Chapter 13

Silence had never been quite this loud.

No one spoke. The sound of the bubbling filter, the low volume TV, the zoo noise just outside of their concrete habitat, all of it was fighting to fill the vacuum of space their voices had just occupied. Where the sounds usually fit together to form an ambience like washes of water colour paint, they were now giant clunking gears aligned wrong, all gnashing teeth and grating metal where they clashed and broke against each other.

He couldn't even hear anyone breathe.

Kowalski wanted to laugh. There was a unpredictable jolting in his chest that was just begging to be let out, the acrid bubbling of hysteria lodged in his throat.

Beyond that his body felt disconnected. Like it was no longer his.

This was insane. He knew that. What he had said, what he had just seen, all of it was beyond the realm of disbelief.

And the worst part about that was how sure it made him it must have been true.

It wasn't just the fact it was a memory, or that it had been a mirror, it was the absolute lack of everything he was feeling now. There hadn't been this confusion-fear-anger-disbelief kaleidoscope of emotions locked somewhere behind a paywall of numbed and disparate body parts.

It had felt normal. Perfectly devoid of anything to even suggest the situation was anything beyond the perfectly ignorable ordinary. He had been looking in that mirror because of a black eye. He had glossed over everything that wasn't new, or out of the ordinary. Bruises, Stubble, Those were noticed.

Skin, a nose, hands?

All par for the course.

Because it was par for the course. It was normal.

Or at least it had been.

A barking laugh escaped his chest, and he clamped his hand down over his mouth to cover the sound. Or he tried to. His flippers hit his beak, feathers skidding over hard keratin inches out from where his face should have begun. It only made the feeling intensify to a painful degree. He could feel the desperation and fear in the feeling, smothered by a layer of clarity so bright he might just go blind. It was mania. Pure and simple.

"You're wrong."

Everyone's gaze shot to Skipper. Somewhere in the heavy, crushing quiet, he had returned alone to an equilibrium, cards fanned out in his flippers as his eyes examined them closely. He tipped his head slightly to the side, hummed low in this throat, and then placed a four of hearts on the discard pile.

Private was shaking, a tremble only visible in the way his cards were humming against one another in his tightly coiled flippers. Rico was the exact opposite, motionless as stone as he stared with some unknowable intensity at where Kowalski was still hunched over on the ground.

Kowalski wasn't sure what the time was, but the sunlight coming in through the porthole windows was dim and it only sapped any of the few spots of colour from the stone encasing them. The cool tone and lack of lighting made it feel somehow like a mausoleum, the stark light from the bare bulb hanging over the table only creating deep pitted shadows on everyone's faces.

Skipper looked up, eyebrows furrowed as he took in the three faces around him. "What?" He sighed, slumping deeper into his posture. "You're not seriously believing this are you?"

"Sk-Skipper…" Private stammered, finally dropping his own hand of cards onto the table in a fumbled spray. "Kowalski just said-"

"I know what he said!" He snapped back, "It's nonsense and I'm ignoring it, you would both be wise to do the same."

Again, it hit right where the hysteria was peaking, and Kowalski was speaking before he even really had a chance to sort through the words. "It's not nonsense."

Skipper barked out a laugh, the harsh sound similar to his own, only in the fact it fell out without meaning too. It was meant as a dismissal, and he could feel his feathers beginning to rise. "Did you hear anything you just said? It's insane soldier!"

"I know that!" Kowalski shouted, scrambling to his feet. "You're saying that like I'm not aware of it! I know it's insane, its completely insane! Nothing about it makes sense, but it's true!"

Private shoved himself away from the table with the sound of a cinderblock getting in one good scraping jolt against stone. Skipper didn't even acknowledge it. "So then what are you trying to say? That you somehow 'saw yourself' and that, you, a penguin, are somehow a human?!"

The words in isolation should have been playful, he even waved his flippers around like a showy carnival magician, but they were spit out with a venomous intensity that almost had Kowalski reeling.

Almost.

"Like you said, 'wait until you hear about mirrors'!" Kowalski snarled. "I saw my reflection, and it was definitely human!"

Skipper stood as well, deliberately getting up to the right of his cinderblock chair to force himself into Kowalski's space. "How do you know it was you then? It could be any random human!"

It was like arguing with a brick wall. "Why would I see some 'random human'-" His flippers flailed in an obnoxious mimicry of Skippers own. "-in my own memories?! Not only that but I responded to my name, Skipper. It was me! Why are you so arrogantly adamant it's not?!"

His eyes darkened, shoulders squaring unmistakably. "Watch your tone Lieutenant." He warned.

