     “How could she? She was in a bag from the moment I snagged her
through the side panel.”
     Gadget tried to recall that bit. She had been crawling up one of the
vent surfaces, when she suddenly had felt someone -- someone strong --
clap her mouth shut and hoist her off of the vent. Embarrassingly easily,
too, she had to admit. She barely had time to register what had happened
before her kidnapper had leapt, carrying her, from the vent and down --
no more than a few inches at the most. She remembered the brief
sensation of falling, coming to a careful landing, and then she had been
gagged and thrown into a stack before she could blink. Overall, the whole
thing had taken less than five seconds.
     She decided not to struggle against her bindings. She never was one
for playing a damsel in distress, but with any luck, they’d throw her in a
cage or cell or something else that kidnappers and bad people always
seemed inclined to do in cases like this.
     “Anyway,” Strict said with a chuckle as he untied her gag, “let’s
see what the beauty’s name is.”
     “I hope she doesn’t scream as much as your last one,” Arc
remarked dryly.
     “Me too,” Strict agreed. “She was hard to shut up. And that
clean-up job afterwards... ick.”
     With something of a practiced flair, he flipped the untied gag away
from Gadget, looking at her expectantly with a large smile on his face,
like a dog trainer waiting for a pedigree to preform some trick.
     Gadget decided to start things off with the best possible outcome
first.
     “Can you untie me?” she asked openly. “I’d like to leave.”
     Strict looked at her for a moment, his smile fading. “Okay,” he
shrugged in disappointment.
     Golly, Gadget thought, the direct approach *is* the best approach.
     “But later.”
     Nuts.
     “So what’s your name, gorgeous?”
     Had she not been abducted and currently hog-tied, Gadget might
have blushed at the compliment. “My name is Gadget Hackwrench. Who
are you two?”
     “Call me Strict,” he replied. “And that’s Arc over there.”
     “Pleased to meet you,” Arc nodded politely.
     “What do you want with me?” Gadget asked next, moving down
the list of questions that she felt a kidnaped victim should be asking.
     “Your presence has been requested in the court of our Count,” Arc
smoothly explained.
     Gadget tried to let this sink in. It wasn’t absorbing. “Come
again?”
     “Just what my sis said,” Strict shrugged. “The Count wants to see
you. I don’t know why, really. But he so ordered it, and we’re the last
group around here that can actually accomplish anything for him, so off I
went. But who cares?”
     “Well, I do,” Gadget noted.
     “You’re not a Mental,” Arc sniffed, bordering on discriminatory.
“We couldn’t care less about what you think.”
     “Mental?” Gadget echoed. “I have been called that before, if that’s
what you mean.”
     “No,” a gravely voice called out, “that’s not what we mean.”
     The owner of the voice stepped through a door in the back,
revealing himself as a surprisingly short chipmunk, dressed in a khaki
short-sleeve shirt and matching shorts. After a moment Gadget placed it
as a Junior Groundhog uniform; she could even see some discolored
shapes from where the patches and merit badges had been removed.
     The chipmunk walked up to her with the trace of a permanent scowl
on his mouth as he continued. “And trust me, babe, you never want to be
a Mental.”
     “Amen,” Arc and Strict chorused.
     “I’ll go tell the Count that we have his desired visitor,” the
chipmunk said to the other two, then turned back to Gadget. “And don’t
worry those cracks these two made about their supposed other kidnap
victims -- this is our first, and hopefully last, kidnaping.”
     “You spoil all our fun,” Arc commented dryly while Strict kicked
the floor in disappointment.
     “Good,” the chipmunk snorted. “Reminds you about what life is
really like. Keep an eye on her until I get back, capice?”
     “Sure thing, Cyan,” Arc said half-heartedly. Strict just yawned.
     Cyan nodded once at them, then took one more look at Gadget.
“Relax, babe, *we* won’t hurt you.”
     With that rather cryptic comment, he strode purposefully out of the
front of the shack, closing the door securely behind him.
     Gadget waited for a few moments for Arc or Strict to say
something, but they both practically ignored her. Arc went back to work
on the circuitboard, while Strict sat down in a corner of the room and
began splicing a series of wires together. Occasionally he glanced over in
her direction, probably just to make sure she wasn’t attempting to
wriggle free of her restraints.
     “Uhm, excuse me?” Gadget prompted. They had been fairly polite
with her so far, and so the female inventor felt that she owed them such a
courtesy as well.
     “What?” Strict asked in a bored voice.
     “Who is this Count person?”
