DANGER MOUSE:
THE HAMSTER IN THE ROOM
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
BASED OFF A SUGGESTION BY BRAVE KID
Danger Moth made her way to the tavern just a few meters north of the Mayfair post box that housed the Danger Agency. It was a cosy and lively hang out for a multitude of different people to take a load off of their heads as the taxing working hours wore them down.
She'd received a phone call from her good friend inviting her to come meet her during an afternoon tea break from gallant adventuring.
Even some of London's notorious rogue's gallery were spending time in the tavern, playing darts or fixated on the reruns of Dickinson's Real Deal on the television, lamenting at the loss of the Jeremy Kyle Show.
Danger Moth hovered over the tavern's inhabitants, trying to spot her friend. Finally, she pinpointed her location. She was slumped over the side of the drinks bar.
"Professor? What are you up to?" she said as she approached Professor Squawkencluck, the Agencies' chief scientist.
"Thinking" she groggily replied.
Moth examined the half empty can beside her
"And drinking"
"Relax, it's a Rubicon mango mixture, non-alcoholic, but it does have high levels of sugar, so you'll have to excuse the kick it gives me" Squawk replied.
"Why are you drinking?"
"Because I'm thinking"
Moth was confused
"Thinking is what gets us everywhere, from Point A to Point B. And sometimes it takes you to Point Z and you have to work out all the other points in the alphabet, and they may not be in the right order of points. You get my point?"
Moth scratched her head.
"Just a little I guess"
"Good, well, that's what my last invention did, a futuroid camera, took photos of the future, including one of a certain friend of mine in a tutu"
"What friend was that?" Moth said.
"Confidential" Squawk replied.
"I've never heard of an agent confidential" Moth admitted.
Squawk buried her face in one hand.
"No, I meant it's off-the-record, need to know, highly classified. If this entire bar found out this person had found himself in this situation, he'd be the source of much merriment and humiliation across the length of the city"
"So it's a he then?" Moth pointed out.
"Ugh, I shouldn't have flapped my beak" Squawk replied.
"I don't get it; it's just a compromising photograph"
"No, no, not anymore. It's a big problem, one I brought into being with my latest invention. The Colonel had an inspiration after he was photographed with a waxwork model of Baron Greenback; he h had asked me to come up with a means of conjuring up statues on the cheap without having to pay anyone to sculpt them. I'm not an expert in that field, so I thought it'd be best to leave it to whatever my noggin could manifest...to that end, I created a device that could tap into our neural patterns and, like a 3-D printer, produce something that could manifest what we wish to project on to the real world"
"Why would you even be thinking about that photo at that particular moment?" Moth asked.
Squawk looked at her with a longing and telling expression. She looked less like a hen and more like somebody who'd been hen-pecked.
This was the look of a woman in love.
"Oh, he's more than a friend isn't he?" Moth asked.
"Now I've got a great big statue parked in my lab and I've been forced to cover it up with drapes, I have to go back to work in five minutes and try to act like an elephant's not in the room the whole time, even when Danger Mouse wanders in...What if he uncovers it during one of his little mad and curious dashes across my lab eager to try and figure out what I've got in store for him that day?"
"Doesn't he ever think about how you feel about prodding about in your lab like that?" Moth asked.
"Sometimes I don't think I should be thinking if humiliation is all that comes from it" a frustrated Squawk vented
"All the more reason why you should keep thinking Professor, everyone makes as many mistakes as they solve, and that comes through the trial and error of the mind"
Squawk smiled, she gave Moth a wink.
"I'll see if I can persuade the mouse to go on patrol with me for a few hours, there's a few suspicious players at this tavern and I'd like to keep my beady eye on them, having him as back-up would suffice, and it gives you time to address the elephant in your room"
"Hamster, actually" Squawk muttered.
"Excuse me?" said Moth.
"Nothing" Squawk replied.