Chapter 13: Plans For The Day

"Have you met her?" Chip asked Todd who had just returned to the conference tent.

"Yes, we've talked."

"And what did she say?"

"Looks good so far, I can say so much. She'll tell you more later today."

"How much later?" Chip inquired. "We haven't got time forever."

"She'd like you to see her show tonight at 8 pm and meet you when it's over. You know, I believe the main reason why she's willing to help you guys is that she might know you. At least I suspect that."

"See, Chip?" Dale commented. "We're famous."

"Dale," Chip said, "that doesn't mean much. There are many even in the rescue business who have never heard of us. By the way, do we know her? Todd, you haven't told us who that singer is."

Todd hesitated for a moment to think about what to say, then he replied evasively, "Surprise. Just so much, you won't be disappointed. And I would wonder if you hadn't ever heard of her."

"Listen, Todd," Chip's tone turned more serious, "how are we supposed to judge whether we can trust her if we don't know whom we'll have to deal with?"

"Don't worry," Todd tried to calm Chip down, "you can trust her. As I already said, she knows us."

"So do our many enemies. But I see that expecting you to tell us her name is pointless. Or is it?"

Gadget noticed Todd's uneasiness about Chip's questioning and the singer's name. "Todd," she asked him calmly, "would you at least explain why you don't want to tell us her name?"

Todd suddenly looked into nine faces, each of them expressing their curiosity. He knew he had to tell the Rangers things he normally would even keep to himself in the anonymous vastness of the Internet. Things he probably wouldn't tell his own friends if he had any. "I can't," he finally spoke. "I just can't."

"But why not?" Gadget asked again.

"I can't. I-I'm too obsessed with her." A minute ago, he was unwilling to talk about it, now the words started pouring out of him. "Yes, I'm obsessed. I can't say her name, I can't write her name, and I have to fear for my health and sanity if I even read or hear her name."

"So you're a fan?" Tammy asked. "I wonder how she's willing to meet a fan as obsessive as you."

"I'm not a fan," Todd answered, "I used to be in her orchestra. It all began five years ago. The Versailles Palace was completed, the vault security up and running, and Chris was looking for a new job. Then things happened quickly, and they were just as hard to believe. He had somehow met a girl when he was still working on the vault, you know, supervising the installation, test runs, and all that. She was a programmer, too. I still can't believe it. They fell in love with each other, I mean, there was a girl who did fall in love with my Chris! To cut a long story short, they established a relationship, found jobs in California, but Chris couldn't take me with him. He said they'd never accept a mouse running around in his new living-place, and he would not work at home anymore. So we had to say goodbye. His girl, by the way, never found out about the 'speaking mouse,' I think.

"Well, Chris left me behind with my belongings which included my own PDA. It was still quite new, and it had some awesome multimedia features, at least awesome for that time, you know how fast things develop in this field of technology. Anyway, after he had moved out, his phone line was still alive for a few days, and I happened to have a modem matching my PDA, so I managed to get it connected and went looking for a way to stay online. I talked with Mouseo who went online using an old PDA built by a big computer company, a model that's quite big over in Boston. I think he's still using that thing, as are many other rodents at that place. Mouseo gave me hints about a rat here in Vegas who cracks discarded SIM cards and such. You know, humans are strange, not only do they need a new cell phone every one or two years to have the newest and fanciest one, which is why many of us have cell phones, too, they also need new SIM cards every so often. The old ones are being carelessly thrown away, working order or not. Which means they wouldn't care if they found out that we rodents take them.

"Anyway, I met this rat, but as I had no use for a SIM card, neither in my PDA nor in my modem, he offered me to help install a phone line, but that required a place for me to live. Well, since I was already in Vegas, I thought, why not stay here and try to make something out of my life? The rat helped me find a living-place and set up my connection. But I decided I didn't want to end up like Chris would if he hadn't met first me and then that girl, spending all day and most of the night surrounded by running electronic devices and more in a virtual life than in the real one. I had experimented with music software on the PDA, even written my own stuff which isn't easy without a keyboard like on human computers, but it worked quite well. So I decided to go the musical way. I built a pair of speakers out of wrecked human headphones and discovered some music software written by rodents for rodents.

"One day, some four years ago, while I was playing some music, someone knocked at my door. I opened, and there stood this gorgeous chipmunk woman with an armadillo by her side. She said she was a show singer which I first couldn't believe but later found out that it was the truth. She had heard me play and asked me if I was interested in playing in her orchestra. I mean, you can usually hardly hear anything outside where I live, I must've played really loud, and I guess I have. According to her, it was a waste of talent that I played in my mouse hole just for myself. My synthesizer sounds were what she was looking for. Okay, I said, I'll try it. To my surprise, we went straight to the Versailles Palace where she performed in a large theater under one of the human theater halls. And there I was, just a few weeks later, the core of her brand-new show which became the most successful piece of rodent entertainment in Vegas ever. We worked together a lot, she comprehended more and more what I was able to do with my PDA and my assorted synth software, and we found some ways of weaving electronic and orchestral sounds together to form that new show.