     “Count Carl Von Castle,” Strict replied. “He runs this place.”
     “How do you mean?” Gadget asked. “Is he really royalty? Not that
it would really matter, since the United States has long dissolved
themselves from the British crown and does not partake in government
styles such as a Monarchy or Dictatorship, which really isn’t what
Britain does either, as they have a paraliment that acts as a check to the
King or Queen or Prince or whatever blue-blooded member of the court
currently hold the throne--”
     “Hey!” Arc cut in, a bit disturbed at this mouse’s gift of gab. “We
don’t need a lecture on the how you can’t expect to wield supreme
executive power without a mandate from the masses.” As she went back
to work, she added quietly, “Even if a watery tart threw a sword at you.”
     “The Count probably isn’t royalty,” Strict answered Gadget’s
question, a slight smirk on his face. “But he’s in charge of the Edge.”
     “The Edge?”
     “The Edge.”
     “Wasn’t that a Richard Bachman short story?” Gadget asked.
     “That was called ‘The Ledge’, honey,” Arc replied. “The Edge,
as far as it pertains to your current situation, is the little lunatic fringe
here that we mislabel as a neighborhood.”
     Strict nodded. “Anyway, the Count, as he calls himself, basically
runs the place. Everyone else pretty much does as he says.”
     “He’s a good leader, then?” Gadget said conversationally. She
was more interested in learning right now than remembering that she was
basically a prisoner.
     The large rat shrugged. “Hard to say. Most folks here haven’t
tightened their screws in years, so they’re all a bit malleable, if you
know how to turn their threads, I suppose.”
     “Also,” Arc chimed in, “most people here don’t have anywhere
else to go. Heck, Cyan, me and Strict are about the only ones besides
Dominic who even knows that there’s an outside. Most everyone else is
lost in their own whacked-out fantasy world.”
     Gadget frowned. “Lots of rodent and insect communities exist
around here that would take them in. Help them out. Why, my friend Dr.
Speck works with people like that all the time.”
     But Arc merely shook her head, sadly. “You just don’t get it, do
you, sunshine?”
     “She hasn’t seen anyone here besides us,” Strict pointed out, in a
bit of an annoyed voice.
     Arc conceded. “True. Well, when Cyan gets back, we’ll have to
take her to the Count anyway, so she’ll get a nickel tour.” She giggled.
“Think she’ll be safe with just the three of us around?”
     Strict grinned. It was not a reassuring gesture. “Who cares? It’ll be
her they’d be after, not us.”
     Gadget, for the first time, started to appreciate the difficulties that
Alice must have gone through whilst visiting Wonderland.

*     *     *

     “You lost her?!?” Chip said, appropriately enough, losing it
himself.
     “Easy buddy!” Dale ordered as best he could as he held Chip back
from Monterey’s throat. “What’d you tell Cyril up there, huh? That
you’d only be *concerned* if Gadget was kidnaped? Remember? Huh?”
     “I lied,” Chip unabashedly snapped, but he swallowed and forced
himself to repress his outburst. Things had been going downhill ever
since Dr. Speck had been captured. He recalled that Sureluck Jones had
once said nothing was more stimulating than a case where everything
goes against you.
     What a crock of--
     “Listen, Chipper,” Monterey said, running a weary hand over his
own head. “You know full well that I sure as Brie didn’t want this any
more than you.”
     “Yeah, I know,” Chip acknowledged. “I’m sorry, Monty. It’s
just been a tough couple of days.”
     “Tell me about it,” Dale grumbled as he reassuringly patted his best
friend’s shoulder. If anyone knew what Chip was going through right
now, it was Dale.
     Chip looked over and gave a brave smile of thanks to his best
friend.
     “We searched all over for her,” Monterey continued, dejectedly. He
was none too happy with his best mate’s little girl being snatched away
right from under his moustache. “But not a flippin’ sign of her. Not
even of where she might have been taken through the walls. No ways in
or out of that wall section save for the openings in the vents at the ceiling
and baseline, and Zipper an’ me would’ve spotted any blighter trying
to make off with Gadget if they had tried that route.” He grunted in
annoyance. “It’s like the bloomin’ Bermuda Triangle shipped itself
here for a special delivery and abduction.”
     Zipper settled on Monterey’s shoulder sighed. “Now what?” he
managed to say.
     “We can’t just leave her,” Monterey mumbled. “Gotta find her.”
