The library had a row of computers near the back, however with humans around, the usage of these computers was a risky proposition. Gadget decided she'd need to come back at night after the library closed, so she could use the World Wide Web to find out more about the lab that had confiscated the rodents in Dapplewood. This was a new invention, but one that Gadget had taken to immediately. She'd even participated in Usenet chats a couple times with human users, none of them aware that the person they were chatting with wasn't a person at all, but a mouse. Though quite an exercise to use a keyboard so much bigger than she was, it gave her a chance to meet other intellectuals and discuss science; the only people who even used computers were science nerds like herself after all. But she had a feeling it would catch on with everyone else one day.
Instead of logging onto the Internet, for now she perused the back catalog of the newspapers. Within the walls of the library mice actually kept their own library, with tiny books printed by tiny printing presses. No one had figured out how to build a fully operational mouse-sized computer yet, though Gadget often thought about trying to make one. She viewed Dale's mouse-sized Sega Game Gear project as practice for that goal. Connecting a computer that small to the Internet would be another challenge entirely, however. So for now, the mouse library only contained books, magazines, and newspapers, laminated copies going back to the 1860's. Gadget would entertain herself looking through the really old ones and seeing what life was like for mice in New York back then.
Gadget opened a file cabinet marked "The Daily Nibbler - Jan-June 1993".
"Let's see, it would have happened sometime in June…golly I wish they had a newspaper from Maryland here…"
She took a whole stack of thirty papers from June out and went to a nearby table, glancing through each issue from front to back. It would be nearly an hour before she made it to June 21st. In the 'Nation and World' section of the paper there was an article on the side column, "Human Chemical Gas Leak Displaces Wildlife in Maryland".
"That has to be it!" she said as she read through it.
It mentioned a spill of toxic chlorine gas having happened three days before, in the rural forest area of Dapplewood, and that the Environmental Protection Agency had sent crews to clean up the mess. News in the rodent world sometimes traveled slow, so in this case reports from the human media were the only clues city mice had that this remote disaster occurred. High death tolls were estimated, though no rodent reporter dared venture into the forest to find out.
"Oh, the EPA…well I doubt they were the ones who actually came back a month later to kidnap the animals, but maybe they'd be a good place to start researching when I log onto the Internet tonight. I wonder if I could get in contact with any scientists from it through Usenet."
Gadget glanced around the library, finding a miniature copy machine and taking the paper over to make a copy of the article. She knew Chip would want to see it.
Chip, meanwhile, was having his own problems, taking care of the rambunctious Michelle.
"Come on Chip, we gotta catch Dr. Monty before he steals all the cheese in the world with his cheese ray!" she exclaimed, tugging at Chip's sleeve as he staggered through the living room, worn out from running around with her.
Chip panted, "Can't we…take a break?"
"You said crime doesn't take breaks!"
"Ugh…I think I'm retiring that little catch phrase…"
They could hear Monterey Jack give a laugh from upstairs, "Soon the resta da world will be cheeseless, while I, Dr. Monty, will have enough cheese ta last me till doomsday!"
"Not if I can help it!" Michelle declared, tugging Chip along.
Suddenly, the tree shook, as if something had bumped into it.
"What was that?" Chip asked.
"Crikey, come an' lookit dis!" Monty shouted from above.
Chip rushed to the window. A ladder had been placed against an upper branch in the tree. Chip's eyes widened with horror. Zipper flew out the window to get a better look, as Michelle stood on her tip-toes to look outside, letting out a small scream when a human began climbing up; a short semi-bald man with a mustache. He turned and gave a look of surprise at the Ranger's tree house.
"I've finally found it! See, I'm not crazy! It's here! Have a look for yourselves!"
"Professor Nimnul!" Chip exclaimed.
Zipper rushed back in, giving a report of what he'd seen. They were surrounded by a team of scientists and groundskeepers from the park.
Dr. Stacy held a large cellular phone to her ear, looking up into the tree. It was well concealed, but she could see something built into it, along with what appeared to be some contraption with leaves for wings.
"Dr. Strauss, I think we may have found something," she said over the phone.
Groundskeepers began surrounding the area with police tape and cones to keep pedestrians out, as others readied their branch clippers.
"They…they followed us here…" Michelle said, stepping back, and then running down the hall. But there was nowhere to run.
"Oooh wait until you see this part, hehehe," Dale whispered.
Abigail screamed and held onto Willy as on the movie screen, a Tyrannosaur came out of nowhere to chomp the Velociraptor that was about to pounce on Dr. Grant and the kids. Willy had been on the edge of his seat himself, but enjoying the attention he got from Abigail, who leaned on his shoulder and held his hand throughout most of the movie. The five of them were seated on the sill of the projector window, the projection booth behind them, but shining above them so that their shadows didn't appear on the screen. They didn't get there right when the movie started, having to wait a good 45 minutes first, but because of that they got an excellent seat. Other mice were seated in the rafters or hidden under human seats, knowing fully well that if they were seen they could be killed. Too many rodents in one theater though and the humans might notice, so mouse attendants were employed to keep their numbers low. Inside the walls rodents could get popcorn, candy and slushies, in small quantities. They'd been given three popcorn kernels each, quite a mouthful for ones their size.
