Chapter 27: Thieves and Traitors

With a quiet moan, Kowalski opened his eyes and rubbed his head. He slowly sat up and blearily glanced around his surroundings. He was in a small cage and outside the cage there was straw, or perhaps hay? He was no grass expert and his head was pounding still.

Kowalski stood up and poked his head between the bars to get a better look around. Yep. He appeared to be in some sort of barn. Perhaps the petting zoo? He turned his head and his nonexistent brows shot up in surprise. Off in the far corner, Francis's Diabologizer was parked and beside it, one of his own inventions, the Helmet.

He hadn't thought about the Helmet since Rico shot it off Julien's head with a bazooka. It was looking pretty good, all things considered….But what the cod was it doing in a barn with Francis's Diabologizer?

"Oh good, you're awake."

Kowalski turned towards the voice and narrowed his eyes. "You."

"Yes." The blue chicken chuckled, stepping closer to the cage. "Me. Did you miss me?"

"Not at all." Kowalski crossed his flippers, frowning at her. "So I see you've taken up a new hobby. Invention thievery."

The hen hummed a little as she strode over to the inventions. "Well, you know what they say, Kowalski. Work smarter, not harder." She winked at him. "And these two inventions make the perfect combination for successful world domination. Especially with the intellect of a true genius, compared to a little subgenius."

Kowalski took a step back with a glance at her. "Do you have to keep calling me that?"

"Mmm, the truth hurts too much? Too bad." Blue picked up the Helmet. "With the thought manifestation abilities of this, I have calculated that if diabologized, as it should obtain the ability to create objects out of pure imagination without having to wait for it to come to you. And if my calculations are correct, which they impeccably are, mind control is also a definite as well." She set the Helmet down.

The penguin sighed and looked at the inventions again. "So...Let me guess...You're going to diabologize both me and the Helmet? You know stealing from Francis signed your death certificate, right?"

"Diabologize you?" Blue gasped dramatically. "Well, now that's something I hadn't considered. What a great idea." She then rolled her eyes. "Oh like that subgenius is anything to fear. He's all talk and sass."

"Quit with the act." He rolled his eyes. "You think it makes you sound smarter, but it sounds asinine and completely juvenile."

The hen stepped closer to the cage. "Fancy words for a subgenius." She chuckled, poking her head into the cage. "However, I really wasn't planning to diabologize you. Instead, I thought I'd make you an offer." She ran a feather tip down the bar of the cage, not looking at him.

Kowalski narrowed his eyes at her again. "Like I'd ever consider an offer from you."

"Oh come on, Kowalski," she sighed, shaking her head. She took a step back and looked at him with her wings on her hips. "Do you really think that dolphin has feelings for you? Even I thought you were smarter than that. He's just using you."

"Dear cod, you too?!" He groaned, pressing his flippers to his face before gesturing wildly. "Yes. I do, because he does and he's not."

The hen chuckled, shaking her head. "You're so gullible." She poked her head in again and booped his beak with her feather tip. "It's so adorable."

Kowalski jerked his head back with a glare.

The blue hen sighed, clucking softly as she shook her head. "You're just so usable. First Skipper, now that Blowjoke fella. You never see the signs. Your self-esteem is just that low. It's almost pitiful. One person offers you the slightest sliver of a compliment and you roll over for them."

He turned away from her, shaking his head. "That's not true…"

"Oh but it is, and you know it. Just like you know you're a subgenius, if even that," she sighed. "Such a shame the predicament you've allowed yourself to be placed into. Skipper hates your inventing and largely thinks of you as a failure. Blowjoke hates how you're not evil and you still have a conscience. Neither will ever accept you exactly as you are, and you know it." She stepped around to the side closest to him and reached into the cage. She stroked his cheek with her feather tip. "However, I accept you as the dorky subgenius you are. I don't even care that you have a conscience. You'd make a pleasant trophy husband."

Kowalski looked up and leaned away from her with a look of disgust. "What?"

