Chapter 19

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"Right, and let me just… Ah, it was this one right here," Clawhauser spoke, smiling as he navigated the desktop computer. He opened up the relevant link and sat back, smiling.

"Ben," Catano spoke, turning to them. "What the actual Cuss?"

"W-what?" the portly cheetah asked. "Just a Ewetube channel that I used to enjoy…"

"-Used to enjoy," she exclaimed, frowning as she pressed the play button. A background of somewhere looking suspiciously like a scottish loch, complete with a castle, appeared, with the deck of a cartoon yacht overlayed. Sitting on that deck, laid back in a chair, was a fairly nondescript cartoon figure of a mammal, a paper bag with a question mark on the front on its head and a bowl of what looked suspiciously like honey chomps on its chest. And then, whoever she was, spoke.

"Hello fellow resistance! This is Gruinard Gal, with this week's episode of The Sheerer, giving all of you lot your free update of the goings on of the Great Cudspiracy. We're starting this week with a big slice of news comin' from the bay area! Now, ACS pharma, who I think I'm gonna call Avine Collaborating Scum pharma from now one, have been working with a certain sheep." An indent in the screen appeared, showing a picture of a scientific paper. "Not just any sheep mind you, oh no, this is one of the big ones. Professor Dexter Bellwether, cuss yeah he's related to that one, has been collabing on an investigation with Avine Colabbing Scum on mixin' up antihistamines and other drugs and stuff in inhalers! Inhalers! Now, the cover story for all the sheeple is that it's to try and 'pre-protect' the lungs of those with breathing difficulties and stuff, like we don't know which species is behind that little number rising so much." The picture changed to show a couple of sheep farmers looking stoically over a chaparral covered slope burning and smoking away, the Hollywoo sign poking out in the far off distance. "But this just shows how far the cudspiracy has infiltrated the media and like. Is no-one else blowing the whistle or sayin' hol'-up! Letting a howler handler like him make medicine for frickin' kits. In fact, the only mention of this is by the other mammal in charge of this study, a pred standin' up for him. Now, let's all guess which mammal it is, huh?" The picture changed to show a wolf standing at a lecturn. "Yup, another one of their braindead sheep-dogs, poor dumb-dumb. They got that lot a looong time ago. Now, I'm gonna say that this is a perfect chance to inject the same taming serum into kits, cubs and even calfs across the world, one quick huff and they're loyal servants to the sheep hivemind. But maybe I'm wrong, who knows what things this could lead to, but I tell you this. If you ain't a sheep, it ain't good!"

Catano slammed the space button hard and stood back, paws open in a W-T-C motion, demanding an explanation from Ben.

"What? It's just a crazy silly thing. It's not wrong to enjoy that, right?"

"Crazy, silly…" she began, mumbling. "You do realise how ovineophobic this is?"

Clawhauser frowned at her. "Hey, just because you can't understand satire, doesn't mean you have to stop others from enjoying it."

The female cheetah's anger dissipated significantly, instead replaced with a subdued frustration. "Ben, this isn't satire. It's literally someone believing that sheep are evil sub-mammals."

"It is?" he began, before shrugging. "Well, I mean it's still silly. Not like I believe it."

"It's not silly. I mean, do you even know what the name and backdrop is a reference to?" she asked.

"No."

"In the middle of World War Two, the British experimented with anthrax weapons, aiming to perform a test on the uninhabited Gruinard island up in Scotland. Some of their best experts on diseases were sheep, who'd been working against foot-and-mouth previously. One came from nearby and got his cousin's lumber firm a contract to help out. It was meant to be a test on chickens and geese, the regular workers going up there to survey and put in the infrastructure, well before the nasty stuff was delivered. However there was a clerical mix-up, some of the bombs going on the first load instead. When a stack of crates toppled, they exploded, and the surveying scientist ordered the boat to leave for the mainland, stranding the infected there until quarantine facilities could be set up."

Catano paused, thinking back. "It also took a while to find and call up the few hyena doctors in the country, who are naturally immune to the disease, and fly them up there. By the time it was all set up, most of them had died, most of the rescued ones quickly joining them. Thankfully those on the boat were unaffected. However everything was classified until the late nineties, so rumours of sheep taking a bunch of red deer, cows and some preds out and doing horrible experiments on them began to spread. Never mind that a third of the fatalities were also sheep. It's often considered the start of the crazy sheep conspiracies, with the truth just written off as a cover story."

