02: Ghost of Rangers Past
"Not to long ago, right next door..."
Rejected openings for Star Wars
It was early. No one was up, not even the sun. The fog hung heavily over the abandoned airstrip were the school, the Hackwrench Institute of Technology, had called home for a little over ten years.
Samm preferred to do laps around the runway at this early hour. 'I use a run way for what it should be used for.' She smirked at her private joke. She looked at her watch, a minute and a half faster than the last lap.
A twig snapped. She looked up, just in time to see a faint shadow appear in the fog, and had just enough time to brace for the impact. The object she hit though, did not, and landed about a foot away in a crumpled heap, giving out a startled yelp before it fell unconscious.
* * * *
The lawyer was an older cat, in his late fifties, early sixties.
'He must have been a real tomcat in his prime.' Kimberly thought to her self. Now his once tabby coat had faded, and his whiskers drooped.
She was, on the other paw, considerably younger, barley twenty. Her light blue eyes, and long wispy white fur showing off her Balinese breeding from her mothers side. Her medium size revealing her fathers Black and White tendencies.
Her parents had emigrated from Scotland when she was only one. Her mother came from a family with old money. Her father was just a normal black and white, a lonely American that had been stranded and forced to live on the streets. Her grandmother did not approve of the pair and did every thing in her power to separate them, including putting a clause in her will that if Kimberley's mother married that particular cat, that she would be removed from the will, leaving all the her inheritance the to the other members of the family, a spoiled fat cat named Porter, and a rich filthy crime lord named Laurence, though he preferred Fat.
Her father had come from a family with ties to organized crime, although her father had wanted nothing to do with it. He was one of three children. His sister had seen what a life of crime had done to the family and, like himself, steered clear. She died, ironically, in a gang shooting, the front bumper of the speeding car dealing the blow to her head. She left behind a single son, Tom. Her uncle, the youngest of the three, was the black sheep of the family, and was drawn to fallow in his fathers, her grandfathers, foot steps that had ended in a short, bloody life.
Her parents had died young. Her mother when she was five of an unknown illness, her father when she was fifteen, protecting her from a pack of dogs. Shortly after her father died, she received a letter addressed to her mother. Kimberly's uncle, Porter, had died in a stampede in the savanna and left her mother, were he was on safari, and her family every thing. That left Kim, who was the only surviving member of this branch of the family tree, with a large sum of cash. Now her only other uncle had died. He had made a considerable amount of money running a mod, though it turned out to be the one thing that he couldn't buy protection from.
"Tom, Kim, since you're the only surviving member of the Cat family, your uncle has left you what's left of his empire, but he wishes that you finishes what he started, the extermination of the 'Rescue Rangers'.
"Uncle Fat sure had an obsession with them didn't he?" she remarked. "The high and mighty Fat Cat, brought down by a group of rodents."
Kimberly didn't want the tainted money being handed to her and she had no desire to go on a senseless killing spree. She preferred cat food to killing innocent rodents, even if it was to survive, plus she had no wish to get involved in anything that was even remotely stained with the stench of crime. Tom, on the other paw, was fallowing in his grandfathers and uncle's footsteps. He recently had started a small gang in the east side of the city that grew into the largest mob around. H didn't have a problem with signing a death sentence, especially for a group of rodents.
* * * *
Jen stirred slightly then regretted moving at all.
"Jen... Jen are you all right?"
Her head felt worse then the time she had blown up the chem lab.
The voice continued, "Just like me to knock out the principles daughter. How many fingers do you see?"
Jen forced her eyes to open and started to count, then lost track at twenty.
"Too many." She replied to the stranger's question.
"I thought so, a mild concussion but nothing serious." Jen's eyes started to focus. She could make out the silhouette of a large shape. The shape persisted in its line of questioning.
"What are you doing out this early in the morning?"
"Golly, I was trying out an a new modification to my plane." Jen shuttered, "The knock to my head must have been harder than I thought, I'm starting to sound like mom. If I start using terms like 'It should work,' and 'I hate it when there's left over parts,' shoot me" This caused the stranger to practically fall down, laughing.
Opening her eyes again, the mouse tried to focus on her 'Good Samaritan'. She identified the figure as a female, the fact that the stranger got the joke showed that she knew her mother, and her eyes told her that the stranger was tall. Only one animal on campus fit that description.
"So, Sam, what brings you out at this hour?"
"My usually, a few laps around the track."
The fog was starting to clear, and visibility was increasing. Sam could see an outline of a large object, it's shape still shrouded in the fog. "What's that?" she said, pointing to the silhouette.
