A.N.— Next chapter! Please enjoy!

Chapter 10: Twenty-Three Hours

"Blowhole!" Skipper growls and gets into his fighting stance.

The dolphin only laughs and shakes his head. "Skipper, you are always just so predictable. I could just sit all day in the war room and map out every single little pen-gu-in step you'd take." He wheels farther into the room with a smirk. "You see, I knew that you would be coming for them. I knew that you'd take the pool entrance. I knew that you would be planning a hasty retreat. The female scientist was an unexpected twist, but we have now factored her into our binomial expression, if you see where I am getting at."

Skipper just glares at him and keeps his back from him. "Get on with it Blowhole, I don't have all day."

"Of course, you barely even have a day left, Skipper." He chuckles. "I have been getting quite sick of you pen-gu-ins always blocking my way to success. Nelson feels the same. So, we combined tactics to get rid of you all for good." He chuckles and presses a button on his Segway. It shows a holographic video footage on the wall. "While you were all asleep, you were injected with a special venom that I harvested from one of my special creations. You had precisely twenty-six hours until your demises. It has already been three since then."

All of the penguin's eyes grow wide. "Twenty-three hours…" Marissa mutters.

"But, what about us?" Kowalski then interrupts. "Cecelia and I were already here long before they came."

Dr. Blowhole grins. "That may be, but even the two of you have slept at some point." He says. "The two of you have a whole hour longer than the others. Enjoy it." He clicks another button on his Segway and a new, metal alloy cage falls down upon the penguin group. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a new creation to complete with the help of Kowalski's lovely power cell to aid our course to world domination."

"Wait!" Kowalski exclaims. "I thought you were making another mutant MP3 player?"

"I lied." The dolphin laughs as he heads to the door. "Do you seriously think that, though I do have a fantastic singing voice, I would want to live the rest of my days singing out my glory of domination? As sumptuous as that sounds, I wouldn't want the migraine...And also, Nelson can't sing."

"And they couldn't have my iPod." Sarah chimes in, looking at the penguins. "As much as the doc and his boyfriend had wanted it."

Blowhole looks at the fox. "He is only a friend, nothing more, fox." He growls.

Sarah shrugs. "I ain't judging the two of ya if ya are." She says. "It's just I've yet to see any she-dolphin-liking proof, or she-lizard for the doc." She smirks.

"I cannot speak for Nelson, but I for one am straight." He growls as he exits.

Sarah follows him persistently. "No really, be honest for once! You two would make a very interesting couple."

"Nelson! Control your henchman!" Blowhole growls as he and his Segway rolls past.

Komodo sighs and looks over at them from a computer. "What is she doing now, Francis?" He asks.

"Nothing. He just won't accept the fact that you two would make a great couple." The vixen shrugs as she sits in her spot.

"We're both straight, Sarah, leave it be." He then says, with little reaction to it. "We have plenty else to think about with planning our world domination. Just go back to playing with your iPod or terrorizing the badgers, or whatever you like to do in your free time." He says and waves her away a bit.

Sarah looks at him. "But I like bugging him…"

"Sarah."

The fox sighs and puts her earphones in. "Sure, doc." She says. "I'll leave him alone...For now…"

"Kowalski, options." Skipper says. He thinks that that feel much more natural to say than anyone else for his options.

Kowalski gets out his clipboard and pencil and thinks. "Ehm…"

Marissa watches him a little."You could start with the ca-"

"I know where my option needs to start, Marissa." Kowalski grumbles a bit as he starts drawing.

"Hey, just trying to help some." She says and crosses her flippers.

Kowalski ignores her now and looks over at Rico. "You wouldn't happen to have power-tools in stock now, would you?" He asks.

Rico thinks and then tries to regurgitate. Nothing comes out so he shakes his head and shrugs. "Sowy." He says.

Kowalski nods some and nibbles on the eraser of his pencil in thought. "Okay...Uhhh…"

"Where's the lock?" Marissa then asks as she without asking gets Trixy's hairclip.

"Hey!" Trixy exclaims with a look at Marissa and her bangs now in her eyes. "Mari!"

Marissa looks at her. "I'll give it back in a moment…" She says as she looks for the lock. There are no locks or even doors on the cage and she gives the Brit her clip back with a sigh.

Rico starts impatiently gnawing on a metal bar. "Blaweghuaghil!" He incoherently shouts in frustration.

"I doubt that is going to work, Rico…" Private softly says and pats his back some. "You will only weah down your beak."

Kowalski tries to ignore them all as he tries to think of a way out of there. He looks up at the top of the cage at the rope that had held it up to the ceiling. He then looks over at a high hook over at the wall. He thinks it looks close enough that a rope may be able to be tied to the top of this and lassoed over the hook and pulled like a pulley to maybe lift the cage just enough to wriggle out from under.