"Ouch," Clawhauser said. "But, it's still silly. You wouldn't really believe it."

Oates leant in. "What about the comments?"

The group scrolled down, wincing as they saw multiple ones in agreement with what the video hoster was saying. Indeed, it had lots of likes and views. "Oh Em Goodness…" Ben muttered. "I mean, I don't believe it… But I mean it's still funny! Listen to her, she's funny. I mean, hold on…" He typed a bit further, revealing a new video. Almost like a telemarketer, she began showing off various improvised anti-sheep weaponry, ranging from burr-launchers to giant sheers and moth grenades to giant razors. Ben chuckled as he watched it. "I mean, it's even funnier now. She genuinely expected those things to work. -It's actually the second video of hers I saw, the one to make me interested in her stuff."

"What was the first?" Catano asked.

"Oh, one about a threat to the honey chomp factory," the cheetah said. "Just looking up cereal reviews, and it popped up in my display. Then, -whoop, down the rabbit hole. Hmmmm, I'll have to ask Judy if that's offensive. -Anyway, oooh. The episode when Nick and Judy busted Bellwether is also really good, lemme just..."

He was broken off by Catano's arm, the cheetah frowning. "We can't watch this," she said.

"It's not like I believe any of it, I just find it funny," Ben justified.

"Ben, don't you think it's odd that you wondered about offending Judy with that statement, but you were happy to go back to watching that video?"

Clawhauser shrugged. "I was just thinking out loud on that one, I mean I'd never think that cute could be offensive, but then Judy came in and you know the rest."

"And what if this was a channel talking about how all preds were savages and working out ways to eat us," the cheetah pressed, frowning. "Or it was hosted by a fox, telling us that all the cute little bunnies are busy on their fields multiplying and multiplying, taking over the world's food supply with the aim of making all preds slaves and then starving everyone."

"Heh," Oates mumbled. "Listening to Pounceheart?"

"There's a fox doing that…" Ben exclaimed before pausing, looking back at his computer. "Oh," he mumbled, "but I mean, I wouldn't believe it."

"But others would," Catano said.

"Yeah," Oates said, "and I was just joking about Pounceheart. He just wants us to boycott burrows' produce until they ban the Fox-Away brand."

"Seems fair," Clawhauser agreed. "I didn't think I was doing anything wrong…"

"But you were," she said, looking down. "These kinds of mammals are out there, stirring up hate between species and against those they don't like. You may think you're above it, but many take their words hook, line and sinker. Then they go out, causing misery and who knows what."

There was a laugh from Oates. "Say, back during the howler crisis, I heard the funniest thing you ever heard. Down on Flock Street, some elderly sheep were just playin' chess, and this ferret or somethin' walks up to them, covered head to toe in cotton wool! He then says the 'codeword' baaa, ram, ewe, and begins asking the sheep if they're really trying to take over the world, an' then beggin' them to at least spare Bugburga as he can't eat grass!" He broke down, laughing and braying a few times before shaking his head. "Now I always thought he was just a few straws short of a hay bale, but I bet you what, he was watching this channel!"

Catano smiled, shaking her head. "Oh, mammals… I mean, I suppose that's harmless. But it often isn't. Remember Esther Akinonyx?"

"Wasn't she a sprinter?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, from Canidea. She was a cheetah, found doping and then banned for a while. It wasn't even malicious, it was due to some medicine she was taking or something and they let her back in after. Harmless, right? Except for mammals like my cousin. Apparently in sports, her favourite subject, others were bullying her, saying that she was a cheater."

"She is a cheetah," Ben spoke.

Oates snickered. "With an A, sonny boy."

"Ah, right."

"Yes, and they teased and teased and teased her. You know how angsty and nervous we can get, she was coming home and breaking down in tears, shivering up and lashing out or running away when her parents tried to comfort her."

"Oh dear."

"Yeah," she spoke. "And it wasn't just her, it was many cheetahs across the whole of North America and even in Europe. Turns out you had some furbook posters going around, 'There's a reason they're called cheetahs'."