With how close they were standing it would be impossible to miss how Skippers feathers were also spiking upwards, each sleek feather rising to a razor point. His own shoulders were already pushed back, rearing him up to his full height in a way he knew for a fact Skipper hated. It was forcing his commander to tilt his head upwards, and the shadows were narrowed under the ridge of his brow as more of his face was exposed to the light, leaving only his slitted eyes in shadow.

"Watch yours first." He snarled. His flipper twitched at his side with the blistering desire to poke him in the centre of his puffed out chest. Why was it every time Skipper had to doubt him?! He was, by far, the most intelligent individual here, and sure, as much as Skipper might like to tout his rhetoric that 'book smarts will only get you so far', it was beyond irrelevant to this conversation. He wasn't discussing a theory, or making an outlandish claim, he was telling Skipper an irrefutable fact that he had seen with his own eyes! This went beyond not wanting to discuss an option or opinion. It was outright calling him a liar.

His flippers clenched.

"Why don't you believe me? When have I given you a reason to doubt me!?" It was the same argument every time, whether it was about Blowhole, or their memories id didn't matter! No matter how much he tried he was fighting an uphill battle, and his commanding officer was the ever present boulder doomed to roll right back down to the bottom.

The ever present fear and suspicion was back, white hot like an iron brand against the lining of his throat. Skipper was speaking, but the words were lost in the haze of righteous indignation thrumming along his bones.

"As far as I'm aware only one of us is a liar."

It stopped Skipper short, and the beat of dumbfounded betrayal in his eyes was just about enough to shake Kowalski loose from his blinding anger.

He'd gone too far. Skipper had never meant to lie, it was a snowball of misunderstandings he had never been able to unravel. Not only that but they were the only two even aware of it, and to call him out like this while Rico and Private were present? It would force them into a corner where they had to reveal the things they had been keeping from them for their own safety and what limited peace of mind they could offer.

They were both still here, Private looked shocked, his own feathers fluffed up as he trembled. Rico still had yet to move, head cocked on a disjointed angle as he gazed blankly into the middle distance.

Kowalski went to open his beak, ready to try and spill out a cohesive apology, more than prepared to try and backtrack the damage he had clearly done.

Unfortunately in that split second before he got the chance, the hurt on Skippers face was eclipsed by a storm cloud of raw anger. His beak curled, and he lunged forward, talons loud against the concrete as he shoved himself as close to Kowalski as he could get without physically touching him, only the humming of electron clouds making up the distance between their feathers.

The repentance that had just begun to smoke was snuffed out in an instant. Kowalski grit his beak, eyes narrowing as the rage from before materialised once again, and forced him to hold his ground

"Keep this up and I will not hesitate to Court Martial you." Skipper hissed, jabbing him sharply in the chest with enough force to shove him backwards a step. "I don't know where this arrogance is coming from, but if you won't keep in it check, I will!"

"Is that a threat?!" Kowalski barked. The idiot couldn't even see the hole in his own plan, and more pressingly he hadn't even tried to defend himself. He laughed, throwing his flippers out as he stepped back in, dropping his head mockingly as he stared down his beak at the shorter Penguin. "Well go on, Do it then!" He dared, voice rising to a fever pitch shout as he did. "Court Martial it is! But more importantly who the fuck are you even going to report me too!?"

"STOP IT!"

Private was still shaking, but the fallacy of peripheral vision was rearing its ugly head as the reason for the it was finally revealed, and it wasn't fear. It was outrage.

The smallest Penguin was trembling with the intensity of it, feathers just as spiked up as theirs even as his eyes were glossy with frustration. He stomped his foot, and while it normally it would have seemed petulant, now it served more as a warning. "JUST STOP IT! BOTH OF YOU!"

He didn't wait to give them room to respond, eyes narrowing as he whirled around to face their leader. "Skipper, you need to bloody well shut up and listen!"

Kowalski was on the cusp of agreeing when he was rounded on as well. "Kowalski, that is our commanding officer! Watch your mouth!" He hissed, flipper jabbing accusingly in his direction.

If the silence from before had been loud, this was deafening.

The uncharacteristic behaviour had even jolted Rico from his stasis, staring up at Private with wide eyes, his beak slack in shock.

The desire to shout back in his own defence was noticeably missing, and Kowalski felt himself shrinking under the hardened stare. It was far too easy to be drawn into a screaming match with Skipper, his ego was astronomically sized and the fact he chose to play the triplicate role of judge, jury and executioner left Kowalski trapped in the corner of his own defence. And when trapped like a cornered animal he behaved accordingly. While Skipper might want Kowalski to fall belly up and plead his guilt, the hypocrisy Skipper chose to build his soap box from was one solid kick away from caving in. And if it had to be down to Kowalski to deliver that? Well someone had too.

