It was morning. The sun rose on the great glacier field that made up Club Penguin's frozen north. The jagged peaks glistened, blue and hard in the cold light of dawn.
Water began to trickle from crevices and holes in the ground as the ice melted. It raced and splashed everywhere, pooling on the snow in frigid pools. The sound was indescribable: like a hundred fountains bubbling all at once.
The noisy chorus reached Conely in the deepest part of his dreams. He slowly became aware of his surroundings as awareness returned to his dozy brain.
The first thing he noticed was the cold. It was only just above freezing, and the plastic bottom of the tent was all that lay between his back and bare ice. He'd somehow rolled out of his sleeping bag during the night.
Groaning, Conely reached for it, groping around with one flipper. The thick, warm comforter was nowhere to be found, so groggily, he opened his eyes.
The interior of the small orange survival tent was the same as he remembered. Cramped but tidy. EPF-style. His boots and his partner's stood ready by the door flap, and the rest of their equipment was outside.
On a hunch, Conely rolled over and peeked at the other side of the tent. He expected to find his partner rolled up sound asleep in both their sleeping bags, but he was wrong. His partner was gone, and so was his jacket.
Conely shot upright, reaching for his radio. But before he could decide who to call, crunching flippers on the snow heralded the arrival of someone else. The tent zipped open and a friendly face appeared in the doorway.
Conely breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, partner," he said reflexively.
The blue penguin in the doorway cracked a smile.
"Hey, agent," he replied, mimicking Conely's gruff tone of voice. "C'mon man! We've been on a team long enough to be on first names by now, right? What's my name again?"
"Your name is Garth," Conely muttered, feeling embarrassed. He knew the other agent was only joking, but the reality stung. He still acted and talked like a trainee.
"That's right," Garth nodded. "That's my name. And your name is... uh... Colony, no, uh... Cone-berry. Something like that?"
He chuckled gleefully as he ducked a boot Conely threw at him.
"What did you do with my sleeping bag?" Conely grumbled, crawling out of the tent.
"What?" Garth asked, looking at him with astonished eyes.
"Don't play dumb," Conely growled, taking a swipe at the junior agent. "Where is it?"
The faster penguin nimbly darted out of the way. He was used to putting up with this physical abuse.
"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "Honest."
Conely stared him down, searching the blue penguin's eyes for deception. Garth could only stand there and shrug helplessly. Finally, Conely relented.
"You really don't know?"
"Nope. And what's more, that's not the only thing we're missing! Take a look!"
Conely did, following Garth's sweeping flipper around the campground with his eyes. The junior agent was right—their camp had been trashed! There were small round tracks everywhere. Garbage was strewn all around, and their packs had been opened and dumped on the snow!
"Fish on a cracker," Conely swore, rubbing his eyes. "What happened?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Garth shrugged, flipping over a piece of soggy cardboard with his flipper. "Herbert, maybe?" He cracked a grin.
"Herbert?" Conely shook his head. "Sure, partner." He spread his arms wide and gestured out over the sparkling white ice field that stretched out to the horizon in every direction. "I doubt Herbert's ever been out here. There's nothing here but ice."
"And really big rocks," Garth added, picking out a medium-sized boulder and sitting down on it like a chair. "Sounds like we've got a mystery on our hands!"
"Don't get too excited," Conely grinned, amused despite the excessively frosty air. "I've heard that two of the EPF's best investigators are on the case. It shouldn't take too long to solve."
"And I've got our first clue right here," Garth grinned, producing a tuft of bright green fur from his sleeve like a magician. "Want to guess who it belongs to? I mean, I really just have no idea. Maybe we should send it back to the lab for analysis."
Conely snorted his dissent and began nosing around the camp for clues. There was rubbish everywhere, mixed in with personal belongings taken from his pack. He gathered them up in his arms as he went, stooping here and there to examine a set of tracks or an imprint in the snow. It looked like his things had been played with rather than stolen, and he had a sneaking suspicion he knew where the trail would lead.
Finally, he found a definite set of bounding tracks leading away over the snow in the direction of the only stand of trees in the area. He sighed and grabbed his boots from the tent, and his jacket, which thankfully had not been stolen. It bore the big white letters 'EPF' on the back, just in case anyone was confused about who it belonged to.
"Come on," he said, motioning to his partner. Garth gamely jumped up off his seat and followed after him. Together, they followed the tracks in the snow, pausing now and then to pick up the various things scattered along the trail: a compass, a wool hat, a half-chewed protein bar.
It wasn't long before they found the culprit—or rather, the culprits.
"Puffles!" Garth exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
It was just as he said: the clearing below was teeming with puffles of every color and description; a whole herd of them. It was evident that they lived here. They were bouncing around excitedly, and a great deal of soft stuff had been piled in the middle of the clearing, evidently as a communal 'bed' of some sort. It was made up of old clothing from other unfortunate travellers, pine boughs and clumps of shed fur. The agents could see their sleeping bags mixed in with the rest of the pile.