"Right," Ben agreed. "I get it now. So watching this, and then sheep…"

"Uh-hu," the female big cat nodded. "I mean, surely you know how hard sheep have had it recently."

Oates shivered. "Trust me kitten," he said, looking at Ben. "You don't wanna."

Catano looked up knowingly at the detective, before down at the rotunder member of her species. "I do the school outreach programmes here and there. Especially after the howler crisis, you had lambs shying away from us, and other mammals blurting out that they'd been up to no good. Even recently, my mother talked about a story contest at her local school. Do you know how many had speciesist sheep as their bad guys? Snooty nosed rams and ewes who rolled around in their limos and had no emotion other than hate, calling all preds filth and treating foxes like they were evil incarnate. Heck, you even whole evil sheep towns, planning to open concentration camps for predators, and killing any that tried to stay there overnight in the meantime."

"Yikes. I guess those are kids though," he said, "but I mean as an adult I can watch these things and say, 'hey, I don't agree with that.' I'm not doing anything wrong."

"You're complicit," she said. "You need to take a stand against this stuff. Anyways..." She trailed off, looking around. "Ever notice that there are far fewer sheep officers in Precinct One today? Only a few were with Dawn, but even those completely cleared began filtering away…"

There was a long pause. "Right," Ben said, looking down at his computer. "I remember officer Longhorn looking real down before he left. He asked me if I still trusted him, thought he was a good mammal and all that. I knew that he was getting side-glances and cold shoulders from others after the howler crisis, but never connected it with this..."

"Right," she agreed. "I mean… -That DA, he kept going on about how we were ovinophobic. We threw it out as it was a dead-cat tactic. But, are we?"

"I don't mean to be," Ben said.

Oates frowned. "Well, I'm definitely not."

"But what if we are and we don't realise it?"

Ben looked away, scratching behind his head and thinking. Oates just frowned further. "Well, I very much am definitely not!"

"Me neither," Clawhauser added meekly. "Unless... -is Beep-Beep I'm a Sheep bad too?"

"The song?" Kii asked. "I'm pretty sure that sheep like that. I mean, it was their answer to Carrot Pop's Hey-hey Mr Fox and all made by sheep about sheep. So if Mr Fox isn't antivulpistic, then Beep-Beep certainly isn't ovinophobic."

Oates smiled. "And the music video is better too."

Ben blinked. "No it isn't, it's boring. Mr Fox though has that fox actor who… Say, is it me or does he really look like Nick?"

"Ah," Oates replied. "I meant the sexy Beep-Beep video."

Catano groaned, rolling her eyes. "Boys…"

Oates chuckled a few times. "And I take that fox actor and raise that wolf actor that looks suspiciously like Wolford."

"I've never seen that video," Ben confessed.

"Ah, your loss. Anyhow, back to this 'Gruinard Gal', I think I know who she is."

"Huh?" Catano asked, before smiling. "It seems she hasn't been posting for a while. Please tell me you arrested her."

"Her name was Honey Badger, and she was a Honey Badger. Like daughter, like parents I guess," he chuckled. "But, she's the one that Nick and Judy caught after escaping from the nut house."

"It was her? Also, don't call it that."

"Okay then. The funny farm."

"We don't need another Wilde," she said. "But yeah, I remember her clearly. Honestly though, after all the horrible things she's said about sheep, she should be in jail. There's got to be some hate crimes in there, nasty mammal."

Oates nodded on, before pausing. "Hey, look there on the side."

Catano did so, before blinking. "Uh-oh, now those mammals have heard of this case."

"Well, it's Pounceheart," Oates said, gesturing to Catano to press it.

"And that makes a difference?" she said, as a fox was shown sitting down in an interview room, three others sitting across from them. "I… It's the parents! They're getting him involved too? I… -Well, I suppose after how the authorities treated them, I can't blame them for striking out. But still, ZNN was covering them too. Did they really have to throw in with this lot?"

