Chapter Twenty-Two

"You gave up your job?" Devin goggled at Justin.

Justin waved a dismissive paw. "No, I gave up one title and got another. First Husband is job enough for me," he winked at Elizabeth. "It's Cynthia's job to make sure nothing dangerous gets past Thorn Valley's borders." Justin's expression fell a bit. "It's security problems on the inside that keep me busy."

"Justin means the assassination attempts," Elizabeth explained. Devin and Gadget looked at each other and shuddered again.

"You're kidding," started Gadget, but bit her tongue as Elizabeth threw back one side of her trademark red cloak. From her left shoulder nearly to her elbow, a long thin scar trailed down, nearly white fur showing against the rest of her reddish-brown.

"It happened in the middle of a speech. I was presiding over the opening of Timothy's new bakery—preside, that's what presidents do, after all." She covered her arm again, Justin taking her paw in his. "I was going on about production numbers, I think—when ZZZZIP!" Devin and Gadget nearly jumped off their couch.

"Don't scare me like that!" Devin looked down at his paw—he'd pulled out one of the whiskers he'd been fiddling with. He rubbed his cheek. "That smarts…"

"Sorry, sorry. I'll leave out the sound effects," Elizabeth promised guiltily. "That's the sound that I heard just as I was turning around. The next thing I knew, Justin tackled me and pushed me away from the podium. A couple of the windows shattered behind us, but I guess the sniper gave up after that."

Gadget looked at Elizabeth in disbelief. "Sniper? But—who would want—" She slapped her forehead and nodded. "Okay. Jeez, these guys really get around. How come we didn't hear anything about that from Rescue Aid?"

Justin cleared his throat cautiously. "We didn't tell them. We considered it an…internal matter."

"Until recently, that is," Elizabeth corrected him, narrowing her eyes. He shrugged.

"I wish we had known. You were right about one thing, for sure—" Gadget gestured to Elizabeth's arm. "They do have someone working for them who's awfully good with machines. Weapons in particular."

Devin drummed his pawpads thoughtfully on the armrest of the couch. "It was a needle gun, wasn't it?"

Elizabeth's eyes went wide. "How did you know that?"

"Lucky guess—that, and growing up with professional thieves for parents. Scar looks right. You must have turned just right for it to give you a glancing blow, and it laid your arm open like the edge of a knife. You're damned lucky you didn't end up with a needle in your heart instead."

Gadget tilted her head, watching Elizabeth as she listened to Devin. "Say, Liz," Gadget ventured. "You've got a scar on the back of your head, too, just like Tina's. That wasn't another—"

"Assassination attempt? No, thank God. No more head wounds for me. You'd have to talk to a lot of people to get the whole story. Or maybe read my book—"

Justin rubbed at his eyepatch uncomfortably. "When you've got a few days to spare, anyway. It wasn't much fun for me either. Makes good reading though."

Gadget chuckled uncertainly. "Oh, I don't think I'll have time for a novel until I'm settled in the rest of the way."

"She'll be too busy with medical texts," said Devin. "Blew my score on the TMAT right out of the water."

Elizabeth clasped her paws together in delight. "Oh, I'm so glad to hear that! Sorry, Devin. But that means we get to keep Gadget around longer!"

"I'm sorry the circumstances aren't better," Justin shrugged, "the reasons for you being here, I mean. But you're quite a catch for the Institute. I'll bet you'll be a star student. And then, Dr. Ages has other plans for you—"

"—shh! You know he'll want to tell her himself," Elizabeth cut him off.

Gadget eyed her and Justin warily. "Plans? I'm not sure I like the sound of that. It makes me feel like I'm part of something big that I can't control. You told me yourselves to stay out of politics."

Devin squirmed uncomfortably. "I don't like it either. Whenever you Thorn Valley types talk about Plans-with-a-capital-P, you get into swordfights and drop cinderblocks on each other."

