The usual disclaimer: Cosgrove Hall owns everybody and everything in this story, except one character (saying who would spoil the surprise) and some of the fancier punctuation marks.

There is a very subtle, very mild drug reference in here. I think I've given it a suitable rating, but if you think it should go up to T, just let me know and I'll change it.

I've now done quite enough structural damage to the continuity of the Dangermouse universe, and promise to shut up for a while.

"Agent K calling HQ... Agent K calling HQ... Come in, Colonel..."

The white mouse sat back in the passenger seat of the Mark II and swallowed hard as the craft crawled into the sky. He usually loved the flying car, especially travelling over jungle, but this time he was too worried to even look over the side.

"Colonel here. Found the amulet, K?"

"Yes Sir. Just one slight problem. That lunatic Findlayson hung it round Mouse's neck, just before he tried to sacrifice him to the ancient God of the-

"Great Scott! Is he still in one piece?"

"Mouse? Oh yes, right as rain. Surprising how fast the little fellow can move when there's a badger coming at him with a six inch harpy. But this thing round his neck - we can't get it off. Blasted thing gives a person a shock if you touch it. Singed Mouse a bit."

"Tried cutting the cord, I suppose?"

"Chain, Sir. Some funny kind of metal. Haven't even been able to scratch it. It's long enough to get it over his head, but we can't get a proper hold of it without getting stung. Goodness knows how Findlayson even got it on - Mouse didn't think to watch."

"But Sir! He hit me over the head! I was unc-

"Mouse, shush!"

"Yes, Sir."

K stroked his black moustache, deep in thought.

"I suppose we could just hand it over to the British Museum with Mouse still attached."

Mouse looked up with startled yellow eyes.

"Oh yes," K continued, "Put him in one of those little pleated skirts like those Aztec johnnies wore, he'd look the part."

"Don't be ridiculous, man!" Mouse gave a sigh of relief as the Colonel shook his mane at them through the video screen. "They'd have to drill air holes in the glass case, K. Won't do at all. Now, what exactly is this bally thing doing?"

"Well, it goes 'zzzt' when you touch it, and then zaps you, Sir."

"Oh, well that's all right then. Cambridge University's antiquities department has a research graduate, done a lot of work with Aztec artefacts. Specialises in things that go 'zzzt' when you touch them. Stop off on your way home, he should be able to disarm it. Chap called Malcolm."

Mouse pattered up the corridor, trying to keep up with K's long strides. The dull gold amulet thudded against his chest with every step. Ahead of him, K had reached the door and knocked.

"Come in!"

K opened the door and stepped through, nearly tripping over Mouse, who'd just caught up.

"Good evening. We're from..." K trailed off and looked around in confusion. The walls were lined with bookshelves of ancient texts and cabinets filled with strange objects, but apparently unoccupied. Then there was the sound of a throat being pointedly cleared, roughly level with K's navel. K looked down. A long way down. From waist-height, his gaze was returned.

He was small, but Malcolm Penfold was a perfectly respectable size for a hamster. Plump, round and nearsighted, as hamsters tend to be, he wore sqare wire-rimmed glasses and had an untidy thatch of hair slightly darker than his brown fur. He was young, just a few years older than Mouse.

"You must be Agent K. The Colonel rang, I've been expecting you. And this -" Penfold turned to Mouse, "This must be the argumentative artifact. Sit down, let me have a look at this." Mouse obediently sank into one of the low office chairs, and Penfold reached out and touched the amulet around his neck.

Zzzt!

The hamster raised an eyebrow and blew the smoke from his burnt fingers.

"Oh, is that all. Sit still, please." Penfold closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Then he grasped the amulet firmly, exhaled sharply and shook himself.

"There. All done."

Mouse tentatively tried to remove the chain. No shocks. He was able to remove the amulet without being zapped, and handed it to K for safekeeping. K did not seem impressed.

"Was that it?"

Penfold shrugged. "It's easy when you know how."