"I wouldn't say it's stooping low," Oates said. "I first heard of that Pounceheart guy during the middle of the howler crisis. I hated his guts, given how we were trying to hold the city together and he was going on about how it wasn't the savage predator crisis, it was the 'recidivism crisis' and all that. Especially when he began saying that we should let these opportunist crooks go free, was encouraging mammals not to listen, how there was a conspiracy going on and by the end mammals should go out, rebel and kick up a fuss. But then I found out it was the mayor! Didn't call it exactly, but he'd worked out something was up, something we all missed, and he was doing what any decent mammal with a spine should do in that case. I've respected him an awful lot ever since. I met him at the start of the wider investigations, it's how I learnt about Honey Badger being Gruinard Gal, they briefly colabbed before he dropped her. Anyway, he's a swell guy, and the stuff he'd found was the perfect starting point for the investigations, he saved us an awful lot of work."

Catano looked on, thinking for a second or two. "So, he being right wasn't a broken clock is right twice a day thing, like her," she said. "But, he still worked with her."

"And he said he dropped her after deciding she was a bit too crazy," he said. "I think with ones like this, you do have to watch them in order to work out whether there's something interesting going on there."

"I'd have thought you'd have been able to work out if they were a nasty mammal like her from the get go," Catano said, still frowning. "And maybe one occasionally gets stuff right, but how many are out there pedelling nonsense that dumb mammals will just lap up? Stuff they then use to go out and hurt others. Is the odd diamond in the rough really worth it?" She paused, spotting the time. "Right, we better get back to work."

"That we should," the horse agreed. "That we should." He watched her walk off, before glancing around and leaning down next to Ben. "Quickly, type in Beep-beep, what a hot sheep."

Ben did just that, the horse sitting down, arm around the cheetah and with a wide grin on his face.

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Back in the van, they all looked on. "He's Gus alright," Judy commented. Just like his picture, he didn't have a full mask of his darker fur on his face, instead having a brown triangle of fur coming down to touch his nose, along with little crescents surrounding his eyes. He had a black backwards facing baseball cap on his head, an expensive looking gold watch on one wrist, a pair of blue jeans down below and nothing on up above, leaving him mostly naked.

"Name's Gus," he introduced.

"Xavier," Finnick spoke, the screen blurring as Jack nodded along.

"Diego," he said, his voice carrying a heavy latin accent.

There was a pause, before Mr Fox spoke. "Fred."

"What!" Judy exclaimed. "NO! You're supposed to use fake names, not your real name!"

"To be fair," Skye countered. "Nobody ever calls him Fred… -I only just remembered he technically is one."

"Yeah. He's not really the Fred type," Honey agreed.

They were broken off as Kylie gave his name. "Kylie."

Judy just furrowed her eyes and remained silent as they walked on in. The inside was surprisingly decadent, or at least had been at one stage. A long time ago, whichever elephant owned the building decided that he didn't need the little area in the entrance hallway beneath the stairs and converted it into a small mammal annex. A wall had been placed to shut it off from the larger apartment and its door, leaving it with the side window. While the bottom half had been blocked in to allow the door installation, the top half still let light flood into an atrium, various floors opening out onto it as they went up. Judy guessed it could house a dozen or so mammals her size without feeling crowded, a dozen more comfortably and, were it near a major university, it almost certainly would be filled up with students. It wasn't though, and being a cheap small mammal flat in the middle of somewhere unremarkable it had to compete with every other cheap small mammal flat in the middle of somewhere unremarkable. This flat effectively being on top of a mammal made hill also didn't help.

Still, Judy thought, the place would not be that bad, were it not for the mess that the current occupant had made of it. She watched the camera feed showing Gus lead the trio through bags of trash or just trash, slipping past some gym equipment and waltzing over into a huge kitchen area.

"Ooooh," Nick commented. "I'll bet a nickle that whoever built this found a template for easy-build student digs and followed that, thinking it'd be a gold mine."

Judy nodded along, watching as they were shown into a tiled off area, two downstairs toilets, before walking up, Gus giving the tour.

"First floor is my floor," he said. "All mine, from the bed to the bath!"

Judy frowned. "Hang on," she spoke, leaning over to the microphone. "Say, ask if any of the other rooms have baths."

Skye blinked. "What!?"

"I'll explain later," she said, Nick nodding along.

"Thankfully," the red fox added, "your mate isn't as bad an actor as you are."

Indeed, Jack asked the question, Gus laughing. "Nope! What kind of place you think this is? You get en-suite showers and toilets though."

"Yeah," Finnick grunted. "Need something decent to hawk this place given how much you'z charging us for it."

Gus looked at him and frowned. "Hey, my rent buys two very special things. One, no questions asked. Two, you get to pay in cash."

