"Here's the deal," The Blue Hen stated, "I know where Skipper is, and I'll tell you if you give me the android."
"What?" Kowalski at first thought he hadn't heard correctly, "You have Skipper, and you want to trade for the android?"
"Exactly. Take it or leave it. I'll be at the Hoboken Steel Mill in three hours." The call ended.
The room's occupants looked at each other. They'd heard everything; Kowalski had put on speakerphone.
"Well, let's get going." Kowalski announced standing up, the decision made. He was the leader, now that skipper had turned out to be an evil killer robot, right? Private, on the other hand, looked horrified by the statement.
"You can't do that K'walski!" the youngest member of the team protested.
"I agree with Private," Marlene concurred, "We don't have the right to send on person to their death, no matter what they've done."
"But paralysing me is just dandy," the android interrupted sarcastically. Kowalski stood up, motioning for rest of the team to follow.
"Marlene, I don't think you're getting this," Kowalski stated, "No matter how realistic he is, you need to remember he's not alive. He's a computer created to simulate Skipper. He may kiss like the real thing…"
"I never kissed him," Marlene protested.
"Now, Skipper, the real Skipper, he's very much alive and currently seems to be held by someone who obviously doesn't have his best interests at heart. Now, let us say Skipper is somehow teleported back here. We then turn the android over to Penguin. What do they do? Take him apart to find out what makes a fascinating invention like it tick."
"Alright K'walski," Private argued, "So you're telling me that you would be perfectly fine with destroying MORT?"
"Well…"
"Yes or no?" Marlene pressed.
"If Skipper was in danger and it was the only way to say him, yes I would!" Kowalski finally snapped, "Listen, I really didn't want to pull rank, but at the end of the day, I'm in charge. We're handing him over."
Skipper opened his eyes a fraction and was stunned by the blinding light.
"The Red… The Red Squirrel…" he muttered, still semi dazed.
"Indeed," came a voice from the darkness, "Indeed, indeed, indeed," then suddenly a face interrupted the binary composition of the blinding white and the pitch black, "SKIPPER!"
"Why can't Rico get captured for once." Skipper complained, exploring the nature of the bonds that held him to the chair. Forty years of low profile obviously hadn't done much for his sanity.
"Do you recognise them?" the Squirrel answered the unspoken question, "Kowalski's Inescapable Handcuffs? The same ones that you were chained to two of three of the only women you have ever truly loved with. Hm?" The revelation of this knowledge was a new turn in events to Skipper, as the third woman not even his team knew of. The Squirrel had to be bluffing.
"If you were trying to surprise me, better have tried, better have failed."
"Oh, I know all about you," the Squirrel continued to muse, ignoring Skipper's comment, "I know all about Arlene, and Kitka, and, Oh yes…," the Squirrel smiled deviously, "Lola."
At this Skipper could not contain his surprise, but quickly regained his composure, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Lola. Now that would be a name you haven't heard in a long time," the Squirrel fondled a lock of Skipper's hair, "Oh, yes, only you, me, and Nigel know about that. The only person to break you," the Squirrel smiled deviously, "until today."
"She never broke me," Skipper lied, "and you won't."
"Oh yes she did. You gave her your young foolish heart, and she sold you out to Blowhole," the Squirrel revelled in skipper's alarmed reaction, "changed your entire life from the rose tinted world you saw as Rockgut's apprentice into… well, we both knew what the loss turned you into."
Skipper gave no answer.
"London, Lincoln Nebraska, Operation: OPENSANDWICH, to name a few," The Squirrel continued, "Oh yes, and Operation: Hornet's Nest, AKA the Hornet House assassination."
"If you think I feel guilt, think again. They were missions. I only followed orders."
"No, I didn't think you would care, after all we are so alike, but to think you killed your wife, orphaned your own son when he was only a boy? And years after you decided to forget her? Even I wouldn't do that."
"Private is not my son," Skipper snapped, telling the truth. He wasn't that old, "I don't have a son."
"Technically you adopted him, but it sounds so much more dramatic to say he's your son," The Squirrel replied, "Now, tell me Skipper, what is your real name?"
"I don't know." Apparently, the Squirrel's trip down memory lane hadn't had the effect the Squirrel expected.
The Squirrel's eye widened, glaring, comically in any other situation, glaring at his captive. His hand shot out from the side, knocking Skipper to the floor.
"What is your name?!"
"I don't know."
