Pennington left his office and walked down an empty corridor. "Pennington!" he heard a voice cry from behind and wheeled around to see Kicksworth peeking into his office. It didn't take too long for the Chief Inspector to notice him standing in the hallway. "We need to talk. Immediately." Without a word, Pennington followed Kicksworth down the corridor to the man's office. While he sat down, Kicksworth just paced in front of a glass wall that overlooked the precinct foyer.
"Pennington, you've excelled," he congratulated. "I'm very grateful. But I'm passing this to higher authorities."
"I don't follow," said Pennington.
"Your work is done."
"I have to tell you, I think you're making a mistake," said Pennington. "We've only begun to scratch the surface…"
"Perhaps," said Kicksworth, "but I must follow orders."
"Toad is not responsible for the murders but I think he knows who is," speculated Pennington.
"That's enough, Pennington," cut in Kicksworth, "you're in above your head. You've done your job, now back off."
"What's going to happen to Toad?" asked Pennington. Kicksworth pointed through the glass and Pennington noted three strange looking men in ill fitting brown suits, dark sunglasses and hats. They all seemed to be impatiently waiting in the foyer. Pennington suspiciously eyed the men, there was something still and unnerving about them.
"These gentlemen are here to move him into a high security facility," explained Kicksworth. "It's out our hands now."
"Who authorized this?" asked Pennington and he was given a wad of papers.
"All the papers are in order," said Kicksworth. "They have very high authority. That is all, detective." Pennington was about to say something more, but he just spun out and left. He stepped out down to the stairs, purposefully making his movements more awkward than they were supposed to be. When he walked into the tallest of the three strange men, it seemed an accident.
"Excuse me. Sorry," apologized Pennington as the man adjusted himself once more. Pennington took a quick look and noted the man's milky white eyes. With that, he traced his steps back into his office, continuing his bumbling and foolish movements until he was completely out of the strange mens' field of vision. He stopped there for a second, only to get the keys.
In his holding cell, Toad stared blankly at a small metal table across the room. He concentrated his attention towards it, his anger simmering. One of its legs started to buckle slowly and then another did as well, as if some invisible force were pounding down on it. The keys in the metal door of his cell rattled and when it swung open, Toad looked up to see Pennington in the doorway. The two men looked at each other for a silent heartbeat and then Toad stood up.
Kicksworth walked with the Birdfaces down past the doorway to Pennington's office, going up a short flight of stairs and then for the holding cell at the end of the corridor. Kicksworth made it their before his disguised companions and fumbled in his coat for his keys. Yet when he got there and opened the door, Toad was gone. Kicksworth's face dropped as he tried to think of something to say to the three revealed Birdfaces behind him.
Pennington drove his car fast. Faster than he had ever driven it. Toad looked over at the detective, street lights passed over Pennington as he stared at the road. "If I didn't know better," said Toad, "I'd say you just helped me escape." Pennington said nothing but handed Toad a file.
"Everything the department knows about Dane Toad is in here," said Pennington. Toad flipped through it, there were details of his history. "Age thirty one. Brown hair. Green eyes. Five feet, ten and a half inches tall. Until recently, worked as the captain of the Starshroom Enterprise with Bullet Bill. Wife's name, Chanterelle. Father and mother, both dead. Raised by his uncle, Toadsworth. A family history of mental instability… et cetera."
"You know me better than I do," said Toad. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because I don't believe any of it," said Pennington. Toad looked at him and when Pennington turned his head, there was a trace of a smile on his lips. "You are an enigma, Toad, and I'm going to solve your little puzzle." With that, he looked back to the road. "So tell me everything that has happened to you since you woke up in Tinga's Inn and leave nothing out; no matter how implausible."
Dr. Elvin Gadd was led into the dark chamber by Mr. Pipe. The doctor sat at the head of a boardroom-styled table. Feeling the cold in the room, he pulled his coat upa bout his neck. The long table was lined on both sides with immobile Birdfaces. A dark figure walked into the room and stepped to the other end of the table. A chill ran through Gadd's spine when he saw it was Wart. "Gentlemen. Doctor," said Wart, addressing his companions before sitting. "It is clear to you we are unhappy, yes?"
"Yes, of course. I…," started Gadd, but Wart wave dhis hand to silence Gadd, who immediately complied. Not out of magical compulsion, but out of fear.
"We find ourselves in an interesting situation," said Wart. "Our friend is making quite a nuisance of himself. He knows things." There was a general murmur of concern amongst the gathered Birdfaces. "Explain to us, doctor. Why is the situation like this? Yes?" Gadd found himself distinctly uncomfortable.
"I'm not sure I understand," said Gadd before Mr. Pipe stepped forward and placed the broken syringe he found in Tinga's Inn in front of Gadd.
"We found this the night we lost him," said Mr. Pipe.
"So?" asked Gadd, trying to play the situation off.
"He has been imprinted," answered Mr. Pipe.