"Oh really? So what have you been doing here at the public's expense for the last three years?"

Penfold gave K a cold hamster stare.

"Learning how."

Someone was banging on the door. Mouse rolled over and groaned, and put his pillow over his head to block out the noise. Two o'clock in the morning. Who in their right mind would be at the door at two o'clock in the morning? They didn't sound like they were going to go away, so he sat up and fumbled with the lamp, his good eye squinting in the sudden light. He found his slippers and wandered down the corridor, half asleep, turning lights on as he went. He was more or less awake by the time he got to the door and hit the button to open it. He was greeted by a familiar, heavily bearded, waist-high figure.

"Penfold! What on earth are you doing here at this hour?"

"K's away, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's on leave for a few weeks. I'm looking after the place on my own. Are you in some sort of trouble?"

"Not trouble as such. Can I come in?"

"Oh! Of course!" Mouse stepped aside to let Malcolm Penfold into the pillarbox. The hamster wore denim jeans and a patterned cheesecloth shirt, and smelled of soil and incense and something Mouse didn't want to admit he recognised. He flicked his long brown hair out of his eyes and took off his backpack. No, Mouse realised, it wasn't a backpack. It was a papoose.

"Is this... Cloud's had her baby?"

"Yes, six weeks ago. Brother Mouse, this is Little Brother Ernest."

"Ernest?"

Yes." Penfold looked up sheepishly from the child he was holding. "Not exactly one of the names we'd been planning, I know, but Cloud went all square at the last moment, and named him after her grandfather. She said she wanted him to fit in. Cloud, I said, this child is born into the Age of Aquarius, and a name like Ernest is just not going to cut it. But she had her way. Motherhood being sacred and all that." Malcolm stroked the sleeping child's cheek. Then he looked back at his host.

"And you, Brother Mouse, how are you?"

"I'm fine."

"I heard about... Well, there's nothing they can..." Penfold trailed off. Mouse realised the hamster was staring at the patch covering his left eye and looked at the carpet, scowling.

"No. I'm fine." Mouse's tone suggested that topic of conversation was now closed.

The pair made their way to the kitchen, and Mouse started filling the kettle.

"Trouble at the commune?"

"It's not a commune, Brother Mouse, it's an intentional community. No, no trouble. I just believe I may be wise to exercise my talents elsewhere for a short period."
"Oh, what trouble have you caused this time, Penfold?"

"My mate Cloud has exercised her free will to depart the community for an indefinite period, in the company of a black hamster on a Triumph. And while the hippy movement will save the world, they don't half like to gossip."

The kettle chose that moment to come to the boil, and Mouse bounced up to take it off the stove before the whistling woke the baby. Malcolm watched the white mouse fixing the tea. Far from the nervous child whose amulet he'd removed a few years ago, he was now a gangly teenaged-shaped bundle of limbs, and his pyjama trousers were too short. He no longer had to stand on a stool to reach the cupboard over the stove, where he found a bowl to warm some milk for baby Ernest. The mouse was growing. Maturing.

Mouse enjoyed Penfold's company. Even though K disapproved of his visits to the commune on Wilsdon Green where the hamster had spent most of the last two years, he still found excuses to slip away to listen to Malcolm's latest theories.

"You know, Brother Mouse, every ancient mythology has a great flood?"
"Every one? Noah couldn't have been everywhere."

"Oh, they're not all exactly like the biblical one, but every ancient culture recorded some kind of deluge, usually as an act of divine retribution. Go on, name a culture. Babylonian, Egyptian, any one."

"Ah, ok. Australia."

"You're just trying to be contrary, Brother Mouse, but it isn't working. Aboriginal Australian legend tells of a giant frog who drank all the world's water. All the thirsty animals tried to make him open his mouth, and eventually one made him laugh - and when he did, all that water coming out at once caused a flood from which few survived."

"Fascinating as this is, is there, well,"

"A point?"

"Well, yes."

