"So do you believe me now?" Skipper asked, too tired to be accusing, but until he was certain Marlene was on board – he honestly thought she'd been on his side before – he couldn't shut his eyes for two seconds or he might wake up in a cell. Even if Marlene didn't answer in the affirmative, could he trust her anyway? She could just say that to get his guard down then yell for help.

"I guess I have to," she replied, "Why would you silence your own lieutenant? You couldn't even have done it, anyway, you were on the other side of the room." She looked across the darkened park from the bench just outside the zoo walls, not at Skipper. Skipper wasn't sure if that was a sign she was lying, "It was a lot less confusing when I thought you'd done it. Still," Finally she looked at Skipper, "I can't get over what I saw."

"You heard one gunshot, how could I have gotten both Lulu and Kowalski with one shot?" Skipper replied. He picked up the distasteful weapon from next to him on the bench, dragging it closer, "I'm fine with flamethrowers, S.T.A.N.K, you name it… I guess these things just carry too many memories of Manfredi and Johnson." Skipper couldn't actually tell if he was lying to get Marlene's sympathy to think he psychologically couldn't have done it or if it was an actual memory. In this case his variable memory was actually an asset. Real or not, it worked. He picked it up, weighing it in his wings. He frowned. Either he'd gotten a lot weaker since Denmark or the humans were making firearms a whole lot heavier, "It's too heavy." He spoke.

"What's too heavy?" Marlene questioned but she had to work it out for herself as Skipper started disassembling the thing with a vengeance. Nothing. Skipper gave something of a yell of anguish, "Maybe you should get some sleep…"

"No, something's wrong with it!" Skipper snapped. He glared at the metal parts on the grass before him and spotted one tiny little detail. One little red wire. Immediately he pounced on it, but even when he'd torn the thing out it didn't exactly make much sense, "Just dandy." He groaned, "The resident scientist is out for the count."

"Well there's always…" But Skipper already knew who she was thinking of.

"Not a chance, Marlene." He cut her off firmly, "Chances are Blowhole made this little… whatever it is."

"No he didn't, Kowalski did."

"Marlene, soiling the good name of a wounded officer…"

"No, he said so himself," Marlene countered, ""They made me do it." Somebody forced him, and the rest of the team's still missing, they could be holding them hostage." Skipper nodded grimly.


"What is it they say about birds of a feather, or in this case dolphin and a bird of a feather?" Blowhole spoke with a barely repressed smirk that Skipper had an almost overwhelming urge to wipe off the dolphin's face but equally repressed.

"I've been framed." Skipper growled but Marlene was already doing some kind of improvised sign language for 'take deep breaths and calm down, resist the urge to whack your arch villain into next week'. "You took a look at the gun, what did you find?"

"Well," Blowhole smiled and hit a button on his Segway. A circular section of floor rose up till it was now a cylindrical pedestal on which the weapon in question was displayed. Blowhole sauntered over and picked it up, "I found something rather interesting about this little thing." He started driving in the direction of one of the other doors and Skipper and Marlene followed him into what appeared to be his lab. He placed it on one of the shiny white work surfaces, "Very interesting indeed." He mused as he disassembled the evidence so the strange wires and parts Skipper had found were visible, "Tell me, peng-you-in, what exactly happened before the gun decided to take a life of its own?"

"Tell me, dolph-you-in, what did you find?" Skipper snapped back.

"Just tell him." Marlene sighed.

"Alright," skipper grumbled. "Kowalski came up to me with a note. I tried to read the note but I couldn't get to a place where people weren't peeking over my shoulder before he came up to me again holding that." Skipper scowled at the gun, "I caught up to Kowalski again and he was talking to Lulu. I remember she patted him on the back which is strange for Kowalski – personal bubble and all – but he seemed scared out of his wits. Then he yelled at me to get back, that I was walking into someone's trap or something. Then the gun fired and the lights went off."

"I see." Blowhole muttered thoughtfully, smiling vaguely as if this were some vaguely amusing academic problem, "My findings support your facts and vice versa."

