Chapter 14 – Empty (Rico's Story)
It was yet another beautiful day at the Central Park Zoo. However, the penguins weren't there to enjoy it, as they were in the city on a rescue mission.
When the penguins finally reached the coordinates that they were given, they found themselves inside the dump, and on top of a large pile of trash was Max, who was too busy freaking out to notice them.
The penguins hopped out of the car and headed towards said pile of trash, and this gave Skipper the opportunity to take in the sight in front of him. Sighing, he looked up towards the top of the pile and cupped his flippers around his beak to project his voice.
"What are you doing up there, Moon Cat?"
This caught Max's attention, and he paused in his freakout to look down at the four penguins at the bottom of the trash pile, giving them a look.
"Oh, no reason. I was just chased up here by that giant guard dog they have here!"
Skipper took a look around for a second before facing Max once again.
"I don't see any guard dog around here. Why don't you just come down from here so we can get back home and you can be on your merry way, huh?"
Max frantically shook his head, refusing to come down. Sighing exasperatedly, Skipper turned towards his team.
"Men, it looks like Moon Cat won't be coming down on his own, so we're gonna have to go to Plan B."
Private raised his flipper.
"What is it, Private?"
"Um…what's Plan B?"
Skipper sighed, about to berate Private for not remembering what the plan was, when Kowalski suddenly spoke up.
"You know Skipper, Private's right. We didn't exactly plan past A, here."
Annoyed, Skipper sighed before speaking up once more.
"Alright, so we may have forgotten to have more than one plan. No matter. We'll just go up there and get him down ourselves."
Although Kowalski and the other penguins weren't thrilled with Skipper's choice to wing it, they decided that since this wasn't really too dangerous of a mission, there was nothing wrong with trying this kind of approach.
So, as the penguins finally reached the bottom of the garbage pile, they all looked up towards the top, and Private voiced what all of the penguins were thinking.
"So, how are we gonna climb this, Skippah? It doesn't look too steady to me."
Skipper paused for a moment to think before suddenly getting an idea.
"Easy."
He turned towards Rico, holding out a flipper.
"Rico, grappling hook."
The weapons expert hocked out a grappling hook as asked, and Skipper aimed towards the top of the pile, firing it and hooking on to one of the garbage bags at the top of the pile.
Before Skipper could start the climb towards the top, Kowalski put a flipper on his shoulder to stop him.
"Skipper, are you sure this is safe? We're not exactly climbing up a mountain here."
"Don't be so worried, Kowalski. Everything will be fine."
"B-but sir-"said Kowalski before Skipper closed the analyst's beak and gave him a stern look.
"Everything…will be fine."
Although Kowalski had a definite feeling that something was going to go wrong, he knew that he wouldn't be able to convince Skipper at this point, so he kept silent, and Skipper took it as a sign to release the analyst.
"Now that that's settled, I'll be leading the climb up the pile of trash. Rico will be behind me, and Kowalski and Private will bring up the rear. Do you understand?"
Everyone nodded, and Skipper headed towards the rope, grabbing it and beginning his ascent.
After a few minutes of climbing, the penguins were just about near the top of the pile, and Skipper couldn't resist the opportunity to tell Kowalski that he was right.
However, before he could turn around and do so, the penguins suddenly dropped down a few inches, and Kowalski knew the answer why.
"Skipper, I think that the trash bag the grappling hook is attached to might be ripping. I think it might be a good idea to abort the mission and head back down to the ground before the hook comes loose."
"Nonsense, Kowalski. We're almost at the top. Besides, you know that we never abort the mission unless there's no other option."
Skipper was about the continue the climb up when the rope suddenly started to slowly descend towards the ground, the hook at the top ripping through the plastic of the garbage bag it was attached to.
After realizing that they were dropping, Skipper had to quickly think of a plan to save themselves.
"Rico, give me some ice picks, and quickly!" he said, desperately reaching out towards the weapons expert under him.
Rico did as he was asked and attempted to hock out some ice picks, but nothing came out. Confused, Rico continued to try to hock out the ice picks, but still nothing.
"Rico, where are those ice picks?" asked Skipper.
Before Rico could answer, the grappling hook finally came loose. The penguins attempted to frantically grab at the piles of garbage they were climbing against, but it was no use, and they were sent plummeting to the ground.
Thankfully with the way that the garbage was piled up, the penguins really only had to endure the landing. So, outside of smelling like garbage from the bags they landed against during the fall down, as well as a little bit of soreness from the landing, they were for the most part unhurt.
As the penguins picked themselves up and brushed themselves off, Skipper spoke up.
"Everyone okay?"
Private and Rico nodded, but Kowalski decided to speak up.
"I'm fine, Skipper, but this whole thing did prove my point."
"Alright, Kowalski, I get it. There's no need to rub it in."
Annoyed, Skipper turned to face Rico.
"And where were the ice picks when I asked you, Rico?"