"Pretty soon, I saw her every day at the rehearsals, every night on stage, and whenever there was work to do on the show itself, she came to me, too, as only I could decide anything about the electronic parts. You might say I should be glad. Well, I was at first, but by and by, it grew too much. I literally got an overload of her. I believe, first it was simply love, but it grew into an obsession and harder and harder to control. I concentrated as well as I could and sorta channeled the energy from my obsession into my playing, but it got too much to take even then. I only saw two possible solutions, either slowly but inevitably go insane—or quit. I chose the latter, even if it meant the end for her show, but the former would have meant the end for my sanity."

After Todd had finished telling the second part of his life's history, the Rangers waited for him to continue for a few seconds. The silence was broken by Tammy. "Todd, why didn't you simply go and tell her how you feel?"

Todd sighed. "Yeah, right. As if I had a chance. Do you really believe a glamorous show star like her might be interested in a nerd like me? Sure, she's friendly most of the time, sometimes even a bit flirtatious, but that's part of her style. Besides, she's almost fifteen years older than me. No, what I did was the best I could do."

"The best you could do was go and ruin her show?" Gadget expressed her disbelief.

"Gadget," Chip explained, "according to what he said, he'd be nuts by today if he hadn't taken that step. You've heard it, he feels she's out of reach for him. And if it took us sixteen years of dating, I don't think he'd succeed much faster with his attitude."

"So you think I should ask her for a date, Chip?" Todd asked.

Chip put a hand upon Todd's shoulder. "Todd, it's your decision. Do what you believe is right. I don't know enough about her to come up with a plan for you. And I'm just a Rescue Ranger, not a love doctor or such. Talking about plans, any plans for today? That is, before the entertainment part?"

"I'd like to have lunch with you guys somewhere," Todd suggested. "If you don't mind, of course. It'd be a great honor for me."

Monty's ears perked up. "Lunch? Bonzer idea, mate! I take it ya know all the great places 'round town, right?"

"Well, yes, I do know a handful of restaurants we can go to. But we shouldn't lose too much time, I need to get my PDA, I've been ordered to ask an orchestra member to come to the rehearsals, and, of course, I'm expected to be at the rehearsals in time, too. They shall start at 2 pm. So time is a bit tight."

"Not necessarily. We've got aircraft, we could take these," Chip suggested. "And you, Todd, are hereby invited to fly with us."

"Fly with you? Really?"

"Really. Or did you think we let you walk all the way? After all, you're part of the team on this case, and we owe you for helping us. Alright, we've got three destinations. Lunch, your place, and that musician, do you know where he can be found?"

"She," Todd emphasized Melissa's gender, "lives near an artificial pond not so far from where I live. We can pick her up when we fly back from lunch."

"We can also pick her up after we've been at your place and gotten your PDA," Gadget suggested, "so she can join us at lunch if she likes to."

Chip remarked, "We'd better not talk about the case, though, as long as she's around. I don't want to involve too many people in it."

Todd knew exactly into which direction this was about to go. The Rangers didn't know Melissa, he hadn't even told them her name yet. And still, they gave him the same impression of matchmaking he had experienced with his "boss" several times. Although she was a nice and pretty girl, she was so much more than he deserved that he desperately searched the city map in his mind for a rodent restaurant or café or the like between his and Melissa's places. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of any. Lying to the Rangers and leading them to a restaurant far away from the direct way was out of question, too, as they were too clever.

The next solution which came to his mind was that the Rangers might need something appropriate to wear at the show. Maybe he could send them onto a detour to a nice clothes store. "Say, you'd certainly want to dress up for the show tonight. I can recommend a couple of places where you can get what you need."

"Thanks for the offer, Todd," Chip said, "but we've brought everything we need, including suits and dresses."

This didn't work either. Todd was about to find another plan when a part of his mind asked him why he wanted to take such an effort just not to have lunch with Melissa and give the potential matchmakers a chance that he was about to panic any moment. He should rather be happy about the chance that was given to him, the chance to share his lunch time with her, than try to convince himself of how awfully wrong and blatantly staged this appeared. So he just took a deep breath and expressed a form of relief he did actually not experience. "Fine, that saves us more time."

Satisfied with the plans so far, Chip got up. "Well, then let's go, we've got a lot to do, and time's running away. Todd, you can fly in the Rangerplane together with Monty, Dale, and Foxy."

"Thank you, Chip," Todd accepted the offer.

As he and the Rangers left the tent and boarded the two aircraft, Gadget stopped and asked, "Chip, do you think we should leave our Field Headquarters here unguarded?"

"What shall happen, Gadget? Everything's hidden well here in the bushes. And our only potential enemies here are two humans who'd never search for our stuff, let alone find it. Believe me, no-one else who knows us is here."

"You're right, Chip, but I do prefer a certain amount of safety." Gadget jumped out of the Rangerwing and disappeared in the females' tent. For a moment, those who watched and knew her asked themselves what she was about to do to booby-trap the Field Headquarters. But when she came out again, she carried three small locks, the sort which usually saved human diaries from unwanted access, and secured the three tents with them. Afterwards, she pushed the locks under the tents to render them mostly invisible. "There," she said with a smile as she got back to her seat in the Rangerwing, "this should make things a lot harder for burglars. Simply taking the tents apart would mean too much effort for them anyway, they're rock solid."

Chip smiled and praised, "Gadget, you surprise me again and again, no matter how long we know each other."

"That's just because we use the mobile Field Headquarters so rarely. Everybody ready for take-off?"

The other Rangers plus Todd raised their thumbs.