Private was eating his lunch when Archie and his minions snuck up behind him. Luckily, thanks to the combat training he had received from Skipper, he knew they were coming long before Archie threw his first punch. He dodged pushing Archie face first into the table. "You little..." Archie growled. Private stood up as the other four boys charged towards him. Private could easily take them down in under thirty seconds, but didn't want to blow his cover by showing off his martial arts prowess. Instead he dragged out the fight for a whole two minutes.
Finally, when everyone else was either moaning in pain or had run away, he faced a very angry Archie. Archie threw punch at Private, which was sloppy at best. Private blocked and kneed the other boy in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, then slammed him against the wall. Archie kicked Private's legs out from under him. Private had obviously underestimated his opponent. Archie landed on top of him punched Private in the face, giving him a bloody nose. Private moved his head to the side as the boy punched again, causing him to hit his hand hard against the cafeteria floor. Private took advantage of the distraction, he grabbed Archie's collar and shoved him against the wall again. He punched him in the face a couple of times for good measure, and was about to deliver a knockout blow when one of the teachers ran over grabbing his wrist to stop him. How the teachers had managed to take this long to stop the fight he did not know. Private allowed himself to be pulled away from the other boy by the two teachers.
Archie slowly picked himself off the floor. The teachers surveyed the carnage.
"Which one of you started this?" One of the teachers demanded. Private looked at Archie.
"Me." Private replied. Archie looked at him, surprise written all over his face. Why would a kid who he had attacked, take the brunt of the punishment? As Archie was led by one of the other teachers towards the nurse's office he whispered to Private, "Maybe you aren't so bad after all. See ya in detention." Everything had played out just how Private had planned. By defeating the boy, then showing a kind of bizarre loyalty to him, Private had earned a grudging respect. All he had to do now was build trust and wait for information.
Skipper followed the other office workers towards the cafeteria, making sure he was at the back of the crowd. He ducked around the corner and waited for everyone to leave. After he checked nobody was looking he ducked into a storage closet. Above some of the shelves was a ventilation shaft. According to the building's plans, this ventilation shaft led directly above both the senior partners, Mr Hans and Mr Savio's, offices. All he had to do was crawl through and place the bugs, then continue through the shaft and exit into the law library, which should be empty at this hour. Skipper climbed up the shelves, removed the cover and squeezed into the shaft. He wriggled along, trying to make as little noise as possible. Finally he arrived above Hans' office.
"...Yes, yes, we'll draw up the paper work..." That voice! The one voice Skipper would never forget. It was the voice of the man who had made him Denmark's public enemy no.1. Hans Svendsen AKA Hans the Puffin. Ten minutes passed. He had been simply sitting there, simply listening to his old 'frenemey' hate burning in his eyes planing ways to kill the traitorous Dane. He slapped himself. His job was to plant the bug, not murder Hans. At least, not yet. He continued down the ventilation shaft.
Savio's suave voice echoed through the vent. Now that he had seen Hans he wasn't surprised that slippery snake from Hoboken max was here too. It always made Skipper's skin crawl to here the cannibal's voice. "...I'm afraid thatsss not and option Misssster King. My firm can not be ssssseen to do bussiness with JulianTech. I'm afraid itsss jussst too risssky..." Now Skipper knew there was deffinatly a connection between Hans, Savio and Julian King, CEO of JulianTech. Skipper attached the bug to the side of the ventilation shaft, then began to crawl towards the law library.
Marlene walked past the glass wall that divided the law library from the eighth floor offices, when she saw something strange out of the corner of her eye. She looked again to check if she had really seen what she though she had. She hadn't imagined it. John Henderson was climbing out of one of the air vent. He hadn't seen her, yet. She silently opened the door to the library and hid behind one of the shelves.
"Kowalski, I've placed the bugs." She heard John whisper into his cell phone. He listened for a few seconds then replied, "I'll give you and the team the full report at 1900 hours. Wait, tell the HQ that Hans the Puffin has been located... Radio, phone call... I don't care if you send a telegram, just tell them Hans has been located... Affirmative... Skipper out." Henderson replaced the cover on the ventilation shaft and left the law library before Marlene had time to ask him what he what he was doing.
Kowalski barely noticed as his colleagues left for lunch. So many inventions! He was almost considering quitting the team just to work here. Almost. He still had a mission to complete. When everyone was gone, the scientist began the slow task of hacking the lab's computer systems. He was about to start decrypting and copying the suspicious files, when he heard someone behind him say, "Why are you not taking your lunch break, Wally?" Kowalski turned around.
"Its Kowalski Mr..." Kowalski snapped, quickly reopening the window containing his work, before anyone saw what he was doing.
"King, Julian King."
"I'm sorry Mr King I..." Kowalski turned around, turning as red as a beetroot, hoping his less than respectful tone hadn't gotten him fired. Fired without gaining any information.
"Please, please, call me Julian." Kowalski breathed a sigh of relief. Julian King was a tall, skinny man in his late twenties. He wore a light gray Italian suit with a black dress shirt. His hair was a white blond. Beside him stood a short and slightly over weight aid wearing a black suit and white dress suit. Kowalski knew from the files he had read that his name was Maurice. He had been King's personal aid since the tech giant had just opened. He even traveled from Madagascar with his employer when the head offices were relocated to New York.
"Okay... Um Julian, Sir. I haven't began my lunch break because I'm absolutely desperate to finish this section of code." Kowalski answered his employer's question.
"Oh yes, you are working on my upgrade for MORT." Julian replied.
"MORT?" Kowalski was puzzled by Julian's answer, did he really not know the way around his own company?
"Uh... Sir," Maurice spoke for the first time, "We're actually in the weapons targeting division."
"Don't be silly, Maurice, we don't make weapons, only cute little devices like MORT." Julian removed a device, that looked like a smart phone with an extremely furry light brown case, "I'm pretty sure I ordered everyone to get working on MORT's software update. Someone must get rid of his obsession about de feet."
"'Feeeeeeeeeeeet!," the small device squealed vibrating out of Julian's hands and onto his feet.
"I am telling you, this artificial intelligence is quite the annoying." He kicked MORT across the room.
"I'm a soccer ball! Yay!" shouted the device as it flew through the air. Surprisingly, when Maurice picked MORT up on the other side of the room, he wasn't even scratched.
Kowalski saw his opportunity. "Uh... Sir, I think I may be able to remove MORT's feet obsession."
"You can! Oh, I am thanking you so much!" Julian motioned for Maurice to hand Kowalski the device..
"I will be doing the checking tomorrow. Work on it all night if you have to, just make him stop touching the feet!" He called over his shoulder as him and Maurice walked towards the elevator. Kowalski silently congratulated himself. Julian obviously took MORT with him wherever he went. If anything was going to give him information on Blowhole, it would be MORT's memory.
