The Speed of Darkness
Chapter 25 - Abduction
"K'WALKSI, ANYTHING ON THE RADAR YET?"
The short, round bird looked troubled. Marlene had lost count of how many times Private had asked that question. She had watched the penguin go from hopeful to helpless throughout the course of the day. He regularly checked in with Kowalski, who kept the GPS tracking device close at hand. Each time Private asked, he would reach over and grab it off of a nearby table. Earlier in the day, the intellectual would respond with a "Don't worry, I'm sure he will appear soon," and now he merely shook his head solemnly.
Marlene had been in and out of the penguin's HQ several times over the course of the day; she occasionally returned to her own habitat to ensure the zookeepers would not think she was missing. Maurice also checked in with the penguins, although less frequently than the otter, claiming that Julien wanted to know when the "fishy leader penguin" returned.
Marlene took note of the ruined penguins' headquarters; they had worked diligently to clean it up and repair what they could over the course of the day. The overturned furniture had been righted and the beds were remade. Now all that remained was the cracked porthole window—which Rico had thoroughly taped over with duct tape. Even though, a small amount of water was slowly leaking through the tape and into a bucket that Kowalski had placed under the window.
"Hey guys," said Marlene, noting she had not yet been noticed.
Kowalski jumped slightly from his clipboard and looked up, "Oh, hello again, Marlene."
"What's up? Anything new?" Marlene walked over to the tall, intellectual friend and looked over his shoulder at what he was writing on his clipboard. Several pictures of a flat-headed penguin with arrows pointing between buildings were drawn—the intellectual was trying to figure out where Skipper might have gone.
"Skippah hasn't shown up on the radar yet, Marlene," said Private sadly. Rico walked over to the small device, picked up, grunted, and then slammed it back down on the table.
"Rico!" Kowalski suddenly shouted, "be careful with that! If you break it, there isn't a way we will be able to find Skipper!"
Rico crossed his flippers and and mumbled something intelligible.
"Sorry, Marlene," interjected Private, "Things are getting awfully tense around here."
Marlene smiled, "Don't worry about it, dude. I'm worried for Skipper too." Private nodded.
"I just don't get it," said Kowalski, "nothing makes sense. There is no possible way that Skipper would be able to jam or disable his chip without this remote!" Kowalski threw his clipboard toward the remote that was sitting on the table near the GPS. He stood up. "I don't understand, and now he could be miles away from the range of this stupid device!"
"K'walski calm down," urged Private, "the Skippah is resourceful. I'm sure he beat those bad blokes and is on his way back right now."
"Don't you get it? Skipper didn't get abducted!" responded the intellectual, throwing his flippers into the air. "He left us, abandoned us, deserted us, and he's never coming back. He left to find that stupid friend of his that almost killed him and..."
Kowalski trailed off as he saw Private's eyes well up with tears. "No... no," Private said softly, "The S-Skippah wouldn't do that to us... right Marlene?"
Marlene had never seen Kowalski as angry as he was right now. She was unsure how to respond to Private. She looked over at Rico, who was blankly pounding a can of tuna against the wall.
Without any response, Private continued, "Skippah taught us to stick together until the very end. Remember our mission to the food market? We worked as a team to get out of there. The Skippah made sure we all made it out. He always said, 'No penguin left behind.' How can you accuse The Skippah of leaving us like that, K'walski? "
Kowalski snorted. "Its because we don't matter as much as his past. He's selfish about his secrets, Private. I always inquired him about what happened to him before he came to Central Park, and do you know what I always got as a response?"
Private remained quiet.
"'That's none of your business, soldier.' Every time, the same response. I doubt Skipper ever really cared about us. He knew one day that his mysterious past was going to catch up to him and he was just holding out here with us until the right day to run away. 'The sun will rise again' can almost be inferred as 'escape and let your friends almost get killed by some maniacal penguins!'"
Seeing the tears streaking down Private's face, Marlene put her foot down. "That's enough, Kowalski!" she shouted, "The Skipper I know wouldn't do that, and you know that's the truth. You're just trying make up for the fact that you can't figure it out, and you're hurting everyone around you."
Kowalski shot a glare at Marlene. "So, I'm trying to compensate?"
"Yes."
"It's a funny concept... compensation," said Kowalski. "Giving one thing away for something worth less and then trying to rationalize it. It makes no sense." He walked over to the table and grabbed his clipboard. Then he went to the hatch door and opened it slowly. "I'm not compensating, Marlene. If Skipper cared about us so much, regardless of how much his past means to him, he would have at least told us why he left." He started walking out the door.
"W-where are you going K'walski?" asked a crying Private.
Kowalski froze and said, "Maybe you should have asked the same thing to Skipper, Private."
The hatch door slammed shut. Private sniffled.