Private huffed out an angry breath, looking away to scrub sharply at his eyes with balled flippers. The issue with Private was his empathy. His willingness to see every side of an argument left him impossible to debate with, as there was no right or wrong answer. It all existed in shades of grey, and while Kowalski couldn't untangle his own complex knot of emotions if you gave him a lifetime, Private could, and he'd make it look easy. If no one was wrong, there was no point trying to prove you weren't.

"I'm sorry." Private said finally, and while the volume had lowered, the hard crisp edges in his tone remained. "I shouldn't have yelled. No one should have, actually, But here we are."

He fixed his gaze back on Kowalski, and nodded simply. A quick motion to his right to speak. "What exactly did you see. Is there really no way it's a mistake?"

Unwillingly he tried to glance at Skipper, but he had his eyes lowered to the floor, flippers folded and expression guarded. "I… ugh, I woke up, I think, and I went to a bathroom." He paused for a moment, as something occurred to him. It had been so obvious, but the very act of memory had obscured it before this moment. How had he missed it? It was right in front of his beak.

"…And then?" Private urged.

Shelve it. "And then I shut a cabinet door that had a mirror attached to the outer side, and I saw myself in it."

Private thought about this for a moment, beak pursed as he considered the words. "If you saw the reverse side of the mirror then it couldn't have been a window or anything could it…"

Kowalski groaned , tipping his head back as his flippers dropped emphatically to his sides. "No! It was a normal bathroom mirror!" He pressed, voice pitching in frustration. "Every movement I made was mirrored exactly, it was my reflection, my face- Pale skin, Dark hair, Blue eyes, straight nose, high cheekbones, sharp jaw-" He was hammering a balled flipper into the open side of the other with every beat, throwing every detail at the wall in hopes the information would finally stick. Why would he lie? How could this be somehow fake?! "Not only that, someone called out to me, by name, and I replied. There is no possible outcome where that somehow wasn't me!"

Skipper scoffed, his eyes rolling in his head. "Then there's something you're missing brainiac." The term was spat out like an insult. "We would know if we were human, we would have seen it by now don't you think?"

Kowalski grit his beak, turning pointedly away from Skipper. Private was still eyeing him closely, daring him to rise to the bait, but he didn't even try to reprimand Skipper a second time. Kowalski could guess why.

"None of you believe me." No one tried to refute him, and he swallowed the building frustration. That was how he got here in the first place. Anecdotal evidence wasn't enough? Good thing that wasn't all he had. "Fine. Then explain to me this, why was it that when I walked through that door it was sized appropriately?"

Private blinked, head tilting to the side as the hard edges of his expression faded into genuine curiosity. "Sized appropriately?"

Bingo. Kowalski eagerly waved a flipper into the space just above his head, barely skimming the feathers with each back and forth pass. "Hello? I'm barely cutting 2 feet here but when I walked through that door I was much closer to the top of it than the bottom." He laughed, that same hysterical laugh from earlier. "For the love of Gabriel Mouton- The door handle was near my waist. How does that make sense?"

Skipper laughed, the sound cutting a dark. "6 o'clock. Your lab door is right there."

Private didn't speak, yet again. Was it favouritism? Or maybe a blind hero complex? Kowalski grit his beak. "Right, of course, because every door, hallway, building – It's all sized for penguins right?" He sniped. "We live in a world that caters solely to arctic birds, I forgot."

And that was the kicker. The second he had been forced to notice it, everything had started clicking into place. The Door in that old building, the hallway he had been standing in- all of it had been sized correctly around him. Not only that of course, the perspective of it all. This whole time his memories had been taking place from a vantage point much higher off the ground than he was used too. That was the issue with memory, and not just with memory, but memories at the mercy of a technology designed to make you dismiss the unusual. Why would he ever have assumed that his memories weren't taking place in his current body? It wasn't like he was able to see it all in third person.

But still. He should have seen this all sooner. Drip fed these ideas to his team, back them into a corner where their only option would be to accept the reality. He had done this backwards, now having to provide evidence to fit the theory rather than the other way around. Not that it should matter. This wasn't a theory.

And there was evidence steeped into every facet of those memories. It was only now, that he was looking at them as more than simple narratives that he was able to see the cracks in the structure.

"And even if it did… where are they all?" He murmured.