     “We can’t *not* go, either, though,” Dale morosely added. “Or
that jerk Reset or whatever his name is this week’ll kill Dr. Speck or...”
he gulped, “Foxy.”
     Chip’s shaking hand betrayed his cool exterior as he rubbed his
brow, and made a decision. “Dale’s right. We know for a fact that
someone will die unless we leave now to pick Osiris up, or we’ll never
make it to the rendezvous in time. But Monty’s also right in that we
can’t just leave Gadget. She can probably handle herself, but
disappearing without a trace isn’t the way to kick of a successful return.
We have to split up.”
     Everyone winced. This action usually led to one group getting
captured, injured, or otherwise put in grave danger. But desperate times
called for desperate measures.
     “Monty, you and Zipper stay here and search,” Chip said, hating
himself for having to leave Gadget alone like this. But she was a big girl,
he kept reminding himself. She can handle herself, as she had numerous
times before. Monterey and Zipper had already been through the wall
interiors, and knew it better that Chip or Dale. What’s more, Chip knew
that Dale would want to be where Foxglove was going to be
(supposedly), and Chip himself wanted to meet this Raset face-to-face
again. Raset was one of the few villains they had failed to capture, and
Chip wasn’t about to underestimate him again, lest the reptile attempt
another fast one.
     It didn’t make swallowing the pill any easier, though.
     “Roger, Chip,” Monterey nodded.
     Zipper saluted and motioned that he and Monterey would remain at
the building until Chip and Dale got back. If they found Gadget, they’d
be on the roof. If no-one was there, then the chipmunks would know that
the search was still on.
     Chip nodded, swallowed his fears, and hoped for the best as he and
Dale sprinted off to the roof and the awaiting Ranger Plane, while
Monterey and Zipper headed back into the depths of the Malek building.
     Dale cast a glance over at his best friend as they made their way up,
but Chip was working off of instinct as he climbed; his mind was far off,
no doubt trying to juggle planning for the upcoming meeting with Raset
and the potential disasters that could befall Gadget. Or what might have
already happened to her. Dale knew that Chip wasn’t going to be talking
again until he felt like his current situation warranted more attention than
his imagined scenarios.
     The silence from Chip remained unbroken all the way to the roof,
and then continued on throughout the flight, not even letting up as they
landed on the roof of the 7th Precinct. It wasn’t until they met McDugell
that Chip finally spoke up.
     “Is Osiris ready?”
     McDugell just motioned for them to follow him.
     Dale noted that Chip’s voice wasn’t wavering or quiet; it was his
usual take-charge tone.
     Chip held firm to his faith that, as he told Dale earlier, he would
trust in Gadget’s know-how and quick-thinking to see her through,
regardless of the obstacles that may be in the way. He was responsible for
getting Foxglove and Dr. Speck back safely. And that meant escorting
Osiris to the switching point.
     One thing about that was nagging at him, though.
     Why not just set Osiris free, and then release the hostages? Raset’s
current demands seemed more like a trade of convicts, rather than using
the captives as a “get out of jail free” card.
     They reached the small holding cells, tucked in the back of the
A.P.F.’s station, far from any animals trafficking through the station or
humans who might have keen enough hearing to catch the shouts from
the incarcerated. It was a gloomy area, with a sole 45-watt bulb hanging
over the rows of cages. Each cage had ceramic tiles up between them,
preventing any secretive talking between cells, but the front’s were a
series of wires strung over restraining bars, and thus easy enough to make
a head count of the prisoners as needed.
     “I put Mr. Hypnotist in the cell at the end,” McDugell explained as
he lead the chipmunks down the rows. Each prisoner watched the
law-enforcers pass by with cool expressions, their eyes no more than
narrow slits. Dale quickly placed himself furthest from the cage fronts.
     “I haven’t told him,” the sergeant continued, “as I didn’t want to
have him gloating or anything else that would make me want to give him
dentures, just so I can knock them out.”
     “You need a reason?” Chip couldn’t help but crack a smile.
     “I have some standards,” McDugell grudging admitted. In a low
voice, though.
     They reached their destination, and McDugell shook the wires
heartedly to gather the attention of the brooding mouse in the corner.
“Hey, Sir Hiss.”
     “What do you want, McDugell?”
     “As much as it sucks, I’m to let you go.”
     “What?”
     “You’re being traded,” Chip replied evenly. “Two hostages will
be released in exchange for you.” He frowned at the notion of Osiris free,
but knowing the mouse, it would likely only be a matter of time before he
was caught once more.