Private and Marlene looked at each other, dumbfounded. The otter didn't know what to say. Kowalski had just stormed out of the room and left her in a daze. So instead of speaking, she walked up to the small, sobbing penguin and wrapped him in a big hug.
"It'll be alright, Private," she soothed.
Private broke the hug and looked up at his friend. "Thanks, Marlene." He wiped his nose on his flipper. "I've never see K'walski so upset."
"Neither have I," agreed the Asian otter, "but he's just a little angry at Skipper for leaving right as you guys were attacked."
Private nodded. "I just hope the Skippah's alright. I mean, those other penguins are looking for him."
"I don't know if they still are," Marlene said. Private looked confused. "They told me to tell him the message 'the sun will rise again'. That almost makes it seem like they are done looking for Skipper and they're just going to let him find them."
Private wiped a tear from his eye. "But what does it mean? What do they mean by 'the sun'?"
"Beats me," responded Marlene, "but Skipper obviously will know that it has something to do with these penguins."
"Yeah." Private walked over to the GPS, picked it up, and then walked over to the couch and sat down, messing with the dials. Marlene directed her attention to Rico, who had smashed through the can of tuna and left it splattered on the ground. He was now pounding another can of tuna in the same fashion. Marlene walked over and sat down next to him, wrapping an arm around the heavyset penguin's shoulders.
"You doing alright, big guy?" she asked.
Rico smashed the can one more time and then threw it to the other side of the room. He looked up at Marlene, a heavy look of sadness in his eyes. "K'waski," he grunted, "he's never coming back."
Marlene smiled slightly. "Kowalski just needs some fresh air. He'll be back soon, and so will Skipper."
Rico purred slightly, then grunted, "Promise?"
Marlene knew she couldn't promise anything right now, but she knew she had to for the sake of her friend's sanity. "Promise," she affirmed. Rico smiled widely, although Marlene could read from his eyes that he was still deeply troubled.
Skipper waddled into the zoo, Manfredi close behind him. They had reached the zoo nearly an hour ago, but they had to wait for it to close before they could enter because of the risk of being spotted. So, the two penguins camped outside the zoo behind some bushes until the zoo was mostly empty. The sun was getting low on the horizon now and the sky exploded into a fiery orange and red.
The two moved quickly from bush to bush, dodging under park benches and popcorn carts as there were still a few people roaming the pathways. Manfredi moved as swiftly and cleanly as Skipper did—he had obviously not let any amount of time come between him and his athleticism. Unless, Skipper wondered, his abilities were being enhanced by the fact that he was nearly half-robot. The leader penguin cleared his mind of the idea as he and Manfredi neared the otter habitat.
Wall jumping between a lamppost and the brick wall, Skipper quickly pulled himself over the tall barrier and splashed into the pool on the other side. Manfredi followed in suit, and when he appeared on the top of the wall he tossed the bag to Skipper and then splashed into the pool himself. Skipper couldn't help but notice how they still worked together so well, even without using vocal communication.
The two walked over to the entrance of Marlene's cave, where Skipper held up a flipper signaling Manfredi to wait for his signal before entering. Skipper did not want Marlene to become startled by the sight of his ex-teammate and scream, signaling anyone who may be nearby.
"Marlene?" Skipper called, expecting the otter to be in her cave. On the contrary, the cave was completely dark and empty. Realizing that she must be at the headquarters with Rico, Kowalski and Private, he signaled for Manfredi to follow him into the tunnel entrance just outside of Marlene's cave. Through the employee tunnels it was a short walk to the penguin habitat. Making sure to keep an eye out for any zookeepers, Skipper led Manfredi to the secret entrance to the HQ; the fish trophy that read Private's first prize.
Skipper placed a flipper on the door to push it open, but froze. He had not wanted to confront Rico, Kowalski and Private. He had hoped that he could get into the zoo, ask Marlene a few questions, and then get out again. He didn't know where he would go; he couldn't follow Manfredi and he couldn't return home. Realizing he had not thought this through, and afraid to confront his friends, he took a step back from the door.
"Is there a problem, Skipper?" asked Manfredi in his deep voice.
Skipper sighed. "I don't think I can go in there."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I don't think I can confront my... cell mates after leaving so quickly. I wasn't planning on coming back."
"It is not a matter of if you think you can or not, you merely do not want to." Skipper looked up at his friend, who, to his surprise, had a slight smile on his face. "You told me that once."
Skipper remembered that day. It was after the Penguin Army had invaded Antarctica, despite all of their efforts to stop it.
"I don't think I can go on..." said Manfredi, on his hands and knees in the snow, his Gauss rifle hanging loosely from his shoulder. Johnson and Skipper looked down on him pitifully. Manfredi had just lost everything; his home and his family. Realizing this, Johnson looked uneasy and redirected his attention toward the horizon. Skipper set his own rifle down and knelt down next to his grieving friend.
