That next morning, Dr. Blowhole was floating peacefully at the surface of his pool (apparently fish – and dolphins – didn't really sleep, so much as rest,) enjoying the quiet of the morning... well, as quiet as a city like Sacramento could ever be. He judged that the time was about seven-thirty on this fine Saturday morning, so he figured that Mike would be here soon enough, to verify that the coast was clear for them to roam the zoo freely and get into the offices to execute Operation: Flightless Birds. Oh yeah – all night to think up a cool name and that was the best he could come up with.
Suddenly, he felt a painful, sharp pinch on his dorsal fin, and he violently jerked away, exclaiming in surprise. "Gah!" He whipped his head around. "Mike – not so hard next time, OK? Jeez..."
"Sorry, doc." Mike said quickly. "But we got a problem."
Dr. Blowhole could sense something was very wrong – even Mike's voice, usually lazy and slow, was filled with an uncharacteristic sense of urgency. "What's up, something wrong?"
"Yeah. There's zoo employees swarming all over the place – I was barely able to sneak over here without being noticed. There must be some sort of inspection going on today!"
Dr. Blowhole froze and stared back at his friend. No way... not today, of all days...
"But – the plan..." he stammered.
"I know, dude, but I don't think there's any way to get us past the humans, much less into the offices. You're pretty noticeable on that Segway, you know."
Dr. Blowhole remained silent, staring blankly into the clear water and racking his brain. What he couldn't understand was why there was even an inspection going on at all. You'd think that if Paul or Sheila, his "trainers", had known about an inspection coming up, they would have been preparing for it... this just seemed too random. There had to be a bigger reason behind it, and he intended to find out. But as Mike pointed out, he was too noticeable...
Mike... well, duh! That's why he had minions! Okay... minion.
"Alright, Mike." He said seriously, looking back the lobster beside him. "There's probably a more important reason behind this inspection, and I want to know what it is. I want to you go around the zoo – stay unseen, but listen in on every conversation you can. Find out all you can, then come back and report to me. I'll give you two hours, but the sooner the better."
Mike, now acting as Red One, nodded. "Sure thing, doc." He turned and left the dolphin habitat.
And then Dr. Blowhole waited. And waited. And waited... jeez, couldn't the zookeepers have at least, at some point, given him some of those idiotic dolphin toys? It was really a good thing he had the lab to go to. What with the whole rest-not-sleep thing, if it weren't for his lab and secret double life, he could die of boredom here. It was times like that when he really missed his life as a human, especially the golden time before the... the incident at the mayor's hall. There had never been boredom there – there was always a new project to work on, or a nice cup of frozen yogurt to go out and buy. But above all, there'd always been his blog. That was the part he missed most about life as a human... when there had been no one to listen to him, no one to talk to or brag about his awesomeness to, there was always his webcam waiting for him, people emailing him in varying degrees of interest and support... he even missed Johnny Snow, the good old poser-in-a-parka that liked to think himself worthy of the title 'nemesis'! Now that was a scary thought.
Anyway, just over an hour and a half passed of absolutely nothing happened, until Mike finally returned.
"What did you find out?" Dr. Blowhole asked.
"It's a zoo transfer." Mike reported. "One of our otters is going to be sent to Pittsburgh tomorrow. Some of the officials had to be here to sign some papers, so they figured it would be more efficient to have an inspection today so the big shots didn't have to come all the way back here again in two weeks. That's when the inspection was originally scheduled for."
Dr. Blowhole nodded. He hardly felt any better now that he had an answer; there was still no way to prevent the arrival of Skipper's new compatriots. The plane the shipment was on was too far into its flight to change course, and it couldn't be stopped since it would probably be flying over the depths of the Atlantic Ocean by the time Dr. Blowhole and Mike could get at the office computers.
Dr. Blowhole could think of nothing they could do about it now... until, a novel idea came to his mind... Skipper's helpers weren't the only ones being transported, were they? The very zoo he was in was doing a transfer this very moment!
"Mike," Dr. Blowhole said with a gleefully evil grin. "Tomorrow the otter's going, you said?"
"Yeah..."
"Excellent! This is the perfect opportunity – we must take it. Mike, meet me here as soon as the big-shots leave and we'll get to the office computers."
"But it'll be too late to mess with the newbie's plane by then, what's the point?" Mike said, confused.
"The point is that we'll be making a little trip of our own soon – tomorrow, in fact."
Mike's eyes grew wide. "You don't mean-"
"Oh, yes. I hope you enjoy fruit, Mike – we're about to get a taste of the Big Apple."
Chapter six! Woohoo!
...
I'd say more, but I'm really tired. I blame my youth group for duct-taping me to a wall at one in the morning Friday night... long story. Lock-in at the church. :)
Review!