Jen redirected her attention to where her tall friend was pointing. "Oh, that." she said flatly in response. "It's the proto-type I was working on. I'm having problems with the batteries. My applied voltage isn't adding up to the voltage out-put I should be getting."
Sam rubbed her chin for a second, "Maybe the batteries are in parallel."
"Nope that was the first thing I checked."
"Something's loading the circuit down." The merekat mumbled.
Sam reached down offering her paw in assistance. "I could give you a hand if you like."
Jen reached up, noticing how much smaller her paw was in comparison. "If you wouldn't mind, I could use the company."
* * * *
Foxglove had been reading a book on the couch. She didn't remember drifting off to sleep, but she remembered waking up, and the headache that accompanied it. She looked around in a disoriented manner. Something loud had roused her and she was determined to hunt it down. She was searching the room, listening carefully when the phone behind her rang again, causing to fall off the couch.
She picked up the phone testily. "Hello, Oakmont residence, Foxglove speaking."
"Auntie Foxglove, It's Gee."
"Geegaw?" She squealed uncharacteristically. "I didn't recognize you're voice. How can I help you? It's not about Maggie is it?"
"Umm... no, not this time. You're charming daughter isn't in trouble yet. Is Zipper there?"
"I think so, let me check." She covered the mouth piece, and call out. A moment later, the fly poked his head around the corner. "It's for you." Foxie said pointing to the phone.
Zippered perked up. He had been moping around the tree recently.
Foxglove laid the phone on the table and went back to find were she had left off in her book. Zipper buzzed his appreciation then stood next to the receiver. "Hello"
"Zipper? It's Gee. I could use your help on a project for moms birthday."
"Sure, how could I help?"
"First I'll need Dads old journal, you know, the one he kept when the Rangers started. In addition, any thing Mom might have had written from around the same time frame. We'll swing by later on to pick it up and decide were to go from there."
"I'll see you then."
"And Zip, thanks."
"No prob. I need something to do."
"Bye."
Zipper hung the phone up, and then went out to find the items needed, glad to have something to keep his mind off Monty's recent departing.
* * * *
The day was bright, buds filled the branches of the local trees, and birds were returning from their long rest down south. Geegaw was walking along the runway unaware of the seasonal changes. He was on a mission.
He leaned on the door of the hanger. "Jen is the plane prepped?"
All that could be seen of his sister was a white tail and two white feet with their pink pad showing. Jennifer's dolly rolled out from under the plane. She stood up, cleaning her hands in a rag, wearing an uncharacteristic purple coveralls and goggles.
"MOM?"
"What, can't I help out your sister?"
Gadget turned her attention back to the plane.
"Jenny," Jennifer's head popped up from the cockpit area. If Geegaw didn't know better, he would of thought he was seeing a double image, "how's the modification working."
"It looks like its holding, it should work. Thanks for your help Mom."
"It was good to get my hands back into the craft, it's been so long. I'll make a Hackwrench out of you yet." Gadget looked at her watch. "Golly, would you look at the time, I've got a class to teach. I hope you don't mind me running off."
"Oh, no, go ahead, Gee could lend me a hand."
Gadget started to walk out, still wiping her hands on the rag absent-mindedly.
"Mom," Geegaw started, "Don't forget to change before class, unless grease spots are the new fashion out of France."
"What...? Oh right... Don't worry; it's Applied Mechanical Engineering. We were going to get our hands dirty anyhow."
Jennifer and Geegaw waited until Gadget was out of sight then waited a few more minuets. It always occurred to the twins that Gadget could hear better than they could, though it was dismissed as 'mothers instincts'.
Although not very obvious at first, the mouse and the chipmunk were twins, all be it, not identical twins.
"Jen, you're starting to scare me." Geegaw said flatly.
"WHAT!? Mom has no idea what we're up to!"
"No, it's not that. First you have the gall to look like Mom, but now you're even starting to sound like her."
"Explain?" she demanded testily, eyeing her brother.
"You stated, and I quote, 'it should work.' We all know what that means. I just hope that it's nothing critical or were toast." Jennifer shot daggers as she stared her brothers down.
Geegaw decided it was in his best interest to change the subject. Jennifer had never liked being associated to their mother's tendency to get over excited about an invention and not properly test it before hand. "Is the plane ready?"
"Yes," a diabolical look spread across her innocent face, "it should work."
Geegaw ignored her attempt at humor, but not with out a reflexive twinge. "You've already have Mom's sense of humor." He mumbled to him self.
Jennifer continued. "We should plan on leaving soon, if we want to get back before dark." She did a quick head count. "Were is Maggie?"
"She said to pick her up, she might be running late."
"We should get going then, were running behind schedule."