Privates eyebrows drew together in concern, his eyes flickering from Kowalski to Rico and Skipper in a rapid bewildered sweep. Kowalski shook his head. "No I mean… Why are there no animals in our memories then?" He flung a flipper in Skippers general direction. "He's seen people, and even you Private…"

The flash of fear was unmistakable. Private's breath hitched, eyes growing wide as his flippers jumped to his throat.

"Dead kids! Dead, human, kids!"

It was too soon. Kowalski knew that now, and after this morning he knew better than to shove his own foot into his mouth a second time. He cleared his throat. "That… that woman you mentioned. The one that looked like nurse Shawna." He said instead.

Something dark started to shift under his skin, different than before. Where it had once been blinding rage, the pit opening in his stomach now could only be described as sheer dread. He tried to shove it aside. That was a problem for later. Right now, he had to focus on making his point. Dredging up horrific traumas wouldn't help.

Private didn't blink, breath still caught in his throat as he slowly processed the words. For a moment Kowalski thought he simply hadn't heard him, but as he watched, a slow sweep of realisation crossed his features. "Oh! Oh… O-of course, the one with the gun." Private stammered, relief thick in his voice as he sagged inwards on himself.

"The very same." Kowalski agreed.

Clearly at some point Rico had grown bored with the conversation, and he stood shakily from the table eyes still glazed over with some impassable fog as he shambled his way over to the cabinets it what could dubiously be called their kitchen. No one seemed willing to mention it.

It stung more than Kowalski thought it would, even though it didn't surprise him. He trudged on regardless. "I need to ask, how did you see her?" He pressed.

"Um…" Private drew his gaze back from where Rico had busied himself in a corner cupboard, seemingly trying to locate something more important than this conversation.

A flash of Mrs Perky folded double in the trash can at the zoo entrance sparked unbidden into his mind. Surely that wasn't what Rico was looking for… He did tend to gravitate towards the doll in times like these, but at the same time he had been the one to throw her out… right?

"I'm sorry, I don't quite follow?"

Kowalski shook off the tangential thought. Later, later, later… the list of problems was beginning to pile up before his very eyes, but courtesy of Skipper he didn't have the room to deal with them. The most pressing issue at hand was getting everyone to believe him. "Could you see all of her? As in Head to toe." He motioned on his own body as he spoke.

Private quickly shook his head. "No. No I mean it was…" He paused, lifting a shaky flipper to measure against his own chest, wavering from point to point before settling. "From here up… That's how I saw her."

"Then you weren't looking up at her." Kowalski pressed. "Was she holding you? Or was there someone behind you doing that? Presuming she was a normal sized human woman there should have been no way your eyes were at a level to see that." He let the point hang. "Unless of course…"

"He could have been standing on something!"

The urge to roll his eyes was overwhelming. Sure, that was a possibility. But did that mean they were always doing that? The simplest answer was usually the truth, but if Skipper wanted to fight schematics all the way to his grave then-

"I don't think I was."

He looked up, beak already parted in shock. Private wasn't even looking in his direction, eyes trained only on the floor, brows crunched in a worried V over his now very serious eyes. Kowalski could feel his heart thumping behind the cage of his ribs, banging insistently on the bone as hope started to balloon where his lungs should have been.

Private sighed, the sound hollow and defeated. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Right?" He murmured. "Skipper… I… I believe Kowalski. There's too many coincidences. I mean, it's crazy, but isn't that kind of our thing?" His head tilted up, and while there was hope in his eyes it was covered in something else, not quite grief, but something close enough to fit the name.

Kowalski didn't get it but the realisation dawning on him in this moment was the key, startling, fact that there had been something else happening this entire time, and he had missed it completely. This was a breakthrough! Everyone should be excited! Admittedly, yes perhaps a little confused and maybe concerned, but this unsettling wash of raw emotion was setting his feathers on edge. Where was it coming from? What was causing it?

There was a rough scratching sound as Rico, miraculously returned. His head was bowed even as he sat at the table, far too engrossed in what was in his flippers. As per usual, he had managed to yet again subvert Kowalski's expectations.

A sketch book?

It's not that it wasn't normal, it was common knowledge that Rico liked to draw, but to be doing so now of all times was a little strange. There was an intensity in the way his flipper moved, quickly sweeping over the paper in jagged arcs like a penguin possessed, eyes fixed so hard on the motion… it was like he wasn't even aware of the conversation happening around him.

Kowalski looked away. Between Private and Rico there was too much subtext to sort through, and while Skipper was a thorn in his side, at least it was predictable. How strange to be in a position where arguing was the best option available. He was almost eager to get back to it.