"Well, that explains that," Garth chuckled. "Still, it's not every day you see puffles in the wild like this. I wish I had my camera!"
Conely was less enthused, but even he cracked a smile as two puffles snapped and squabbled over a sock before tumbling down the side of the heap. But daylight was burning and they still had a mission to complete. He gave Garth a gentle nudge as a reminder.
"C'mon partner, remember what we came for."
"Oh, alright," Garth mumbled sadly. "Let's grab our stuff and go."
Both agents strode confidently into the clearing. Puffles scattered in every direction, disappearing from sight with lightning speed. These were wild puffles, unused to the company of penguins and still afraid of outsiders.
Grumbling, Conely reached into the muck and pulled out his red EPF-issue sleeping bag. He held it up in disbelief and realized that he could see daylight through it in places. It had been thoroughly chewed and raided for stuffing. Garth's wasn't much better off. Both sleeping bags were thoroughly tattered.
"You little monsters!" Garth laughed, glancing over his shoulder at the trembling creatures peeking at him from their hiding places deep in the branches.
"That sleeping bag wasn't even mine!" Conely complained. "You just know that's coming out of our pay."
"Invest in a sewing kit," Garth advised. "You'll save a fortune on uniform expenses."
"I can't sew," Conely admitted, irked that he was learning something from an agent who was his junior by two years.
"There's always time to learn."
"Hey, isn't that your hat?" Conely pointed, changing the subject.
"What? Wait—hey!" Garth exclaimed, following his gaze.
At the top of the pile of bedding, previously unnoticed, there sat a surly-looking black puffle, gnawing away on a navy blue beanie that bore Garth's name stenciled across the front in white letters.
"Shoo! Shoo!" Garth shouted, waving his arms above his head as he struggled to mount the pile.
The black puffle took notice and bounded effortlessly away down the other side. Cursing, Garth struggled after it, tumbling gracelessly down the steep slide. A chase ensued, and Conely wasn't sure who to root for: his partner or the puffle.
Eventually, Garth cornered the thief, and a game of tug-of-war broke out. Garth tugged for all he was worth, but the little puffle clung on, glaring back defiantly. The beanie began to tear, and Garth was faced with a decision. He decided to let go and let the puffle have it.
"Fine! Keep it!" he growled, letting go of the hat. The puffle seemed to smirk as well as one could with its mouth full of hat, and hopped away victoriously.
"I hope you choke on it, you little terror!" Garth shouted, glaring daggers at the small retreating shape.
Conely was busting a gut laughing, unable to keep his composure during the exchange. Garth stalked past him without another word, dragging his tattered sleeping bag on the snow behind him.
Conely could tell that the usually cheerful agent was mad, but he offered no comfort. He was angry about his own sleeping bag too, and he knew his partner would calm down over time.
He was right. Within minutes, Garth was back to his usual sunny disposition.
"Maybe we ought to move camp tonight," he cracked as they neared the campground.
"You think?" Conely quipped, amused.
"Yeah. It's a nice view, but the neighbors are a little rowdy."
Conely had to agree with that assessment. Here in the shadow of the mountains on the island's northern coast, the vast desolation was nothing short of stunning. Crystal-white fields of snow stretched as far as the sea, and the mist-covered mountains behind cast a looming shadow.
"A whole lot of nothing," he recalled.
"Yep."
Both agents stood in thoughtful silence for a moment, taking in the sweeping view. This was as far from town as most penguins would ever come in their lifetime, the most remote corner of the island. Population: just two—and a whole herd of wild puffles.
Their job was simple: patrol the wastes on foot and by snow cat, looking for any signs of trouble. After the Herbert trouble, the EPF was being none too careful. The ice patrols were the agency's eyes and ears out here where their cameras couldn't see.
It was a lonely job. Sometimes you'd be on your own for weeks at a time, far from civilization. If you liked the party scene back in town, it was a wearying task. The remote nature of the job alone made it an unpopular one within the agency. But if you stuck with it and did a thorough job, it was the fast track to promotion.
Both Garth and Conely had no illusions. They were out here to become agents. 'Real' agents, assigned to a tactical team under one of the four leads of the EPF. Working out here in the wastes was just a means to an end.
But sometimes the beauty of this hidden world surprised him. Staring out at the blowing snow and the sheer blue sky, Conely almost felt like he could live out here.
His boot splashed into an icy-cold puddle and he recoiled, snapping out of his daydreams.
"Ugh!" He raised his boot and shook it. Droplets of water flew everywhere and froze before they hit the ground, tinkling across the ice like crystals from a chandelier. The cold was one of the things he would not miss.
But sometimes... just sometimes, he almost felt like the kind of penguin who could make a home here. But that was crazy talk, wasn't it? He didn't belong out here—nobody did. This was just a means to an end. Leave the ice and snow to the puffles.
"Partner?" Garth asked, looking for an explanation.
"It's nothing," Conely said with a bemused shake of his head. "Just a little cold water."