Chapter 5
It had been a rough and bumpy night at the mine and by the morning the conditions were not any better. There was no way anyone could head into the "pit" as it was sometimes called and be able to do much work. The weather station readings told them that the temperature had dropped to below freezing and the snow was being whipped around by the winds. Wizz-Ra had tried to magically fix the radio since they did not have any equipment at the mine to do so.
Thankfully, the spell worked and they were able to contact the Lair before the weather made communication next to impossible. Panthro had said that would be the next project – getting a better communication line between the mine and the Lair. The tricky business of it was the mine lay near Hook Mountain, luckily in between the Great Void, the Caves of Trolls and Giants, and Acid Lake, but they still had to cross the Pits of the Molemen to get there. The Molemen would not be thrilled with communication wiring running through their territory. However, the iron mine would come in handy when creating a satellite.
"What are you thinking about?" Lea asked the panther as she walked into the radio room, carrying a tray of coffee and breakfast. He'd refused to leave the radio alone; despite the fact they could not actually reach out to anyone. It was more about another attempt at sabotage that he was worried about.
"A lot of things but the first thing that comes to mind is this beautiful woman handing me breakfast," he smirked as she set the tray down on the desk with the radio.
"Deflect all you want, flattery will get you nowhere," she said, taking a seat in the chair next to his.
"Wizz-Ra is going to try his magic trick using the mirrors to see if he can get to the Lair, while Mumm-Rana stays with us to help with anything that pops up. I think her presence alone will make the possible perpetrator think twice before doing anything," the panther said before tucking into his pancakes.
"Do you think it's weird that we haven't had similar problems at the iron mine?" The lioness wondered.
"I was having the same thought. What if our problem is as easy as the Molemen? I mean I did drive the Tank through their territory," Panthro frowned before sipping some of his coffee.
"Yes, but wouldn't we notice a Moleman in here messing with the radio? I mean for the train tracks, sure I believe it, but then that means we have two problems instead of one," Lea said.
"Not a very pleasant prospect but why would anyone inside this facility want to harm their fellow Mutants or even us?" He questioned.
"Well, I will admit the possibility is not good, I can't see anyone from Third Earth willing to work with the Mutants to cause trouble. We're having a hard enough time getting most of them to accept the Mutants. Now the Warrior Maidens have been helping but they would never agree to anything that goes against us. The Berbils are being their usual helpful selves as well and they too would never go against us. The Balkans and Wollos hold a distrust of the Mutants so they're out of the picture, as far as working with the Mutants. No way Snowman or Snowmeow did anything either. Who does that leave?" The lioness gave him a look.
"No one I can think of," Panthro was back to frowning.
"Exactly. Which leaves someone here, not a pleasant prospect either. What if though, someone…," she trailed off.
"What?" He was unsure why she stopped mid-sentence.
"It's a crazy idea. Not even sure how it'd be possible…" again she didn't finish her sentence.
"You drive me nuts when you do that," Panthro said.
"What if one hand doesn't know what the other is doing?" It was half of an answer, but he was beginning to understand what she was getting at.
"A Mutant screwed with the radio and someone else, not a Mutant, tampered with the tracks. They look like they're working in concert, but they actually aren't," he gave the idea a little more fleshing out.
"Yeah. I mean they'd have us chasing our tails, which we're doing already but the likelihood we catch both, is pretty small," Lea said.
"I think you've been reading too many of Mandora's mystery novels," Panthro chuckled. Before Lea could smack him, the alarms on the system a few desks away went off. The lioness hopped up and looked at the system. Less than ten seconds later, Marwa busted into the room.
"What have we got?" she asked.
"I honestly have no idea," Lea said, staring at all the little red lights on the board.
To Be Continued…