Back in the van, Honey smiled. "Oooh, I get it. Your Weasel lives here as he hustles, and no-one would take him without a real job under his belt."

Nick looked over and nodded. "Yeah, though I already kind of knew that. Before I saved up and got my place, I lived in a bear's basement."

The honey badger looked back at him, sighing a bit. "Hey… Just trying to be helpful. I mean, this is my redemption, you know?. I'm gonna ace it!"

The red fox looked on, concerned. "Well… It's more that you're just helping out, giving us a paw. I wouldn't say it's a redemption or anything."

"It's not?"

"No," Nick replied. Judy looked up to him but he waved her down, taking the mustelid off to the side. "Listen, it's good you're interested in helping Kris out, but we don't want you becoming so obsessed with this that it's like you and the sheep all over again."

"That…" Honey began, before frowning. "That doesn't make logic. I mean, with the sheep, I was coming up with new ways about why they were evil and stuff as I hated them. Here… here I'm trying to help out your friend. Your friend."

"Yes," Nick said, "and that's great. But what happens if you begin to think that everything hinges on that? You start building your world around it? It becomes your world…"

Honey looked at him for a second or two before breaking off, blinking. "I…" she began, beginning to shiver a little. "Okay. I think, that here, I'm trying to answer a big question. Who did this to Kris. As long as I keep my mind on that, on answering that question, rather than proving that it's Duke or Maisy or someone else… Then I'll be okay. Right…?"

Nick smiled, nodding, patting her on the back. "Yeah, that sounds fair."

"It does?"

"It does."

"Phew…" she sighed, shivering a bit. "I was… I was getting a bit worried there."

"No worries," he replied, beginning to lead her back to the screen.

"-Nick?"

"Yeah?"

She paused, holding onto his paw. "Please tell me when I'm getting to the edges and stuff. I want to think I can make the choice myself, but…"

The fox nodded, as they sat down once more. The group were moving on up to the next floor, Judy thinking it through. She leant into the microphone and spoke. "Ask if any other rooms are occupied."

Back in the flat, Jack silently acknowledged the order. "Hey, apart from you, are there any other hombres we might be bunking with?"

Gus looked behind and shrugged. "Just a weasel. Two floors up."

"He in?"

"On holiday," he remarked, as they turned a corner and he waved the three along the open landing. Multiple glass faced doors opened up onto it, long and narrow rooms behind that. "Anyway, all the rooms are like that, basically."

Nick dove in, speaking into the microphone. "Tell him that Xavier always had a Napolion complex and always prefers to be up high. It's why he went to this high up place to begin with."

Nick's advice was redundant, given that Mr Fox had taken his own initiative. "Well, Gus, or shall I call you Mr Pippman? It's always nice to hear that all rooms are the same and that great care has been put into egality; it almost mirrors the ideals behind this building here, even if the complete monosize pattern of the room scales is paradoxically the greatest insult imaginable to the original designers. But, while all rooms are equal, some are more equal than others. -I happen to believe that something to that effect was on a sign at a cult that committed mass suicide, -the one fairly near us, as opposed to the more famous one in south america which had 'those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it' on their sign. I digress. In short, I'd like to view all the rooms, to judge their sun and view potential."

The ferret looked at him, blinking for a second. "Dude. What are you on?"

"A love of life and me in life."

"-And Jesus Christ," Jack cut in. "Don't worry, he's not always like that. When he's chill he's chill, you know? Anyway, we'd like to go up and see the views."

Gus shrugged. "Sure thing."

Up they went, Jack (on Judy's orders), advising Mr Fox and Kylie to take Gus higher up, leaving him and Finnick to inspect Duke's room. Along they went, quickly finding the evidence of mammal occupation, small bits of litter trailing along the ground and a stack of old pizza boxes by one of the doors. Finnick sniffed a few times before looking up and nodding, the pair reaching a door. Holding the handle and turning it they found that, unlike the others, it was locked.

And, while it did have a window built into it, a curtain was drawn over the front, blocking their view inside. They knew this from their reconnaissance of course.

Back in the van, eyes were also on a print out, showing the few pictures of the room that they had. Long and thin, bits of mess across the floor, some areas contained electronic equipment and a printer, for his bootlegging business, while in another area there was a pile of camping equipment and some fishing rods.