However, as he turned to face Skipper his heart only sank further. Their leader had slumped back onto a cinderblock like a puppet with his strings cut, head buried in his flippers and shoulders sagging heavily under the weight of gravity and something Kowalski couldn't put a name to yet.

"Sk… Skipper?" He tried, voice cracking as he tried to battle through the confusion swirling in his head. The somewhat forced anger he had summoned was wrong, and it broke in the middle as he was forced to try for something softer. His head was spinning. This conversation was going to give him whiplash.

Skipper only shook his head slowly in response. "You don't get it… do you?"

Right on the money. But Kowalski wasn't quite ready to admit that. "I wouldn't say that." He said instead.

The shaky inhale Skipper took spoke volumes. "No. You don't. This-" He paused, flippers falling as he looked up. It was like something had broken inside him. The resignation was heavy in his hollowed eyes, darkened in the shadow of the lone light bulb made even darker now by the retreating sunlight. "It's not about if or not we were human. It's about what that means. Do you understand?"

"I…" Kowalski swallowed his pride. "I don't think I do." He admitted softly.

Another sigh as Skipper rubbed the top of his head reflexively. "The situation we're in Kowalski. Everything we've seen… this makes it so much worse."

The words settled in a thin line of near frozen ice melt along the ridge of his spine. He'd been so sure this had been about Skipper not being willing to believe him, he'd refused to consider the option it had been about him being unwilling to accept everything that came with that truth. And now he was being forced to consider that for himself.

"If Private was human, what does that mean for him now?" Skipper pressed. "What about my… forest fire, or your burning building?" He took in another shaky breath, the sound harsh as wet with some dark trembling fear Kowalski was beginning to understand. "What about the danger we're in? You know right? You know this makes this all so, so much worse."

And he did. He finally did. Somehow in the mess of the day's events he'd shaken the fear that had been plaguing him for days prior, but it was back now. The cloying sticky mess of fresh blood on concrete, sprayed in arterial red on black and white feathers… it was all coming back in seething, foaming waves.

This was so far beyond what they normally dealt with they weren't even the same species anymore. Genevieve Waters had been human, and now she was dead. She had been through the same procedure they had, but there was always this shield. They were zoo animals, simple penguins, and that had always been the sticking point. Sure, they could call it the same all they wanted, but there had been a cloak of deniability. Would someone really shoot a penguin? It sounded downright dumb even if the fear hadn't been. But now?

Now they were the exact same. Dead mirrors with the added factor only that at some point, for some reason, they had been changed into animals. And maybe that was the only reason they had gotten away with everything they had so far.

Not only that but everything they had seen so far, the violence, the death, the trauma, all of it fell squarely on their shoulders. The shooting Skipper had seen, the massacre of those kids Private had been involved in, it had been horrific as is, but what did any of that have to do with penguins? They didn't deal with humans.

Only now they did. Because they had been humans.

"I'm worried."

Kowalski didn't know how much time had passed, but his lungs were burning. Had he stopped breathing? The sound of Rico's pencil on his paper was so loud it was like it was drawing on the soft, exposed meat of his brain.

"I'm worried, because what if this is some kind of trap? What if the plan all along was for us to get these memories back? Is that why they're watching us, to see when we do so they can deal with it?" Skipper shuddered. "Penguins are a lot smaller than Humans Kowalski, and animals die or disappear all the time and no one cares." A breathless laugh left him, the sound completely devoid of any warmth or mirth. It was so numbingly hollow. "We'll be lucky to get a 2 minute fluff piece from Chuck Charles mentioning the loss of central park zoo's arctic exhibit."

The possibility was real, but there… there had to be something else going on here. Why go to all this effort just to… Kowalski shuddered. "No…" He mumbled. "No, I… I don't think it's a trap. If end game of the powers that be was to kill us I don't think we'd be here. Just think about how much manpower went into this, how much work was done to get us here. Genevieve Waters, you said that in the report she claimed woke up in an apartment, with a phone and a job interview. Why go to all that effort just to murder her when she figured it out?" His mind was racing. "This is… I said the zoos were observation tanks, like cages in a lab, which would make us the Rats inside. I think the reason they're watching us is that they're not sure it would work. We were never meant to get those memories back, but the chance that we could… that's what they're looking for. I think in their best case scenario we would just simply live out our days here, out of sight out of mind, like Genevieve was supposed to. But she remembered, and then she ended up involved with the police. That's why she was executed."

Skipper nodded slowly, seemingly mulling over his words. "Then-"

"Who's Genevieve Waters?"