"Not to long ago, right next door..."
Rejected openings for Star Wars
It was early. No one was up, not even the sun. The fog hung heavily over the abandoned airstrip were the school, the Hackwrench Institute of Technology, had called home for a little over ten years.
Samm preferred to do laps around the runway at this early hour. 'I use a run way for what it should be used for.' She smirked at her private joke. She looked at her watch, a minute and a half faster than the last lap.
A twig snapped. She looked up, just in time to see a faint shadow appear in the fog, and had just enough time to brace for the impact. The object she hit though, did not, and landed about a foot away in a crumpled heap, giving out a startled yelp before it fell unconscious.
* * * *
The lawyer was an older cat, in his late fifties, early sixties.
'He must have been a real tomcat in his prime.' Kimberly thought to her self. Now his once tabby coat had faded, and his whiskers drooped.
She was, on the other paw, considerably younger, barley twenty. Her light blue eyes, and long wispy white fur showing off her Balinese breeding from her mothers side. Her medium size revealing her fathers Black and White tendencies.
Her parents had emigrated from Scotland when she was only one. Her mother came from a family with old money. Her father was just a normal black and white, a lonely American that had been stranded and forced to live on the streets. Her grandmother did not approve of the pair and did every thing in her power to separate them, including putting a clause in her will that if Kimberley's mother married that particular cat, that she would be removed from the will, leaving all the her inheritance the to the other members of the family, a spoiled fat cat named Porter, and a rich filthy crime lord named Laurence, though he preferred Fat.
Her father had come from a family with ties to organized crime, although her father had wanted nothing to do with it. He was one of three children. His sister had seen what a life of crime had done to the family and, like himself, steered clear. She died, ironically, in a gang shooting, the front bumper of the speeding car dealing the blow to her head. She left behind a single son, Tom. Her uncle, the youngest of the three, was the black sheep of the family, and was drawn to fallow in his fathers, her grandfathers, foot steps that had ended in a short, bloody life.
Her parents had died young. Her mother when she was five of an unknown illness, her father when she was fifteen, protecting her from a pack of dogs. Shortly after her father died, she received a letter addressed to her mother. Kimberly's uncle, Porter, had died in a stampede in the savanna and left her mother, were he was on safari, and her family every thing. That left Kim, who was the only surviving member of this branch of the family tree, with a large sum of cash. Now her only other uncle had died. He had made a considerable amount of money running a mod, though it turned out to be the one thing that he couldn't buy protection from.
"Tom, Kim, since you're the only surviving member of the Cat family, your uncle has left you what's left of his empire, but he wishes that you finishes what he started, the extermination of the 'Rescue Rangers'.
"Uncle Fat sure had an obsession with them didn't he?" she remarked. "The high and mighty Fat Cat, brought down by a group of rodents."
Kimberly didn't want the tainted money being handed to her and she had no desire to go on a senseless killing spree. She preferred cat food to killing innocent rodents, even if it was to survive, plus she had no wish to get involved in anything that was even remotely stained with the stench of crime. Tom, on the other paw, was fallowing in his grandfathers and uncle's footsteps. He recently had started a small gang in the east side of the city that grew into the largest mob around. H didn't have a problem with signing a death sentence, especially for a group of rodents.
* * * *
Jen stirred slightly then regretted moving at all.
"Jen... Jen are you all right?"
Her head felt worse then the time she had blown up the chem lab.
The voice continued, "Just like me to knock out the principles daughter. How many fingers do you see?"
Jen forced her eyes to open and started to count, then lost track at twenty.
"Too many." She replied to the stranger's question.
"I thought so, a mild concussion but nothing serious." Jen's eyes started to focus. She could make out the silhouette of a large shape. The shape persisted in its line of questioning.
"What are you doing out this early in the morning?"
"Golly, I was trying out an a new modification to my plane." Jen shuttered, "The knock to my head must have been harder than I thought, I'm starting to sound like mom. If I start using terms like 'It should work,' and 'I hate it when there's left over parts,' shoot me" This caused the stranger to practically fall down, laughing.
Opening her eyes again, the mouse tried to focus on her 'Good Samaritan'. She identified the figure as a female, the fact that the stranger got the joke showed that she knew her mother, and her eyes told her that the stranger was tall. Only one animal on campus fit that description.
"So, Sam, what brings you out at this hour?"
"My usually, a few laps around the track."
The fog was starting to clear, and visibility was increasing. Sam could see an outline of a large object, it's shape still shrouded in the fog. "What's that?" she said, pointing to the silhouette.