Then the cage starts going up on its own.

"What the deuce?" Skipper exclaims.

Cecelia looks at them. "Well, seeing as how he rigged the cage to my cloning device, don't you think I might have kept a spare remote?" She shrugs. "It didn't take but two seconds to wire in about the new addition of the claw."

"And why didn't you bring this up before?!" Both Marissa and Kowalski exclaim in unison. They then look at each other a little and clear their throats.

"Because I was curious if any of you might have came up with anothah way first." She shrugs and looks at them curiously. 'Do they have a history? I'm going to guess they do...' She thinks slightly interested in the two other scientists' glares at each other.

Marissa then slides over to a computer and starts typing, trying to hack in. "Maybe he has about the toxin in here…" She murmurs as she tries to get access.

Trixy slides over with her invention. "Ehm...This might help?" She asks and hands it to her.

Marissa takes it with a thankful nod and plugs it into the USB port of the computer and looks it over for a moment before pressing buttons on it and letting it hack into the computer. "Once Skippsy's back, you might want to show this to her. She could probably show it to Commander Gray." She says as she now opens her special program on the computer. "I'm sure that she wouldn't mind a few for her spies to use."

Trixy looks at her invention thoughtfully and shrugs. "I'll think about it…" She says.

Kowalski comes over and looks at the computer as Marissa has opened up her search engine and is scanning. "This is Blowhole, remember? I highly doubt that he would leave a file about the poison on his computers." He says.

"I know that. I'm not an idiot." Marissa retorts as she types. "But, he might have a floor map of where he keeps his creation that he harvested the toxin from."

"That...That could be possible..." He says and rubs under his chin. He also leans a little close without meaning to as he tries to see the computer better.

Marissa glances at him and tries to keep the tiny smile that is trying to creep up at bay. "Well, of course it is possible. I just found the file." She says as she clicks into it. She types in her own special MariSearch password and opens the document.

"Three levels down, twelfth door to the left." Kowalski says as he sees it and moves away from her and the computer.

"Careful, CAREFUL!" Butch exclaims as he watches his brother with a box of explosives. "If you shake those up too much, there won't be too much of us left!"

"I wasn't shaking them." Connor argues as he nearly drops the box on Butch's paw. "All I did was pick it up over there and bring it over here."

Butch sighs and face-paws in frustration. He wonders what the heck the two docs wanted with this box of explosives anyway. Who were they wanting to obliterate? "Well, I think you've moved it enough. I'll take it from here." He gruffly says and picks the box carefully up. The two badger brothers then walk down the hall and over to Sarah. "The bosses wanted these?" He says.

Sarah looks at them and the box of bombs. "Okay?"

"Where should we put them?" He asks.

"Away from me?" The fox replies with a shrug. "Under their chairs? Don't know, don't care."

"Okay." Butch nods and carefully puts the box down on the other side of the room. He then scampers back over to her. "So…?"

Sarah looks at him again, obviously annoyed. "So what?"

"So...I was wondering if you were busy...If maybe you'd...Um…"

"I am busy. Very busy. Can't ya see? I've got my iPod right here." She says and waves it in his face.

"If-you'd-like-to-go-irritate-Blowhole-with-me." He then says very quickly.

Sarah hears him and takes out an earbud. "I'm listening." She says with a slight interest now. She does not like how Blowhole always orders her around as if he thinks that she works for him. She only will follow Dr. Komodo's orders. She works only for him. She would gladly do something to frustrate and get under the dolphin's skin.

Butch nods. "Well...You know how the prisoners are down a level in that cage?"

"Yeah." She nods.

"And poisoned?"

She nods again. "Get on with it, moron."

"Well, what if we just to play some give them just a bit of antidote-maybe just enough for one of them and let them free themselves and scramble for the cure and fight over the antidote?" He shrugs hesitantly.

"Nah, not dramatic enough." She says. "If you do something like that, you give them enough for all but one and then watch the fight." She grins evilly. "And with them they'd probably end up fighting to be the one not to take it because they're stupid bird brains. Then in the end, they'd all die still because they all refused to take it." She chuckles.

Connor then clears his throat. "Hey, not trying to interrupt, but I think the prisoners are trying to escape again..." He says and points at a monitor. On it shows Kowalski and Marissa looking at a floor plan to the 'Snake Room.'

Sarah looks at it. "As I said, stupid birds. What they're looking for ain't in that room no more." She stretches.

"So...Should we do that with the antidotes?" Butch then asks.

"Eh, yeah, why not." She shrugs. "Then, if anyone gets canned for it, I can always pin it on ya as your idea." She says and gets up.

"Oh..."