Private spoke softly, quivering like a leaf on the wind. Kowalski's brain froze, blue-screening out as he realised his mistake. Skipper had gone statue still, eyes almost bulging out of his head as he stared blankly up at him, beak still parted as if to speak.

Rico had stopped drawing, and if the sound of pencil on card-stock had been annoying, the lack of it was downright fear inducing.

Belatedly the thought occurred to him that trying to telepathically communicate with Skipper was not the answer, but he tried anyway. What do we do!

"Who's Genevieve Waters?!" Private asked again, no, demanded this time. The pitch of his voice was rising.

Skipper still refused to move, and maybe, if the situation wasn't this fraught, the fact he seemed to be working under the assumption that Private's vision was based solely on movement might have been comedic. As it stood Kowalski was still just trying to figure out what he was supposed to do when his mind could only supply a running commentary on just badly he had messed this up.

The level of flexibility needed to get his foot, not only in his mouth, but all the way down his throat, was astounding.

"Answer me! What do you mean she was executed?!"

"She was… uh…" Kowalski didn't know where he was going with this. He had absolutely no clue actually. "Well you see it's a funny story actually-"

"Genevieve Waters is Francis Alberta. She was a Robotics Genius who had her memories taken, like ours were, and ended up at Hoboken Zoo. When she got them back after the android incident she was murdered."

It was stated as a matter of fact. Skipper just as easily could have been reading a phone book. His expression had settled into a practiced poker face, carefully neutral as he turned his head only just enough to keep Private in his periphery.

The smallest penguin was shaking again, a full body tremor from his toes to his balled flippers. "N-No." He whispered. "No, you said Frances Alberta died of a heart attack."

Skipper closed his eyes. "I lied. She and three on duty NYPD officers were executed during her first night in holding."

Private's eyes were glossy, feathers puffed out in a messy ball of black and white. "You keep saying executed." He said.

"Shot, Private. She was shot." Skipper barked. "Point blank, single bullet right in the temple. It was all in the report."

"Then you…" His face scrunched inwards, betrayed. "You lied to me! And Kowalski, you knew?!"

He had to look away. "I'm sorry Private. It-"

"He didn't make that call." Skipper stood up, stepping deliberately between to two. "I did. It was for your benefit. I needed you on your a-game, not scared out of your mind." He stated, voice crisp. "Rico didn't know either. It was above your level of clearance."

Kowalski wanted to interject, it hadn't all been Skipper, he was complicit in this cover up and therefor just as guilty. But trying to speak as a tear slipped away over the creased ridge of Private's narrowed eyes he found the words impossible.

The youngest penguin took a sharp breath, chest heaving. "You… How DARE YOU!"

Skipper didn't even flinch.

"How dare you lie to us! You- you talk all of these big grand notions about how we're a team and we never swim alone and then you lie to us!" He cried indignantly. Frustrated tears were falling freely now, beak wobbling as he spat out the words. "I- Rico!?"

He didn't even reply, somewhere in there his drawing had become more fevered, pencil dug so deep into the paper it must have been one wrong move from snapping the lead clear from the tip. His entire face was cast in shadow as he hunched over the sketchbook, shoulders tight and drawn up around his head.

"UGH!" Private exclaimed. "I can't-"

"Private." Skipper said.

"No! No you don't get to-"

"Private." He reiterated.

Private's beak clamped shut, eyes dark as he stared back at their commanding officer.

Skipper sighed. "Just look at how you're reacting now. We didn't even know what it meant at the time, and you wanted me to tell you someone we knew had been murdered?" He held his flippers out placatingly, voice softening. "We've never dealt with a murder before-"

"Oh SOD OFF!" Private shouted. "It's not about that! Fact is you lied to our faces Skipper! You told us something you knew wasn't true because you didn't trust us!" His chest hitched as a new wave of tears sprouted. "It hurts! You don't think we're strong enough and that hurts."

"I never said that-" Skipper tried, moving to step around the table.

Just as he rounded the edge Private jumped back, holding a flipper up to stop him. "No! You didn't have too, you made that clear when you said she had a bloody heart attack instead!"

The worst part was the truth in the statement. They had lied because they didn't think the pair of them would be able to handle it. And maybe that was true, but it wasn't their call to make. Keeping this from them… it had only made things worse.

It seemed every lie was coming out now, and with each one the fallout only seemed to be getting worse. Kowalski's stomach twisted. How much longer did he have until his own omission became relevant? Until he had to admit what he might have done.

Would they be able believe there was some reason he had to do it?