Also, highly encouragingly, was a corkboard, filled in with printed off pictures. The resolution was too low for them to view it, so they'd have to get inside. Ideally in a way that didn't count as breaking and entering, and wouldn't raise too much suspicion.

The fennec and hare pair nodded at each other, Finnick peeking over to make sure Gus wasn't looking while Finnick brought out a little thing courtesy of Skye. While Honey might be the crazy gadget mam, the swift fox had her own areas of expertise. Being a mechanic, she often needed to get into and discover faults in very tight spaces, which was why she happened to own an endoscope.

Jack slipped it beneath the door and looked inside. "Yeah, this is it." While he could use the controls to make the end twitch around, most of the movement came from his paws. Combined with the range, it meant that they couldn't just scan the pinboard, they had to get in. Naturally, Finnick had suggested that he just pick the lock. Judy, however, had felt a bit concerned by that, given that it could be argued to be breaking and entering. Nick had countered that the laws were a bit iffy around these informal sub-lets, given that they were in the property itself legally and 'being nosy' wasn't a crime.

Finnick himself thought it was stupid, just go in.

Instead, a more complicated plan had been formulated, with plenty of input from Honey and Skye. He looked on as Jack brought out what they'd come up with. A strip of metal foil, one side coated with a grey paste.

A grey paste made of saltpeter, icing sugar and some woodash. Using the endoscope, Jack pushed it in, slipping it beneath a small fridge that they knew was there from the pictures. Then, adding a little gadget they'd slipped onto the end, they created a small glowing hot ember, soon pressed down on the surface hard. It began to glow, then smoke.

Smoke like there was no tomorrow.

Pulling the scope out, the pair packed it away before carrying on their casual walkaround. Like Mr Fox's distraction one a while back, it served a secondary purpose. Sniffing for any nighthowler. While fairly unique, the strong flora smell of them could still be picked up by canids like Finnick and Mr Fox. Not recognised exactly, but in a place like this there wasn't much else that it could be.

Checking the other rooms, sniffing for any signs that Duke had kept them in there, they soon worked up to the top landing, pausing as they saw that Mr Fox had somehow got Kylie and Gus into a fitness battle.

Both were doing pull-ups over the side, Kylie hanging on by both his feet and tail, Gus' feet held down by Mr Fox.

"I think my point is proven," the opossum spoke, doing another flex up before relaxing down, unhooking his legs and just hanging by his tail.

The ferret grunted, doing another pull-up. "You don't look like you work out. What's your bench press?"

"I don't…"

"See," he grumbled, pulling himself up and over. "You just cheat as you're made to do this."

He gave Kylie's tail a slight flick, the opossum yelping a bit as it began to slip through, only to tighten again. Mr Fox leant over and gave him a paw to get back up.

"So, had a good enough look around?" the ferret asked.

"I'd say so," Finnick said. "But this flatmate. How's he to live with?"

Gus shrugged as he walked past them, beginning to make his way down the stairs. "Keeps to himself," he said. "That's about it."

"Sounds fine by me," Jack replied, smiling. "We were once with a guy who came in shouting and screaming each time the cops picked him up on something."

"Duke just grumbles to himself, a lot. Really did so before going on his holiday."

"Where's he going."

"Oh, he just goes camping in the States, I…" He paused, sniffing a few times. Mr Fox looked at him oddly before raising his nose, sniffing too.

"Do you smell smoke?"

"Yes," Gus grunted, dropping down onto all fours and racing down the stairs, the others following after him. They spiralled down before cutting onto Duke's landing, the ferret swearing out loud as he saw the smoke. "Duke you idiot!" he yelled, leaning in and smashing at the door. He growled, before looking around. "Dammit, anyone have a paperclip?"

"I have some fishing hooks," Kylie spoke, picking a large one out of his hat and handing it over. Gus snatched it, then another, and then began working on the lock. It wasn't a proper lock or anything, just designed to stop people barging in uninterrupted instead of keeping thieves or anything out, so the ferret had it open in seconds. With a swift kick he knocked the door open, racing in with the others following swiftly behind.

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AN: Y'all should follow Oates' advice, XD. And kudos to Merc_Marten for introducing me to that little ol' video there.