"You don't think you can? Or do you just not want to?" he said. Manfredi looked up at Skipper, his eyes blank. Skipper offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. "We tried our best to get here in time, but the fight isn't over yet. We can still stop this before it's too late."
Manfredi still looked shaken, but he tightened his grip on his rifle and said, "there is still something worth fighting for."
Skipper nodded.
"If they are truly your friends, they will listen to your story and will understand your circumstance."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Skipper pushed the door open slowly.
"Who's that?" he heard a female voice say. So Marlene was here after all.
Skipper entered the room and looked around. Marlene and Rico were playing a game of chess and Private was watching television. Rico spun around from the chess table and shouted, "Huzzah!" causing Private to jump so hard he fell off the couch. He got up quickly and upon seeing Skipper in the doorway he raced up to him and gave him a hug.
"Skippah! I knew you'd be back!" he said, excitedly, "Where did you go?"
Skipper pulled the round penguin away from him and smiled slightly. Manfredi was right, they weren't mad at him. They were only worried about him. Skipper suddenly felt guilty fore leaving.
"There was some important business I had to take care of," responded the leader penguin, "but it's all taken care of now."
"Kowalski said you went off to go hunt down an old friend who showed up here a while ago. Is that true?" said Marlene, getting up from the chess table.
"Yeah, I went off to go find an old comrade," said Skipper, "How did you know?"
"Kowalski is smarter than you think." answered Marlene.
"We were worried for you, Skippah. We even went and stole the tracking device that knows where our chip thingies are, but for some reason you're not on it." Private looked at the small tracking device. "That's odd, now only one dot is on it."
Skipper chuckled. "I used that old radar jammer that Kowalski built to block the signal so Alice couldn't track me. Now that it's closer its probably jamming all of our signals. Speaking of which, where is Kowalski?"
"He stormed out of the room like ten minutes ago. He was a little upset at you for leaving, but he should be back soon," Marlene explained.
"So did you ever find your friend?" asked Private.
Skipper looked a little uneasy. "Well, yes, and he'd like to speak with you Marlene."
"Why me?" Marlene wondered.
"Well I'll let him explain it to you." Skipper opened the door a little wider and let Manfredi step into the room. Immediately, Private gasped but clasped his flippers over his beak to silence the noise. Rico growled and took a fighting position while Marlene looked a little frightened and took a step back.
"Rico stand down!" ordered Skipper, "I know he's the one who attacked me before but he's a good friend of mine. There was just a little bit of confusion before."
Manfredi nodded. "I am Manfredi. It is a pleasure to meet you all."
Rico still looked a little uneasy, but he answered with a rough, "Rico."
"I'm Private," introduced the round penguin.
"Marlene," said the otter with a slight quiver in her voice. "You... you're like part made of metal." she observed.
Manfredi nodded solemnly. "Please don't be frightened," he said, "I assure you I am as normal of a penguin as Skipper."
"Skippah! You'll never guess what happened to us while you were gone," blurted out Private suddenly.
"What?"
"We were attacked by three crazy penguins after we left Julien's party. We fought back but they overpowered us and tied us up. They also attacked Marlene and Alice!" explained the young penguin.
Skipper looked over to Marlene. "Is this true?" he asked her.
Marlene nodded. "They were looking for you, Skipper."
"They asked us a ton of questions but we didn't tell them anything," added Private.
"What kind of questions did they ask about me?" wondered Skipper.
"I don't really remember," Private answered, "K'walski would know, though."
Almost as if on cue, there was a knock at the hatch door.
"That must be him now," said Marlene, "I'll get it." She walked over to the door and opened it quickly, but instead of looking at the tall intellectual like she was expecting, she was looking down the business end of a rifle. She gasped and froze. In front of her was the small rock hopper penguin she recognized from the sewer.
Rico, after realizing what was going on, jumped toward the threat but it merely cocked the rifle and held up a flipper.
"Stand down Rico," ordered Skipper, clenching his flippers. "Let's see what he wants."
"Skipper," whispered Private, "That's one of the penguins that attacked us last night!"
Skipper nodded. The penguin in the doorway slid something across the floor to Marlene with his foot. He signaled for her to pick it up. She did, slowly. Then he signaled for her to close the door. She obeyed, unsure of what else to do. When the door was closed, Skipper quickly locked it tight.
"Fish and chips!" exclaimed Skipper. "those penguins who attacked you had weapons?"
"Private nodded, looking shaken.
"Uh, guys," said Marlene, looking at what the penguin had given to her. She held it up for the others to see, "This is Kowalski's clipboard."
Clipped to the clipboard was a single black feather.
/AN: Once again this chapter could have been two shorter ones, but in an effort to bring more content per update, I have made this into one long, exciting chapter. :AN\