"I thought you said you didn't get to him in time," said Gadd.
"Someone else did."
"That's impossible," lied Gadd.
"It is the only explanation," said Mr. Pipe and Gadd knew he was in trouble.
"Are you accusing me of this? Is that it!" he cried in desperate rage. He rose to his feet. "You have trusted me for so long. You ripped me from Buoy Base and my research for this! You think I would throw everything away now? What reason would I have?" He glared over at Wart. "I think your Birdfaces are making up things, trying to cover their inadequacies…"
Mr. I pulled at Wart's cape and the giant amphibian leaned down so that the childlike Birdface could speak. "He can help us… find him," assured Mr. I.
"Dearest doctor. You insult my intelligence. Yes?" asked Wart.
"It's cold in here, don't you think?" asked Gadd after a moment of silence.
Pennington led Toad through the front door into his apartment, taking him in to a sitting room. "Why are you helping me?" asked Toad, stopping without even looking for the detective.
"I pride myself on being thorough," explained Penningotn. "There are holes in your story a truck could drive through." Nodding, Toad stepped toward a sofa. "Please. Not that way. If you could follow the covering. The carpet gets stained and it's impossible to clean." Pennington pointed to a clear plastic mat running through the room.
"Isn't it risky coming here?" questioned Toad.
"I have to get something," said Pennington and he moved into his bedroom, removing an empty suitcase, neatly placing clothes in it. "What do you know about the moving statues?"
"They're not real – they're something else," said Toad, trying to think on it. "They want me dead but I don't know why." As Toad began to leaf through the file, Pennington walked back into the living room with his packed bag in hand. Pennington paced through the room, careful to stay on the plastic protective covering.
"There's another reason I'm helping you," said Pennington, glaring at Toad. "Recently I came to the conclusion that I was losing my mind. I discovered my life had inconsistences. Everything was liquid beneath a thin surface that has always seemed so solid to me. Do you understand what I'm saying or does it sound crazy?"
"It doesn't sound crazy," smiled Toad, shaking his head.
"Yes," nodded Pennington. "Well, I know it's not me that's insane, its Subcon." Pennington lifted his piano accordion out from behind the sofa and prepared to put it in its case. Toad quietly looked at him. "It's a gift from my mother," he explained before putting it in. "Is there anything you haven't told me? Even the most insignificant thing…?"
"No," said Toad. "Nothing I can think of. Except…"
"Go on."
"Well," paused Toad. "The one thing I've been certain of, all this time, is that I must get out to the ocean. I don't know why but I have this… feeling."
"What do you think you'll find there?" asked Pennington.
"Some answers I hope," said Toad and his heart skipped a beat. "The point is nobody seems to know how to get there."
"Why, that's ridiculous," scoffed Pennington. "You just…" Then the detective felt his own voice trail off as his thoughts disappeared. He shook his head slowly and the two left the house quietly. The closest place to the ocean from Petalburg was… Keelhaul Key. How to get there?
Pennington drove in silence to a public library and Toad exited quickly, aware of Pennington's intent. He wondered if Pennington too had become enamoured with finding out just where Keelhaul Key was. If the question had ingrained itself in his mind. Within the library was a vast empty expanse of polished floor and an elderly female librarian sat behind a desk beneath a big sign indicating silence. The woman was reading with one hand and smoking with the other. "Keep maps of the city here?" asked Toad and the woman sighed, looking at Toad and Pennington before her.
"Our maps section is closed," she said. "Remodelling." Pennington pulled out his bade and showed it to her.
"We'd like to see it all the same," he remarked.
The two of them settled into a narrow room filled with old documents. Pennington sat in front of a big table and began spreading maps out in front of him. "This is crazy," muttered Toad as he started walking by rows of shelves. He briefly looked at dusty documents before discarding them. "Non eof these maps extend far enough."
"Except this one," said Pennington and he pointed to a tattered old map, prompting Toad to quickly step across. "Take a look. The buildings are a barrier, no windows, no doors – everything just ends. At first I thought there was no way to get to the ocean…" He jabbed his finger down on a small block indicating a building at the corner of the map. "Here. One room in one building."
"Apartment 'H'," muttered Toad.
"Gesundheit."
"I didn't sneeze," said Toad, looking up, although Pennington ignored him. The detective stuffed the map in his pocket and turned to find Toad staring intently at a small set of books on a desk. One by one, several books on the table picked themselves up and danced back and forth on the surface. They twirled, open and shut magically.
"Are you doing that?" asked Pennington, his voice indicating how spooked out he was, although he kept watching in fascination.
"I'm not sure," answered Toad. "I just thought about it… it's happening…"
They didn't say another word to each other as they went from the library to a bath-house. It took around fifteen minutes, with Pennington avoiding main roads, instead choosing to take back alleys and small streets without much traffic. Toad didn't speak up, he figured that a cop would probably have figured out how to avoid other cops. Yet, Pennington still parked right in front of the bath-house noted Toad when they stood in front of its frosted glass windows.
