by neorenamon
"So where's piggy?" Ace asked with a little annoyance in his voice.
"We've searched every inch of the roof," said Tek, "I can't imagine anywhere he could be hiding that we have sniffed, scratched or scanned. Maybe he bolted when he realized we were up here looking for him?"
"And the only two staircases down into the mall are being guarded by Duck and Slam. He certainly nowhere near the helipad."
"Cloaking device?"
"Why would he use it now and not while sneaking into the back of the bank?" asked Ace.
"Well... I suppose you're right."
"In the meantime, I'm calling Lexi and Skunk to check up on..." he said as he activated his com link, "Well ain't that weird?"
"What is?" asked Tek.
"There's nothing but static," he replied.
"Let me check," he mused as he took out a radio scanner and turned it on, "All signal frequencies are being jammed locally."
"Jammed? Since when?"
"It must have happened after I transmitted the layout of the mall to Skunk. That was a good hour ago."
"Can you locate the jammer?" asked Ace as he looked into Tek's eyes.
"Does the Ursine Pope poop in the woods?"
"What?!"
"Nothing..." he replied as he worked the device, "Of course I can locate the jammer." He started walking towards the helipad.
"Any luck?"
"Luck is not required," he mused, "and it's right underneath the helipad, I might add."
"Can ya take it out, Doc?!"
"As if there's any doubt," he replied as he pulled out a ball, pressed it twice, and it turned into his Mark VII Master Blaster. He leaned down to fire under the pad to destroy the device.
"LEXI?!" called as he activated his com, "SKUNK?! You there?!"
"Is something wrong?" asked Zadavia.
"We're searching for Pink the Pug here at the hypermall, and we just found out someone has been jamming our coms. Have Lexi or Skunk reported to you?!"
"No, they have not," she replied, "and I haven't any record of either of them entering the base either."
"Skunk has a computer in her skull," noted Tek, "Maybe she saw something in the data that I didn't."
He sent the data to the base computer and waited a moment for it to send analysis back. The altered image was displayed over his wrist com.
"Damn me for a fool!" he swore.
"What?" asked Ace.
"It was all set up! The spotty outages of camera coverage were created to lead us to the roof while Pink escaped out the sewers!"
"Damn, and there's mutant monsters down there!" added Ace, "If Lexi and Skunk decided to go after Pink on their own!.."
"I can trace their coms from satellite from here," said Tek calmly.
"They're underground," said Zadavia, "about a half a mile north of your position. According to this... they're in a sewer tunnel moving slowly north."
"Show off," he muttered under his breath.
"Doc, just find the nearest street entrance to where the goyls are now," he replied as he started working the advanced controls on his com, "I'll summon the zoomatrixes here and we'll be down there in a few minutes."
"They might be trying to save face by capturing Pink on their own," announced Zadavia.
"Come on, guys!" shouted Ace, "We got ourselves a new lead!"
...
A few minutes later...
...
"The sewers?!" asked Duck as he looked at the manhole cover.
"You weren't too adverse to the sewers the last time," mused Ace.
"Only because the Sagittarius Stomper was scarier than the monsters in the sewer!" he retorted, "and I forgot about how much that place STINKS!"
"Well Lexi and Skunk might be in trouble, so YOU'RE going down dere wit US!"
Duck just grumbled.
"Besides," said Tek, "We're tracing them by their coms. It... uh... shouldn't take long..."
"Why ya sounding uncertain there, Doc?"
"They've been maintaining the exact same pace for a while now," he replied, "It's strange not to stop for anything, or quicken their pace to check something..."
"Unless..."
"No, if Lexi was dead and floating in the sewer, she would be moving faster than this... and Skunk's body would sink to the bottom and hardly move at all..."
"Tank gawd fer small favors!" replied Ace.
"Then-let-us-get-down-there!" said Rev quickly.
"I agree," he mused, "Slam! Take off the manhole cover!"
Slam nodded.