Malcolm Penfold moved in close to his friend.

"Brother Mouse, what if those myths aren't just myths?"

"You think there really was a great flood?"
"A lot of researchers think they could be a reference to historical events." Penfold flashed Mouse a conspiratorial look. "But what if it's a warning?"

Dangermouse hauled himself over the edge of the cliff, onto the ledge. Ahead, a well-worn path led deep into the Mexican jungle. At the end of that path, according to the rumours circulating down in the village below, was the Cult of the Flood. If the missing Malcolm Penfold was anywhere, he'd be there.

Finding the missing antiquities expert was one of the mouse's first solo missions since becoming a fully fledged agent. He still felt uncomfortable and self-conscious in the white uniform, and the titanium alloy badge bearing his new initials was still heavy on his chest. But it wasn't as uncomfortable as it had been talking to K after the investiture. His master for so long was now his equal. He hoped K would be promoted soon, if just to restore his life's natural order. Dangermouse started down the jungle path.

He must be getting close. There were sounds of activity up ahead - voices, hammering, sawing. Somewhere in the distance, a tree fell in the forest and a whole isolated community of hamsters, cavies and mice heard it. They were building something. Building, if the villagers were to be believed, an ark.

The source of the noise came into view around the next bend in the path. They were building an ark, a boxy boat of literally biblical proportions. They were nearly finished, and prepared for - what?

"Excuse me?" Dangermouse called out to the only person within earshot, a creamy guinea pig with an axe, measuring the diameter of a nearby tree. He looked up, nodded to the mouse.

"I'm looking for a traveller, who I think might be visiting you."

"We have no visitors here, Brother Mouse. Only the saved."

Brother Mouse. The white fur on the back of Dangermouse's neck stood up.

"His name's Malcolm Penfold. Brown hamster. About so high. Have you seen him?"

The guinea pig set down his axe.

"Come."

"Penfold! You're alive!" Dangermouse sprang forward, pleased to see his old friend. The hamster, seated on a cushion inside the camp's main building, slowly smiled.

"Brother Mouse. Yes, I'm alive. But you must not call me that any more. I have renounced my former name. After the coming Flood, I shall face the new future with a new name."

"Oh, yes? What are you calling yourself these days?"

"Brother Mouse, you may call me Noah."

Dangermouse took a deep breath, and immediately wished he hadn't. He remembered that smell, from the old commune on Wilsdon Green, but he still didn't want to admit he recognised it.

"Now look, here, what about Ernest? He'll be out of school in a few weeks. I suppose you expect him to come and live here with you, and wait for this flood?"

Malcolm Penfold looked at Dangermouse. No, the mouse realised, he was looking through his old friend, rather than at him. What was he seeing?

"I have transcended the responsibilities of my former life."
"You can't just forget about the outside world! About your son!"
"Reality is an illusion, Mouse. There is no outside world. There is no son. And after The Flood, we shall found a new dynasty, here in the sacred land."

Dangermouse got to his feet with a long, heavy sigh, and started the long walk back to the car.

Ringing bells seem to have a magical ability to make children appear, Dangermouse reflected. Strange how he'd become so used to being in uniform, it felt uncomfortable to be back in civvies, blending into a crowd. Students were spilling out of the school doors, shrieking and laughing, into the arms of waiting parents, ready to start their holidays. In the chaos, it was hard to spot one small, timid person. There he was, trudging down the steps unenthusiastically, lugging a suitcase almost as big as he was. Dangermouse picked his way though the throng to little Ernest Penfold.

"Dad hasn't come, again?"

Dangermouse sighed, and sat on the steps. He took the boy's suitcase and put an arm around his shoulders.

"Your father's on, well, a mission. A mission that's very important." But only to himself and a dozen equally deranged followers, he didn't add. "He might be gone for quite a while. He might even save the world." But that's highly unlikely, Dangermouse thought.

"In the meantime, we'll just have to make do with each other."