Rico simply shrugged while uttering a string of gibberish in an attempt to explain himself.
"Not there? What do you mean? I thought we filled you up with pretty much everything we could find."
Rico shrugged once again, not knowing what else to say. Before Skipper could say anything else, Kowalski stepped forward, looking like he wanted to try something out.
"Rico, would you mind doing a little test for me? I want to see if my theory about your predicament is correct."
Rico nodded, and Kowalski began listing random items that he wanted to see the weapons expert hack out. However, as with the ice picks, nothing came out at all, lending credence to what Kowalski was thinking actually happened.
The analyst turned towards the rest of the group to present his findings.
"Now, I know that I've only tried out ten different items, but there's a good chance that our friend Rico here has gone empty."
Both Private and Skipper looked slightly worried for a second before both realized that they weren't sure what Kowalski meant.
"What do you mean by empty, K'walski?" asked Private.
"What I mean is that there's nothing inside him besides what normal penguins have."
"Well, all we have to do is to find some stuff for Rico to eat and he'll be back to normal. Right?"
"That's correct, Private. Unfortunately, Rico usually keeps so many different things inside his gut, so we might be at this for a while."
"Yeah, and we also need to make sure not to just put anything in there. It has to be something that could be useful for future missions." said Skipper.
Private nodded eagerly, having finally understood what needed to be done. However, before he could begin searching for items for Rico to have, Skipper held him back.
"Whoa there, Private. We can't just go walking around willy-nilly. We have to have a plan if we're gonna get this done as efficiently as possible."
Skipper then turned towards Kowalski, opening his beak before realizing that the analyst already had his notepad out.
"Way to be on the ball, Kowalski!"
"Thank you, Skipper. I've been trying to be more prepared recently."
Kowalski cleared his throat before beginning to explain his plan.
"Now, as I'm sure most of you are aware, a majority of the stuff that Rico spits out on a daily basis happens to be explosives. The only problem is that we don't have any more back at the HQ since Rico found our old stash."
Skipper and Kowalski glared at Rico, who nervously chuckled.
"Anyway, while I was doing some light reading, I found that there is actually a military base on the outskirts of the city. We should hopefully be able to at least land all of the explosives we need, if not any more useful weapons."
Skipper paused, rubbing his chin as he thought about what Kowalski said.
"Interesting. Why wasn't I notified about the existence of this military base before?"
"It's probably because the base is on the north side of the city. We've never really traveled outside of the city, unless you count Hoboken."
That last comment earned him a glare from Skipper.
"I thought I specifically ordered everyone never to mention that godforsaken place in my presence again."
"Sorry, sir. Won't happen again." said Kowalski, mentally kicking himself for letting that slip.
"See that it doesn't." said Skipper, before heading towards the car.
Before Skipper could hop in, though, Private stepped forward.
"Skippah, wait! Shouldn't we look for some things that we can use here in the dump before we go to the base?"
Before Skipper could answer, Rico let out a loud "Blech!" before vigorously shaking his head.
"Does that answer your question?" said Skipper as he gestured towards the disgusted weapons expert.
Private didn't answer, choosing to join Skipper inside the car. Once Kowalski and Rico hopped in as well, Skipper turned around to face the other three penguins.
"While I'm driving, I want you three to keep an eye out for anything that Rico could eat and we'll stop and grab them. And remember, only useful things! If Rico wants to eat something else later, I don't mind. Just don't do it until we're done, okay?"
Skipper was staring straight at Rico as he asked that last question. The weapons expert nodded, and Skipper turned the engine on, pulling the car out of its parking spot and out of the dump.
"Hey guys, where are you going? I'm kind of still stuck up here!" yelled Max as he attempted to catch the penguins' attention.
However, it seems that they must have forgotten about him, so Max sighed and attempted to find a comfortable spot on the pile, figuring that he was probably going to be there a while.
During the penguins' journey to the military base, they made a few stops at some of the stores along the way to find some other weapons for Rico to carry inside him.
The first stop that they made was at a hardware store, and the rest of the penguins began tossing whatever they could find on to the floor next to Rico, who picked them up and swallowed them whole, somehow not getting himself injured despite the sharpness of some of the tools they grabbed.
After finally managing to fill Rico up to a point where the other three penguins were comfortable, Skipper hopped down from the shelf and walked over to the weapons expert to check up on him.
"You okay there, Rico? Do you need to take a break or anything?"
Rico shook his head, but Kowalski spoke up just as he rejoined the other two.
"Are you sure? This is a whole lot of stuff to eat, even with your bottomless gut."
Rico shook his head once more before a light grumbling noise came from his stomach.
"What was that?" asked Private, unsure where the noise was coming from.
Although Rico could tell where it was coming from, he figured it was nothing to worry about.
"I 'unno." he said, shrugging.
The other three penguins paused for a second to make sure that it was nothing bad, but they didn't hear anything else.