Justin bared his teeth at Devin for a moment before regaining his composure. "Don't go there, Doctor Packard."

"Okay, sorry, I just don't want Gadget getting dragged into some other mess. We've got enough to sort out as it is."

"Oh, stop it," Elizabeth ordered. "I promise Dr. Ages has nothing sinister or dangerous in mind."

Gadget snorted. "This is the same Dr. Ages who wants to get me drunk and con me out of my workshop space?"

Elizabeth and Justin were both silent for a moment. "One and the same," Justin groaned. "I'm sorry, you two. Looks like we've already gotten you into Thorn Valley politics after all."

Gadget clicked her tongue. "Politics, shmolatics. I was the only girl in a treehouse full of guys for a few years—you learn a thing or two about handling people, when you're outnumbered."

Elizabeth laughed. "I know the feeling. Justin and the boys keep me on my toes. It's good to have another woman in the house."

"What boys are those?" asked Gadget.

As if on cue, a small gray streak zipped across the living room and hid behind the couch. At the door it had come through, an ear, then an eye peeked out. Seeing feet behind the couch, the second visitor bounded into the room with a yell, brandishing a cardboard sword. "Come out from there and fight like a rat, Jenner!"

Devin narrowed his eyes at Elizabeth. "No way. You didn't name one of your kids after—"

Elizabeth shook her head briskly. "Oh, no, of course not. Just watch."

The first combatant stuck his head out from behind the couch. "You'll never take me alive, Justin!"

The smaller 'Justin' advanced menacingly. "I wasn't planning on it. Here I come!" The two leaped into the middle of the room and started hacking at each other with their pieces of cardboard. It was a vicious battle, and it struck Gadget that the swordplay looked awfully real. One of the fighters raised his 'sword' in the air and immediately got poked in the stomach. He dropped his weapon and backed away, clutching at his middle.

"Okay, that's enough," Justin growled goodnaturedly, and gathered the two combatants up under his big arms.

"Next time you be Jenner," the first told the second, both of them squirming in Justin's grasp. "Jenner always loses." Justin sat down by Elizabeth again and let the youngsters go. They sat kicking their footpaws restlessly against the couch.

"Gadget, Devin, meet our youngest children, Matt and Rouse," Elizabeth said with pride.

"Rhymes with house," Rouse piped up.

"We're half-rat, thanks to Dad—" offered Matt.

"—and half-mouse, thanks to Mom," Rouse countered.

"The rat half is better."

"Mouse."

"Rat!"

"M—"

Elizabeth clamped a paw over Rouse's mouth and Justin jabbed Matt gently in the ribs. They took the hint and quit bickering, for the time being. "As I was saying," Elizabeth put a note of warning in her voice for the kids' benefit, "these two are a lot of work, but we love them quite a bit."

Rouse recovered from being stifled by his mother, and brightened up. "Hey, Devin! I heard about you. Your mom and dad are the Perilous Packards! They sure did steal a lot of cheese. They out of jail yet?"

Devin rolled his eyes. Lord, when am I going to get free of my parents' mistakes? "Yes. They got time off for good behavior."

"Good," nodded Matt. "I guess they didn't have to break out this time."

Devin gritted his teeth and wisely kept silent.

"Kids, this is probably going to go over your heads," Justin looked Matt and Rouse in the eye, in turn, "but there's such a thing as tact. It's spelled T-A-C-T. Go find a dictionary in Uncle Timmy's library, look it up, and ask Tina to explain it to you. Timmy and I don't have much of it ourselves, so we're not the ones to ask. Now scoot." He released the fidgety young rat-mice, and they scampered out the door with a simultaneous goodbye wave in Devin and Gadget's direction.

Gadget chuckled. "Quite a pair. I think I know why Timmy was grousing about their birthday party."

Elizabeth groaned. "It's been over a month and the kitchens still smell like birthday cake. So does Matt—he climbed into the mixer when it was full of batter."