"Oh, I see your game," The Squirrel leered, his boot pressing his captive's head into the cold cement floor, "But you will tell me. I'm certain of it."
"Yeah, well you tell me when you start running out of tricks in fifteen minutes."
"Oh my…" Kitka gasped staring at the interior of the lobby.
"Now do you understand that you are in way over your head," Nigel stated, forcing the woman to continue further into the room by unceremoniously jerking the handcuffs that joined their wrists.
"I didn't realise… I just wanted Skipper to…"
"Love you? My dear, when he finds out just what you were part of I doubt if he'll allow you within a ten mile radius."
"I didn't know they would convince him they were all Squirrel drones…" Kitka pleaded, though what horrified her more was that he'd gone through with killing everyone in the building. Even the Skipper she though she once knew wouldn't be able to do that. How far had she pushed him...?
It was then Nigel noticed that Kitka had buried her face in her arm. Immediately he snatched it away, forcing her to look at one of the many dead agents scattered about the floor in front of her, "I need you to understand what you've done."
"What do you want from me?" Kitka snapped, half crying as she fought against Nigel's grip. She couldn't bear to see what she'd been part of, "I get it! I went too far! Send me to Hoboken already."
"So they can kill you? You've been quite instrumental in getting Skipper into this mess and you are going to get him out," Nigel switched on a nearby computer at one of the receptionist's desks, pushing the late receptionist aside with cold disregard, "My hunch was correct. We just need to catch him before he does something stupid."
Rockgut sat on one of the chairs in the vault room, the open door behind him. His head was slumped, his blood stained hands drawn into fists.
"Rockgut." The one word spoken in that measured English accent brought on a completely new torrent of emotions.
"1972." Rockgut spoke, trying to match the resolve of the previous speaker, though his reply was directed at the floor, "Why didn't I guess?"
"What happened here?" Kitka asked. One of Rockgut's eyes momentarily rose to look at the speaker, burning with hatred, though this soon turned inward.
"Don't you know?" Rockgut stated. It was clear on Nigel's face how it saddened him to see Buck Rockgut, the greatest penguin commando in history in such a state, "Oh no, you wouldn't. You just followed orders. Said what they told you to say, did what they told you to do. What did you promise him? The world? The universe? Or just someone he thought he could shout 'Honey, I'm home' to."
Nigel pursed his lips, "You're making no sense…" Suddenly Rockgut was on his feet, glaring at the other agent.
"I'm making no sense?! What were you? Born yesterday? Of course I'm making no sense!" Rockgut turned to the open door behind them, "Look at all of this! I did it! Me and Skipper did it! I tricked him into doing this!" he settled back to his chair, "I… heard all of it. I… knew exactly what I was doing, but somehow I thought it was right, I couldn't stop myself… Then I realised. I tried to hide him, I had no time to warn him, but they stopped me."
"Please, sir, start from the beginning," Kitka pleaded, "We need to know where they took him." Suddenly Rockgut sprung up again, grabbing the woman by her shoulders and shaking her violently.
"It's the Control! They've activated it!" Suddenly his rage disappeared and he resumed his place on the chair, "For god's sake, Nigel… don't let him ever find out. Tell him anything, just don't… It would break him. Just like they want."
"I will tell you a story," The Squirrel stated, "Once upon a time there was a man who, like some sleep walk, would fight in his sleep."
"Yeah, Leonard, I know him." Skipper interrupted sarcastically.
"Once upon a time, this man, who was not Leonard, had a nightmare. He dreamed that the whole world had become zombies," The Squirrel lifted Skipper back up from the ground by his hair, to which he didn't even receive a wince, "and he was so convinced, that climbed out of bed in his sleep, grabbed his gun from his dresser, and shot his entire family. Of course ethically it is debatable as to how at fault he was, but he still beat himself up over it."
"And that story is entirely made up."
"Now, let us imaging this man had not been dreaming, but by slowly, psychologically breaking him down, turning everything he knew and believed, everything he lived for, upside down, convinced him that the last people he had not yet been turned against were shall we say, Squirrel drones?" It was then the whole pieces fell into place in Skipper's mind, and the Squirrel could see in the man's eyes, that had been the final straw, "yes Skipper, there was nothing wrong with the people in Penguin HQ."
Alright, this story is starting to get pretty dark, however, this is as dark as it gets, before things should start getting better, starting from the next chapter, where Julian, Maurice, and MORT finally catch up with the Penguins.