Major medical/scientific inaccuraies ahead, but you're reading Penguins of Madagascar fanfiction and I'm writing it so...does it really matter?

Chapter 9

Kowalski froze and looked over at Rico, who quickly looked away and began to fidget with the band on his wrist. "What do you mean dead man walking?"

"What's going on Skipper?" Private asked, concern clear in his voice.

"Results came back and I'm not going to lie, boys, it's not good." Skipper explained, the usual bark gone from his voice. "Both of you can read the reports for yourselves, but it's an on-going investigation and the eggheads in the lab are still trying to figure out a solution now that there's some idea of what is going on."

"Skipper, what's going on?" Kowalski echoed Private's earlier question, now noting the faint redness around Skipper's eyes as if he had been crying earlier. He watched Skipper look to Rico almost helplessly, lips parting slightly before closing again. A sense of dread began to steadily build in his stomach.

"I'm dying," Rico said after another moment of silence. His voice oddly soft and calm considering the words that had left his mouth.

"Dying?" The previous anger that Kowalski had felt drained out of him and was replaced by confusion and disbelief. Surely he had misheard something, but somewhere behind him, he heard a soft choked sound come from Private.

Rico shrugged and uttered, "heart failure."

Kowalski felt cold as he turned the two words over in his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to find his voice. All too clearly recalling the earlier conversation with Skipper over Rico needing to be revived after his heart had stopped.

Fortunately, Private had found his voice and it was full of hurt and anger. "That doesn't make any sense! And if it's heart failure then why can't they treat it as such?"

"That was my first question, but what we're dealing with is behaving like heart failure without actually being heart failure," Skipper explained. "They found nanites in Rico's blood, but they are nothing like anything that the labs have seen."

Kowalski swallowed thickly, recalling how he had dabbled in that type of technology before which certainly explained why they hadn't approved him as a visitor.

"They must have some type of treatment in mind though," Private insisted.

"There's nothing. And they've considered everything, based on the information at hand. Introducing any traditional medications or treatment procedures would risk damaging his heart permanently. Blood transfusions are out since the nanites have embedded themselves into the heart muscle and tissue surrounding the heart. An EMP can't be considered as a means to disable and eliminate them because they have a security trigger that would result in the instant death of the host. In fact, as far as they can tell whoever made these didn't intend the 'host' to live longer than a couple of months."

Kowalski's head snapped over to Skipper and he stared in horror and disbelief, "Months? Heart failure can take years."

"Whatever is in those nanites is constricting the arteries surrounding the heart far more effectively than a lifetime of eating double-bacon cheeseburgers every-day could. Things are stable for now, but they are planning on running more tests in a few hours to determine how quickly the condition will or can progress. As I said, things aren't looking good at the moment and our only lead is nowhere to be found."

Kowalski looked down at the file in his hands, torn by the onslaught of information because it didn't make sense. "What could Doris possibly have to do with this? I just talked to her and I know she was there, she told me-" He looked at Rico, "She said she was there to drop off a gift for me, that you talked to her, she wasn't lying about that was she?"

"No," Rico winced as the word seemed to get stuck in his throat and his chest tightened.

Private reached out and placed a hand on Rico's shoulder hoping to offer the man some comfort. He cast an alarmed look at Skipper when Rico flinched at the touch, "Rico, what happened last night?"

Rico shook his head, "don't remember."

"Just because she was there doesn't mean she had anything to do with this." Kowalski found himself arguing. There had been nothing during his conversation with Doris that indicated she knew more about the incident or that she was guilty of some terrible act. None of Doris's research had anything to do with nanites, let alone applying them to human biology. "I mean, what motivation could Doris possibly have for doing anything like this?"

"Why don't you crack that file open and find out? Or should I just save you the time?" Skipper practically snarled. "Turns out Blowhole had a sister. Step-sister technically, but a sister nevertheless. CENTRAAL never made the connection because Blowhole did everything to keep her a secret. Guess he didn't want his status as a domestic terrorist to ruin her chances of having a decent life."

"No, this can't be right," Kowalski opened the folder and was met with pictures and copies of various documents including one that detailed a Francis Tursiops gaining guardianship of his step-sister Doris Delphini after their parents died in an accident. He felt sick as he recalled her explaining that her brother had died while fiddling with the small dolphin pendant she always wore, it seemed like such an insignificant detail at the time, but now it seemed so painfully obvious. "There must be a misunderstanding somewhere. Even if Blowhole was the connection, how would she know that Rico was the one who killed him? Or that we had anything to do with her brother? I-We've known about her for years."

For a moment Skipper looked defeated, exhausted really as if he had heard and run through the same argument before. "I'll agree that currently, we can't verify that she was there beyond Rico's statement or how much she knew about her brother and how often our paths crossed. They keep hitting dead ends. Rico's phone didn't have any prints and our security system was down so there's no footage. But the fact that she's MIA doesn't look good and her involvement still doesn't sit right with me."

Kowalski felt a sharp sting of guilt in his chest knowing full well why the cameras were down although he could have sworn that he had reconnected everything after he got back in a few nights prior.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Private asked softly.

"Right now, nothing," Skipper sighed, "we're too close to the issue and there's not enough to act on. Some of the higher-ups are chomping at the bit for someone to take the blame for one of their 'assets' getting damaged." The disgust did not go unnoticed. " Believe me it took everything to keep Kowalski from getting court-martialed today, not to mention myself. "

Kowalski wilted under Skipper's glare, but there was no mistaking the tone in Skipper's voice and the way Skipper quickly glanced down at the folder before turning his attention back to the rest of the team.

"We're really not going to just sit around are we?"

Kowalski understood Private's sentiment, but he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to do anything with all the information that was buzzing around his head. He felt sick and it was like his head was going to explode.

Skipper scrubbed his hands over his face. "My hands are tied and it's been a long-ass day. All we can do is get out of these suits, get some rest, and see what they have to say tomorrow. Rico, are you good, or do you want one of us to hang around for a bit?"

Rico gave Skipper a thumbs up and uttered a soft, "'m good. Gonna sleep."

"We'll be back tomorrow and we're staying off base so it won't take us long to get here in case you need us before then. Let's go, boys."