Jen redirected her attention to where her tall friend was pointing. "Oh, that." she said flatly in response. "It's the proto-type I was working on. I'm having problems with the batteries. My applied voltage isn't adding up to the voltage out-put I should be getting."
Sam rubbed her chin for a second, "Maybe the batteries are in parallel."
"Nope that was the first thing I checked."
"Something's loading the circuit down." The merekat mumbled.
Sam reached down offering her paw in assistance. "I could give you a hand if you like."
Jen reached up, noticing how much smaller her paw was in comparison. "If you wouldn't mind, I could use the company."
* * * *
Foxglove had been reading a book on the couch. She didn't remember drifting off to sleep, but she remembered waking up, and the headache that accompanied it. She looked around in a disoriented manner. Something loud had roused her and she was determined to hunt it down. She was searching the room, listening carefully when the phone behind her rang again, causing to fall off the couch.
She picked up the phone testily. "Hello, Oakmont residence, Foxglove speaking."
"Auntie Foxglove, It's Gee."
"Geegaw?" She squealed uncharacteristically. "I didn't recognize you're voice. How can I help you? It's not about Maggie is it?"
"Umm... no, not this time. You're charming daughter isn't in trouble yet. Is Zipper there?"
"I think so, let me check." She covered the mouth piece, and call out. A moment later, the fly poked his head around the corner. "It's for you." Foxie said pointing to the phone.
Zippered perked up. He had been moping around the tree recently.
Foxglove laid the phone on the table and went back to find were she had left off in her book. Zipper buzzed his appreciation then stood next to the receiver. "Hello"
"Zipper? It's Gee. I could use your help on a project for moms birthday."
"Sure, how could I help?"
"First I'll need Dads old journal, you know, the one he kept when the Rangers started. In addition, any thing Mom might have had written from around the same time frame. We'll swing by later on to pick it up and decide were to go from there."
"I'll see you then."
"And Zip, thanks."
"No prob. I need something to do."
"Bye."
Zipper hung the phone up, and then went out to find the items needed, glad to have something to keep his mind off Monty's recent departing.
* * * *
The day was bright, buds filled the branches of the local trees, and birds were returning from their long rest down south. Geegaw was walking along the runway unaware of the seasonal changes. He was on a mission.
He leaned on the door of the hanger. "Jen is the plane prepped?"
All that could be seen of his sister was a white tail and two white feet with their pink pad showing. Jennifer's dolly rolled out from under the plane. She stood up, cleaning her hands in a rag, wearing an uncharacteristic purple coveralls and goggles.
"MOM?"
"What, can't I help out your sister?"
Gadget turned her attention back to the plane.
"Jenny," Jennifer's head popped up from the cockpit area. If Geegaw didn't know better, he would of thought he was seeing a double image, "how's the modification working."
"It looks like its holding, it should work. Thanks for your help Mom."
"It was good to get my hands back into the craft, it's been so long. I'll make a Hackwrench out of you yet." Gadget looked at her watch. "Golly, would you look at the time, I've got a class to teach. I hope you don't mind me running off."
"Oh, no, go ahead, Gee could lend me a hand."
Gadget started to walk out, still wiping her hands on the rag absent-mindedly.
"Mom," Geegaw started, "Don't forget to change before class, unless grease spots are the new fashion out of France."
"What...? Oh right... Don't worry; it's Applied Mechanical Engineering. We were going to get our hands dirty anyhow."
Jennifer and Geegaw waited until Gadget was out of sight then waited a few more minuets. It always occurred to the twins that Gadget could hear better than they could, though it was dismissed as 'mothers instincts'.
Although not very obvious at first, the mouse and the chipmunk were twins, all be it, not identical twins.
"Jen, you're starting to scare me." Geegaw said flatly.
"WHAT!? Mom has no idea what we're up to!"
"No, it's not that. First you have the gall to look like Mom, but now you're even starting to sound like her."
"Explain?" she demanded testily, eyeing her brother.
"You stated, and I quote, 'it should work.' We all know what that means. I just hope that it's nothing critical or were toast." Jennifer shot daggers as she stared her brothers down.
Geegaw decided it was in his best interest to change the subject. Jennifer had never liked being associated to their mother's tendency to get over excited about an invention and not properly test it before hand. "Is the plane ready?"
"Yes," a diabolical look spread across her innocent face, "it should work."
Geegaw ignored her attempt at humor, but not with out a reflexive twinge. "You've already have Mom's sense of humor." He mumbled to him self.
Jennifer continued. "We should plan on leaving soon, if we want to get back before dark." She did a quick head count. "Were is Maggie?"
"She said to pick her up, she might be running late."
"We should get going then, were running behind schedule."