     Osiris stood up and walked to the front of the cell. “What, is this
some kind of a trick?” he sneered. Which, without teeth, came off even
more gratingly than usual.
     “Nope,” Dale replied. “You get to go free.”
     It was clear that Osiris had his suspicious, and nobody could blame
him. Things that seemed to be too good to be true usually were.
     “Why me?” he finally asked, trying not to smile at the thought of
getting out before he was deemed by the local animal justice system to be
banned from the city; Stones City was ripe for the plucking in terms of
loot, and the longer he could hang around, the better.
     “An old friend of yours is in town,” Chip replied. “One of your
fellow hypnotists.”
     Osiris looked at Chip with an honestly blank face. “Who?”
     “Raset?” Chip replied, now slightly puzzled, himself. He had taken
it that these two were old cohorts. “You know, the chameleon guy?”
     Even with fur covering Osiris’ face, it was frighteningly easy to
watch the blood drain from it.
     “If it’s all the same with you,” he feebly whispered at length,
“I’ll just stay here.”
     The others looked at each other, startled.
     “You *want* to stay?” Dale asked for all of them.
     The mouse didn’t reply, but merely let go of the bars and stepped
back against the wall.
     McDugell, completely at a loss, turned to Chip. “He wants to stay.”
It was both a statement and a question.
     Even Chip needed a moment to find his voice. “Be that as it may,
he’s coming with us. We’d rather he stay here too, but Foxglove and
Dr. Speck will die if he doesn’t show.”
     “*I’ll* die if I show!” Osiris snapped at them viscously. “I’m not
going!”
     McDugell took a deep breath as he unlocked the door. “This’ll be
the first time I had to use force to take a prisoner *out* of a holding
cell....”
     Osiris was about to make a dash at the opening door, but McDugell
was quick despite his large size, and soon had forced the squirming and
screaming hypnotist into a corner, pinning him to the wall while Chip
used a small coil of rope from his jacket to bind the mouse’s wrists
together. The squirrel and the chipmunk had to forcibly drag the yelling
and kicking mouse out, while Dale closed the cell door behind him,
staring on in disbelief all the while.
     Chip and McDugell never thought of Osiris as a fighter, but the
mouse refused to cease his struggles for a single, solitary instant as they
drug him up to the roof. He had been shouting so loud that Dale was
quickly instructed to tie a gag in the mouse’s mouth, to which Dale
cheerfully obliged. Foxglove had nothing on this guy.
     Using some of the repair wire carried in the Plane, Osiris soon
found himself in a sitting position in the back seat, wired down to the
Plane’s fuselage and interior. It was at that point that he finally stopped
his attempts at escape and sunk his face in his hands, both wrapped
tightly together. He was shaking badly.
     “As much as I’d love to come along for the ride--” McDugell
started, eyeing Osiris.
     “You can’t,” Dale finished. “We told you that.”
     “Yeah,” McDugell nodded, then shook his head to himself. “Well,
drop by afterwards, if you can. I want to hear what happens. Osi doesn’t
seem too fanatic about this.”
     “I noticed,” Chip said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat and
strapped himself in. “But we won’t be able to stop by for a while; we
have to pick up the other Rangers after this.” And, Chip added to himself,
hopefully Gadget will be one of them.
     Dale swung himself up over the edge of the passenger side, landing
with a klutz’s grace next to Chip. “How much time we got?”
     Chip checked the bank’s outdoor clock across the street, then
looked out into the night sky. “A little over two hours. Should take us
about an hour to get to the distribution center, and then probably another
forty-five minutes to reach the meeting point.”
     “That long?” Dale seemed surprised. “Why?”
     Chip jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the shuddering figure
behind them. “Because we’ll have Happy Boy with us, and he’ll
probably be all rested up for another bout of struggling and screaming by
the time we arrive there.”
     Chip glanced over he edge of the Plane and waved his farewell and
thanks to McDugell, then started up the Plane and lifted up into the sky,
the clockwork-driven wings aided in the lift from the helium balloon. The
speed wasn’t all that great, but the Rangermobile was still undergoing
repairs from Osiris’ capture, and the Wing would have to be totally
rebuilt. Again.
     McDugell watched them go until he lost them among the twinkling
lights from both Heaven and Earth. He reflected briefly on Osiris’
complete break-down, felt slightly troubled about the fact that that might
have been the last time he’d see any of the three occupants of the
Ranger Plane alive, then slowly headed back down the stairwell to keep
plugging away at getting the A.P.F. station fully functional.
     Careerism had its benefits.