"What did you find?" Marlene demanded, beginning to lose her patience too, "What are those wires and…"

"There is a technical name, but I'm sure your lesser minds would prefer I skipped that since you wouldn't understand it anyway," Blowhole interrupted. "When Lulu patted Kowalski on the back she was placing a small 'electronic do-hicky'. That 'do-hicky', had you gotten close enough to Kowalski would cause the gun to fire – but that is all entirely irrelevant."

"What do you mean irrelevant?" Skipper questioned.

"It's irrelevant because the gun has never been fired, not since your lieutenant got his wings on it at least." Blowhole replied, "Oh come now, don't look so shocked, you've known it this whole time." Apparently, neither skipper nor Marlene had, "Tell me exactly what you remember feeling the moment it happened?"

"Well, I was confused, more than a little worried…"

"Not that kind of feeling," Blowhole cut him off, "Physical feeling. What did you see, what did you smell, what did you touch?" Skipper had to think on that one. The whole evening was really a kind of blur.

"I stepped forward, holding the gun, then I heard a loud bang – a gunshot…"

"But you never felt the gun go off." Blowhole concluded, "Pen-gu-in, you might not know this since you are neither Manfredi nor Johnson, but there is a considerable back kick to such a weapon, even for humans. It might very well have knocked you flat but you didn't even feel it. It couldn't go off, Kowalski sabotaged it after rigging the 'do-hicky'. Why else would your framers have taken the risk of taking Kowalski out themselves? They'd just found out he'd sabotaged it." Skipper didn't quite respond to this, "Come now, he must have done something to make them rule out such a valuable scientific asset."

"Then Lulu's fine?" Marlene asked.

"Right as rain." Blowhole answered, "I've just got one last test to do on this." He added, taking the gun and placing it in some box of some sort. He flicked a switch and the thing started to glow.

"Anything to say to me?" Marlene asked.

"Marlene," Skipper blushed, "you might possibly, maybe, have been, kinda…"

"Right?" She grinned, "We've got all the evidence we need now, Skipper. We just prove that the gun won't fire and everyone will know it couldn't have been you. That," She pointed to the weapon going through its final test, "that is the…" Marlene's voice trailed off in sheer horror.

"Great hoover dam!" Skipper exclaimed.

Neither of them could do anything but watch as that magnificent piece of evidence melted away till it was now a misshapen mass bubbling and drowning in a silver grey soup of molten metal. Skipper started forward but stopped almost immediately. It was already too late.

"Blowhole…?!" Marlene stuttered, but the dolphin only grinned.

"Did you really think I was actually going to help my arch enemy?" He scoffed, "I just wanted you to see how close you'd gotten before I knocked you down." He noticed the penguin and the otter were just stood there, the penguin expecting lasers and pressure sensors and the otter catatonic with shock, "Off you go, back to the zoo. I'm looking forward to watching the tables turn."


"Alright," Skipper was pacing the sidewalk near the edge of the park, "Alright," he repeated, "You can't go back to the zoo, in case we've been seen together… No, I think you could come up with something," he thought aloud, "I can retake one of my old identities, something far away, maybe…"

"Don't even think about it." Marlene interrupted. Skipper looked up from the sidewalk, "You're going straight back to the zoo and you're going to clear yourself."

"Marlene, you don't seem to realize how hopeless it is," Skipper countered, "That was our last piece of evidence, and now it's just a puddle of molten metal."

"Oh come on, Skipper, you can't just give up on this!" Marlene exclaimed, but Skipper seemed unmoved, "You're acting like a coward!"

"I am not!" Skipper started walking away from the park. Marlene realized she wasn't going to get one word in and if she followed she was likely to end up in Northern Canada or somewhere equally remote. That wasn't going to happen, weather Skipper was going to go back willingly or not. She picked up a stone beside her, grimaced and threw. Skipper dropped.

"Sorry Skipper," she thought aloud as she grabbed hold of a wing and began to realize that dragging an unconscious penguin across central park unnoticed wasn't going to be a walk in the park, "But this is just like the needle thing." Sometimes, often, Skipper didn't know best.