"I know you like children, Kowalski." She wrapped her feather tips around the bars. "We could have as many as you like and you could continue your little inventing hobby and subgenius activities, while I rule the world." She chuckled, leaning into the cage again. "We both know you wouldn't want leadership responsibilities. And that's perfectly fine. I'll handle the domination." She winked at him. "Just think about it. You could be by my side as I rule the world, or you could live out the rest of your days as my diabologized pet. Your choice." She leaned away and began to walk towards the door. "I'll let you think about it, but I think it's an excellent deal that you won't find anywhere else."

Kowalski grimaced as he watched her leave and just shook his head. "No thank you. No thank you. Noooooo thank you," he murmured, looking at the cage bars. He had finally found the part with the lock. He tried fitting his flipper inside it to pick it, but it was a little too small. He sighed and released the lock, looking around again. "Maybe I can use some of this straw…" He knelt down and reached out of the cage and grabbed a flipperful from the ground. "No...Much too flimsy. Well…Heck," he huffed and tossed it away.

Blowhole skimmed through several hours of footage from the camera watching the diabologizer's room. However, he was frustrated to see that the section of time, that he could only assume it was taken, was corrupted on the camera's memory. Whoever had been stupid enough to steal his invention was going to pay for it. No one. No. One. steals from Dr. Blowhole and gets away with it.

"Red Two, I want all footage analyzed for any sign of an intruder. Come to the lab when you see something," he sighed, shaking his head and rolling out. First Kowalski, now his Diabologizer? What the absolute hell was going on? National steal from Blowhole day?

Blowhole rolled into the lab where the penguins had been waiting...In another cage. Of course, he couldn't trust them to behave themselves unsupervised while he checked those cameras. He clicked a button on the panel of his Segway and it opened with a soft click. "Be good and I'll let you stand outside the cage and watch."

Skipper rolled his eyes as he stepped out and waddled over to him and the computer. "Just hurry up and find my lieutenant, Blowhole. I don't have the patience for this."

"That really sounds like a you problem." He tapped on his keyboard before plugging his phone into the computer and tapping more buttons. "Let's see…" He clicked a few final keys on the keyboard again and watched the screen switch over to a map.

"So? Where is he?" Skipper crossed his flippers with a glare.

"Give it a minute, it's searching."

"Uggggh," he groaned and sat down on the desk edge. "Tell it to search faster."

Blowhole rolled his eye and leaned onto the desk by him. "You know what this reminds me of?" He glanced at the penguin.

"Oh don't you even bring that up," Skipper snarled, glaring at him.

"It's like you don't even know me." He gasped. "You think I'd dare bring up Costa Rica in front of your team just to watch you squirm? I'm aghast." He cackled.

"One more word, villainous scum, one. More. Word." He pointed at him, standing up once more.

Blowhole simply smirked and tapped the computer screen. "He's in some barn in the Central Park's Children's zoo."

"What the halibut is he doing in the pe-" Skipper stopped. "Blue."

"Blue? You mean the chicken?" He turned and looked at him with an amused snort. "You're telling me, Kowalski got himself kidnapped by a chicken?" He laughed.

"The Blue Hen isn't just some chicken," Private said, hopping up onto the table. "She's a genius. She's smarter than Kowalski."

"Ehhh, doubt it."

"She really is. She out-thinks him every time. She's a probability genius."

"So? Being a genius requires more than being a statistics machine. Some variables a computer just can't analyze, which means she can't either. I mean, she's a chicken. They have such tiny brains. There's only so much she could possibly do with it."

"Boss! Boss!"

Blowhole and Skipper both turned and looked at the lobster running into the room. "Yeah?"

"I got something from the footage, but you won't believe it!"

"Try me." He leaned down towards him. "What did you see?"

The lobster held up his phone to show him a picture. "Fifty-Nine and One-Hundred-Seven conspiring with some chicken...Or at least I think they're conspiring. They look suspicious."

Blowhole looked at the picture before leaning back straight with a serious frown. "I see…Good job, Red Two." He turned and looked at Skipper and the other penguins. "I'll meet you at that barn." He then rolled out of the room without another word, leaving the penguins to be escorted out by Red One and Two.