Before they began to make their way towards the front door, Private suddenly spoke up once more.
"Wait, how are we gonna pay for all of this? We put quite a bit of stuff inside Rico."
Skipper turned towards the weapons expert.
"Rico, do you have any money left in you?"
Rico paused for a few seconds, shaking his belly for a little bit before facing Skipper and shaking his head, causing the commander to sigh heavily.
"Looks like we only have one choice, men. We're gonna have to sneak out of here without paying."
Private gasped, not expecting someone like Skipper to stoop to this kind of level.
"We can't do that, Skippah! It's not right!"
"Sometimes you have to make the tough choices, Private. It's something you're gonna have to learn if you want to lead your own team one day."
Although Private looked like he still didn't want to go through with Skipper's plan, he knew that they didn't really have much of a choice in the matter, so the young penguin reluctantly agreed to follow along.
Thankfully for the penguins, the front of the store was pretty crowded, so it gave them the opportunity to blend into the crowd and not be noticed. However, this also raised the possibility of getting stepped on, so they had to be careful if they wanted to make it to the front door.
They eventually managed to make it to the front door unscathed, and instead of risking trying to go through the door normally, the penguins slipped under the metal detector and through the door, somehow not setting it off despite the large amount of metal currently in Rico's stomach.
After a few more stops to fill Rico with more useful objects (including money), the penguins finally managed to make it to the military base just as the sun was beginning to set and the street lights started to turn on.
Skipper noticed the setting sun just as he parked the car outside one of the gates into the compound, and he turned towards the rest of his team to relay his instructions.
"Alright, men. It's almost sunset, so we're gonna have to move quickly if we want to get all of the explosives and get back to the zoo in a timely manner. This means that we're gonna have to avoid deviating from the path. Don't bother grabbing anything else unless you think it would be just as useful as the explosives. Are we clear?"
The other three penguins saluted before unbuckling themselves and hopping out of the car. As they joined Skipper up against the wall near one of the gates to the base, Skipper took a peek inside for a moment before turning back to the others.
"Everyone stick to the shadows. There's not that many guards, but they look pretty dangerous."
Skipper didn't wait for an answer, as he slipped around the corner and under the gate, the rest of the penguins following behind a few seconds later.
After a little while spent sneaking around the base, the penguins finally managed to find the armory inside a building not too far away from the main base of operations.
The journey over to said building went pretty smoothly, but they ended up running into an obstacle, as there were two guards stationed in front of the door.
The penguins stopped behind a pile of sandbags, and while remaining completely silent, Skipper signaled for Kowalski and Rico to knock them out, which they successfully did, allowing the rest of the penguins to enter the armory and find the section where the explosives were.
"Move quickly, men! The humans are bound to find the ones that we knocked out and sound the alarm. I want to be out of here before then!"
Rico began quickly gobbling up as many bombs as he could manage, while the rest of the penguins grabbed sticks of dynamite and placed them into a pile in the center of the area, which Rico began swallowing when he was finished with the bombs.
However, the sheer number of objects Rico was eating at once was starting to get to the normally ravenous weapons expert, so he was starting to slow down in his eating, and his stomach was starting to hurt.
Thankfully, this caught Skipper's attention, and he immediately went into action, pulling Rico away from the sticks of dynamite.
"That's good enough, soldier. Now let's get out of here."
Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything about the soreness in Rico's stomach, so Skipper ended up having to help him out of the armory as Kowalski and Private followed closely behind.
As they exited the armory and returned to the safety of the shadows, the base's alarm suddenly went off and soldiers began running towards the sound of the disturbance.
"Double time, men! We need to get out of here before they figure out that the explosives are missing!" said Skipper.
The penguins picked up the pace as ordered, but with Skipper carrying the heavier than normal Rico, the speed wasn't increased very much.
Somehow, as if by some massive stroke of luck, the penguins managed to slip under the gate and reach the car without getting spotted, which they were all quite grateful for.
Skipper hefted Rico towards the car and put him into one of the back seats, buckling him in just as the sick weapons expert was about to slump over.
"Private, you keep an eye on Rico while we're heading back." said Skipper.
Private saluted and hopped into the back seat next to Rico, while Kowalski and Skipper took the two front seats. Skipper didn't waste any more time, as right when everyone was settled in, he turned the engine on and peeled away from the base as the soldiers ran around in confusion.
It was a bit of a longer journey than normal, but the penguins finally managed to make it back to the zoo without any real incident. Kowalski took care of leading Rico inside the HQ, as Skipper and Private followed close behind.
"Man, I'm sure glad Rico's filled up again." said Private as he watched Kowalski set Rico down on his bed.
"Agreed. We filled him up pretty full today, so hopefully we won't have to deal with this again for a while." said Skipper before turning away from the scene in front of him.
So, as Rico recovered from his large meal, the rest of the penguins returned to their normal days, thankful that they dealt with this inconvenience before it got any worse.