Devin shook his head in amusement. "Got to admit, you've got a couple of sharp kids there. They're quite a pawful."

"The twins take pretty good care of each other, even if they do argue about the merits of their parentage," Elizabeth sighed. "We've kept a closer eye on them since the death threats."

Gadget's jaw dropped. Devin sat forward on the edge of the couch, disbelieving. "Not against the kids—" he blurted.

"'Fraid so," Justin confirmed. Elizabeth shuddered. "At the birthday party. Timmy left the kitchens to direct traffic in the main banquet hall, and someone sneaked in. No one noticed until we brought it out with the candles lit, but someone had taken icing, crossed out the kids' names on the cake, and wrote 'Halfbreeds must die'. In neat cursive script."

"We blew out the candles, cut that section out, and started over. Strange looking cake…" Elizabeth mused grimly.

"Bad as that was, we hoped it was an isolated incident. Unfortunately it wasn't." Justin clenched his paws angrily. "They broke into our house—this house—they didn't have much time, so they just shredded a few clothes, broke a window, left a nasty note, and left."

"How nasty was the note?" Gadget fretted.

Elizabeth and Justin looked at each other worriedly. Elizabeth snagged a folder from a low endtable beside the couch. She retrieved a rumpled piece of paper, stood, and handed it to Gadget like a dead fish. She sank back into her seat and waited for Gadget to get through it.

Devin, curious as ever, read over Gadget's shoulder for a second before she shivered with disgust and thrust the paper at him. He smoothed it out to get a better look—and wished he hadn't. "'Abomination'? 'Deserve to be torn slowly limb from—' Okay, I thought nothing could still turn my stomach. Dear God, I can't bear to think of that happening to any child."

"Did you make it to the part about 'species traitors' and retribution?" Elizabeth covered her eyes and Justin drew her close.

"Yes, I did," Gadget grimaced. Devin nodded in regretful affirmation.

"Like far too much of what we do here," Justin whistled through his teeth, "we had an ulterior motive for having you meet Matt and Rouse."

"Both of you will understand, you're scientific-minded souls," Elizabeth reassured them. "Matt and Rouse—they're something completely new."

"There have been crosses before, sure. But NIMH didn't realize a side-effect of the injections they gave us—when they altered our DNA to increase our intelligence, something else happened. Something wonderful and strange." Justin smiled at Elizabeth.

"It's putting it in a very simple way," she hesitated. "You know how they call O-negative the 'universal donor' blood type, because anyone can take a transfusion of it?"

Devin and Gadget both nodded.

"Well," she continued, "imagine a universal DNA donor. You're looking at two of them."

Devin slapped his forehead. "That's how you did it. Interspecies pregnancy is usually a million-to-one shot, but you're playing with rigged dice."

Gadget patted her stomach thoughtfully. "We're hoping there's a better candidate—no offense—but the father of my child might be a NIMH rat or a descendant."

"That's right. Technically, any rat in Thorn Valley could father—or be the mother of—a genetically mixed child." Elizabeth scratched her head. "All that stands in the way is a lack of opportunity and a natural tendency to stick with the same species."

"Our enemies out there don't think that's enough. They think that even cooperation between species is a perversion." Justin leaned forward and pointed a paw at Gadget. "That's why they chose the Rescue Rangers as their first victims. A practice run, you might say."

Gadget looked down sadly. "Two mice, two chipmunks, and an insect. Best friends. God, they must have hated us to do what they did."

"Any hate they have for animals who are friendly with other species—that's nothing to the hate they must feel for mixed-species ones, like our Matt and Rouse." Justin's voice wavered with love and concern.

"Oh, hell. That goes for the child you're carrying, Gadget," Devin noted fretfully. "If you weren't at the top of these psychos' hit list, you are now."

"We'd fight to the death to protect our children," Elizabeth said fiercely. "We just pray it never comes to that."

Button images by Keith Elder