"Private I don't know what you want from me here." Skipper said.

"I want you to be honest!" Private snapped, foot stomping again against the concrete "That's all I want! That's all I ever wanted!"

Skippers shoulders squared, beak lifting as he did. "Fine. You want Honesty? I honestly don't know what to do anymore!" He shouted. "I haven't for a while! Frances went through what we went through, She had no memories, she believed everything around her, she got her memories back- and now she's dead!" The words hit like a punch. Skipper had been keeping it together so well, but the raw desperation in his words was like a freight train.

Private flinched backwards, but Skipper only stepped forwards in response. "I'm doing my best to keep us alive but I'm running out of ideas to do that when we still need to get to the bottom of this! We're being watched, that's why we're at this Zoo, but everything we do puts us in more danger of ending up like her and I can't let that happen!"

There was a loud snap.

Everyone's eyes shot to Rico. The pencil he had been holding was splintered in two, the halves lying separated and broken on the cards that had been long forgotten. His shoulders were trembling, eyes dark and unfocused but filled with some twisted mix of emotions Kowalski couldn't name if he tried. There were too many, and they were all happening at once where there was usually nothing. His blank stares were normally so vacant, but now it was overfilled and panicked. His beak was moving, but there were no words, not even a tirade of gibberish.

The silence yawned, opening further and further into a widening abyss.

Kowalski's throat was dry, but he spoke anyway, voice raw and strained.

"Rico?"

He looked up, and there, plain as day and front and centre, was fear. The haze that had shrouded him was gone, and in its place was a clarity sharp enough to cut yourself on. Of everything, Skippers loss of control, Private's tearful frustration and his own inability to think, Rico's fear was by far the worst.

If the team had been splintering, it was now in shatters. Absolutely broken, and as the dark voice in his head provided, possibly beyond repair.

One half of the broken pencil slipped, rolling down an unbalanced card to clatter against the table.

Rico's eyes shot to Private and Skipper, the pair of them both lost an unnerved as they met his eyes. Skipper tried to speak, but seemingly thought better of it, closing his beak again instead.

The thrumming in Kowalski's head was so loud, almost painfully so. How foolish had he been to think this had been a break through, some kind of revelation that would help them? It told them all nothing and only cranked the wheel of the stakes they were facing impossibly tighter and left them scrambling for answers to new questions they hadn't even been able to ask in the chaos.

Who had done this? Why? What purpose was there in turning them into penguins in the first place? How was something like that even possible?

Who were they before this that someone would make the call to put them in this horrific situation?

There weren't enough pieces to the puzzle and the only shapes Kowalski could make with what he had left pointed him to a terrifying picture where they all died because they couldn't solve it. There was no way out but through… but there was nothing left. They could keep trying but the clock was ticking and it was taking too long. They'd survived this long on luck alone, but how much longer was that luck even going to last? They'd been living on borrowed time and squandering it without even knowing it.

The second the powers that be looked too closely at that security footage they were all doomed.

Private let out a soft sound somewhere between a moan and a sob, covering his beak reflexively with his flippers. Skipper buried his head in his own, muttering something under his breath Kowalski couldn't make out at this distance.

This gaze turned to Rico, the last in this parade of their hopelessness, just in time to see his eyes harden.

The maniac turned back to his sketchbook, flicking one half of the broken pencil away from the edge with a heavy flipper as his eyes darted across the page. He nodded once, seemingly to himself before he tugged it free from the spine of the book with a sharp motion, turning it over in his flippers to hold it up in Kowalski's direction.

"Walski." He stated, beak tilted upwards defiantly.

He wasn't wrong.

On the paper was a sketchy portrait, the shading only half done in rough scratchy lines and the paper almost creased where the lines carved into the soft card stock, but it was enough to make out the face. Sharp jaw, straight nose, high cheekbones. There was a defined wave to the hair, a few deeply poked dots as moles and thin arching eyebrows cut in stark relief above a pair of creased eyes.

In the mirror he had been bruised, face drawn tight in frustration.

In this picture he was smiling, no bruises to be seen. Just the top row of his teeth visible as the stretch of his cheeks pushed up the lower lids of his down turned and eyes. It was different but unmistakably… it was the same face he had seen in the mirror. His face.

To say he was stunned wouldn't do justice to the feeling that ricocheted out of his chest, banging sharply around in his skull and leaving him reeling, but it was the closest he could name.

"That's it." Kowalski said, voice barely above a whisper. "That's… It's me."

"What is?" Skipper asked. Dutifully Rico turned the picture towards him and Private. Skippers eyebrows shot upwards in surprise, but Kowalski barely saw it.