"This is where he said to meet?" asked Toad and Pennington just nodded as he pushed the doors open. As the two men walked through the echoic interior, Pennington pulled out his devolution handgun. He didn't expect an old man like Dr. Elvin Gadd to be much of a threat, but it was those others that he was worried about. As they stepped into the main room, they could see the figure of Gadd waiting for them across the central pool.
"Gentlemen," he acknowledged them and they moved toward him. "I come here often, it helps me think."
"What's this about, Gadd?" asked Pennington.
"I know you have many questions to ask," said Gadd, "but let me make things expident and try to explain." Gadd took a deep breath and looked Toad in the eyes when he began his explanation. "First, there was darkness. Then, into the nexus of the timeline came the Muus and the Mamus – I don't know who they are, all I know is that in the nexus of the timeline, there are eight worlds. Subcon, where we are, is just one of those eight worlds. Each world is housed in a mineral bridge, part of the connective tissue between the planets Sarasaland and Earth.
This city isn't the real Petalburg anymore," continued Gadd. "The Muus took it and made it in an experiment… the Mamus tried to take it from them to escape Subcon and for that they were destroyed. Only one of them was left behind, a mutant of their kind named Wart. He trapped all of the Muus somewhere and used the people in this city to create the Birdfaces. Ever since then, the Birdfaces have kept adding to this city and learning it. They've been trying to find a being of great power whose dreaming can let them leave the nexus. They've been trying to find you, Toad.
"I was a professor in New York City," said Gadd. "Then after I went through a mineral bridge that took me to Dinohattan, I joined the Bob-Omb Mafia in Buoy Base and then the Birdfaces ripped me from there and brought me here. I discovered their secret. Sometimes, rarely, people do. They are either used or dispensed with – I was used. I help them. When they want to study a serial killer say, they just pull another person from outside the nexus, give him a specific personality, family, friends, a history and study the results. Yet the gates that lead into and out of the nexus have been closed for some time. The Birdfaces and their leader have gotten restless with the limited amount of people left in Subcon. Where they were once thousands, now there are only around nine hundred. They're scared they will be left here alone with no way of leaving the nexus. I helped them devise their experiments, in your case I saw to it that you would be left blank. I wanted to give you my own engram.
"You were always special, a random hybrid gene, created rarely, the Birdfaces know not why but you are exactly what they have been looking for," explained Gadd as he paced along the edge of the pool, dappled light illuminating from below while making his face look practically demonic. "I know why. You're a hero. Luigi told me all about you in Buoy Base. How you were always in the right place at the right time. It couldn't be a coincidence. You were touched by Queen Jaydes as a child. I thought I could use you to advantage, to beat the Birdfaces at their own game. You have special gifts you've only begun to understand. If you could have mastered them, you would have been a formidable foe. They call it dreaming, it is their ability to create and recreate. You have that power, Dane Toad. You've always been special."
"How could I have known all this, written it all down and then forgotten about it?" asked Toad as Gadd smiled sadly.
"Toad, you still don't see," said Gadd, shaking his head. "That book was my insurance policy. I made it. You were never married and you were never going to be a father – your entire history after you and Chanterelle aid in the defeat of King K. Rool is a fabrication. She's been four months pregnant for four years and had her memories taken away from her more times than I can count. Now, she's been reworked into an unmarried single woman with no baby – since there never was one – by the name of Toadette. The woman who was Chanterelle died a long time ago in the destruction of Petalburg. This is how it is with all of us. I invented a gun once, that let Luigi and the Bob-Omb Mafia trap lost souls, Boos, for the Gold Flowers within… but that memory doesn't feel like it belongs to me." Pennington whirled into the shadows and primed his gun, as if there were movement in the darkness behind him. "I'm sorry Toad, we had our chance, now knowing all this, and I suggest you cooperate. It's the only way…" Pennington turned and aimed his gun at Gadd.
"What are you doing?" asked Toad but a flash of light illuminated the bath-house and there was a deafening bang as Pennington fired. Gadd fell to the floor, unconscious, but a Birdface stood behind him, his head transforming into primordial ooze. The dying Birdface pitched forward, tripped over Gadd and fell into the pool.
"Run!" Pennington cried to Toad. "Get out of here!"
Out of the shadows stepped Mr. Pipe, but he was not alone, as Pennington would soon find, behind him were several more Birdfaces. From every open corridor or tunnel in the bath-house, more and more Birdfaces arrived under Mr. Pipe's leadership, among them walked Mr. I. Pennington managed to devolve another Birdface but it wasn't long before he realized how outnumbered he was. A Birdface behind Pennington slashed him in the back while another drove his dagger into Pennington's side. Toad jumped up to try and help the man but Mr. Pipe was right behind him, bringing his hand down hard. Then, all Toad saw was black.