The movie itself was a completely new experience for the furlings. Seeing humans like this, interacting with one another, did a lot to demystify them. There were bad and good humans, just like there were bad and good animals. Abigail found herself relating to some of the human characters, and wanting to see them escape alive. She never thought she'd feel that way about a human. They'd also never imagined anything like these 'dinosaur' animals, which Dale assured them weren't real in the movie and had been dead for a long, long time. Things like 'animatronics' and 'computer animation' were well beyond their understanding though, they just had to take Dale's word for it.
Soon enough, the movie was over, the humans flew off in their giant Flapper Wingamathing and words started to appear on the screen while music played.
"Well, it's over. How'dja like it?" Dale asked cheerfully, "I'm glad I got to see it one more time, it's not gonna be in theaters for much longer. And we don't have a VCR at HQ."
"It was amazing," said Edgar, "I've never seen anything like that before."
"Can we watch another?" Russell asked.
"Ah ah ahh, you didn't say the magic word!" Dale quoted, and all of them had a good laugh.
"Please?" Russell asked again after giggling.
"Maybe tomorrow or something," said Dale, "Gadget's gonna be waiting for us on the roof soon, if she's not already there now."
"Then what else are we going to do today?" Abigail asked, helping pull Willy to his feet.
"Oh I dunno, maybe walk around the park or something? Or just show you around the city."
"We can bring Michelle for that," said Abigail, "I guess this movie really would have scared her, I can see why Gadget didn't want her coming."
"It sure scared you," Russell teased.
"D-did not!" she folded her arms and frowned.
Willy snickered, "Those must have been screams of joy then."
"Shut up," she said, giving him a playful punch to the arm. Though Willy knew she meant it jokingly, even when giving a playful punch it hurt a little. He rubbed his arm.
Dale hopped onto the curtain on the wall, "Alright, hang on tightly now and don't fall."
The furlings followed after him, climbing to the ceiling where there was an air vent. There were little holes cut into the curtains, put there by the mouse employees of the movie theater. What little the furlings had seen of the rodent society fascinated them. They'd become very well adapted to living among humans.
Once they got to the roof, Gadget was already there, sitting in the Ranger Wing and waiting.
"There you guys are!"
Dale walked up to her with the furlings in tow, "So, any luck at the library?"
"A little, I found a newspaper article about the chemical spill that verifies their story. I'm gonna have to go back after dark to use a computer though. Did you guys like the movie? It wasn't too scary, right?"
"Nah, of course not," Abigail said.
"It was a real scream," Russell said, nudging Abigail.
"That's great," Gadget said cheerfully, "Hop in, let's get back to headquarters."
The furlings gladly climbed into the Ranger Wing, nobody having any idea what had happened while they were away. Dale immediately changed the radio to his station again.
"So, got any more of a clue what we're lookin' for?" Dale asked Gadget.
"All I know is that the Environmental Protection Agency was in charge of the cleanup after the gas leak," Gadget answered.
"Are they…bad?" Abigail asked.
"No, I don't think so anyway. But they might have noticed your houses and told some scientists about it. I'm going to try and find out more tonight."
"You want us to come with you?" Edgar asked.
"You don't have to, but maybe someone should, just to help me with the keyboard."
"What's a keyboard?" Willy asked.
"Um, it's a sort of board with lots of buttons, and each button has a letter. And when you press the different buttons you can make words appear on the screen. They're made for humans of course, I'd have to do a lot of work to type on something so big."
"Ah," Willy nodded knowingly, pretending he knew just how it worked.
"Chip will probably go with you, and I'll have to stay home with the kids," Dale predicted with a sigh.
"Watching Michelle is probably tiring him out," Gadget said with amusement, "It was so nice of him to volunteer though. He's not exactly too fond of kids."
"I hope Michelle's doing alright on her own," said Abigail.
"I'm sure she's fine," Gadget replied, "She's been through so much, she must be very strong."
"She is," Abigail answered.
As they passed over the gate to the park, they took little notice of the white vans driving away.
"I bet she'll be happy to be with people she knows again though," Abigail added, "We kinda became her family after, well…"
"It's hard losing your parents," Gadget said, "I know what it's like. I guess that's kind of why I dote on her so much."
"I didn't know that," said Abigail with sympathy, "Was it humans?"
"No, at least I don't think so, it-wait…"
Gadget circled over the tree where their headquarters had been. The tree had been pruned of almost all of its branches. Workers were feeding the branches into a wood chipper, and the area was blocked off by police tape and orange cones. The headquarters, and everything in it, was gone.
"This…this has gotta be the wrong place…right?" Dale asked.
"I don't think…" Gadget circled the plane around the area, feeling the panic rising in her chest. Everything else in the area looked familiar. This was the right tree.
"Michelle!" Abigail shouted, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Oh no…" Edgar breathed, "Not…not here too…"
Gadget took a deep breath, blinking back tears, as the furlings clamored over each other to look over the edge of the plane.
"I'm going to bring the plane down in the bushes. Whatever you do….don't panic. We'll…we'll s-search for…"
She couldn't bring herself to say 'survivors'. She simply left it at that, putting the plane in hover mode, and tearfully taking it down.