His eyes were locked on Rico, the penguin meeting his gaze evenly. "H-how?" Kowalski stammered.

Sure he had described himself, but never in that much detail and even if he had there was no way Rico could have been that accurate. So how did he know? The picture was a striking likeness, as far from a composite sketch as you could get. It was a portrait.

So how?

Rico's eyes flicked away, and he put the picture down on the table. "Remembered." He said simply.

"You saw me in a memory?"

"He must have," Skipper chimed in, "and he's not the only one."

He had stepped closer to the table, flippers pressed on either side of the picture, eyes cast down as he looked at it. "This is the person that was in that white room."

The White room? It took a moment for the context to come back to him, and when it did his heart sank. The sterile white room Skipper had described, and with it the person inside.

"That they did it? Maybe."

The implications were stirring inside his chest and clawing their way up into his throat. "I didn't-"

"I've seen him too." Private added, cutting Kowalski off completely. "It might be the same room."

That was enough to derail his thoughts yet again. He felt like he was living on a delay as Skipper looked quizzically at Private.

"Wait, when did you see it?" He asked. "You never mentioned it!"

Private frowned, folding his flippers over his chest. "You and Kowalski kept on looking annoyed when I mentioned my memories so I stopped. I figured I'd just tell you if I saw something important." The tears may have stopped but he was clearly still upset. When Skipper rounded on him in a sharp movement he reared back in surprise. "What… is this important?"

Skipper caught himself, stepping backwards. "I mean… I thought it was at the time… What exactly did you see?"

Kowalski couldn't keep up. The conversation was moving too fast, and his emotions were fluctuating too much in response to each sentence. Fear and relief spiking and dipping inside him too fast to follow.

Private shrugged. "I don't know, It was just a room. Really white though, and everything was glossy. It felt…"

Skipper lent in. "Sterile?"

"Yes! It felt almost too clean." Private agreed, clearly distracted. "There wasn't much in it, just a bench, and three humans-"

The words came out before Kowalski had even realised they were there. "Wait did you say three?"

Private shrunk back at his eagerness, worry beginning to creep onto his features. "Yeah… This guy was one of them-" He caught himself, shaking his head. "I mean, you were one of them. Golly this is complicated…"

There was hope, only a spark, but Kowalski latched onto it like it was his only lifeline. It may has well have been.

After recalling that door, sealed shut, knowing how that building went up in flames by his doing there had been this deep nagging fear he hadn't been able to shake. If he wasn't the person he thought he was there was no telling what he might have been capable of, and with that came the overwhelming fear that somehow he might have played a part in what had been done to them. However if what Private was saying was true…

"That's four including you." Kowalski stressed, flippers flailing as he pointed. "If I was there, and Skipper has also seen this room, that only leaves one." He reeled around. Rico was watching him closely still, eyes blistering in their intensity. "The most logical answer is obvious. Those people are us!" He was almost giddy with the feeling. "We were all in that room and we were all together!"

Private's eyebrows furrowed, lowering tensely over his eyes. "Is there something I'm missing here? We're all together now aren't we? What's so special about this room?"

Kowalski could feel his heart racing, there was something here. There had to be. "It's special because this is the first and more importantly the only memory we have that puts us all in one place at the same time. It could mean nothing, but if you consider the possibility that we were strangers before all of this, then the period of time when we were all together must be-"

"It must be where it happened." Skipper finished for him. A near tangible energy was building, and as Skipper looked up Kowalski saw his own feverish desperation and hope reflected back at him. "Which means if we find this room-"

"We find who did this."

GUESS WHO'S BACK (dun dun) BACK AGAIN!

It's me. I'm back. You are under no obligation to tell a friend.

First off thank you all so much for letting me take that much needed break. I can see my floor again and also I'm no longer drowning in neglected responsibilities! (none of this pointing out how I really underestimated just how much I let get away from me and as such this chapter got shafted in a baaaad way- shhh) I'm all caught up on life in general and excited to get back into it! I hope you've all stuck around to see this through to the end with me!

This chapter is uhhh... well it's here. And it does its job. Let's leave it at that. Although Kowalski needs to go wash his mouth out with soap. Dropping F-bombs like that... I'm disappointed in him. :(

Next week should be better, I only really managed to excavate myself in the past couple of days and I think it shows. We'll tidy up the loose ends I've left here in the name of getting this posted and get into all that good shit I've been holding back.

Wait.

Ugh, I'll be back. Someone get the soap...

See you all next week~
Peace!