Wilbur glided over the city of Washington D.C., with Bernard and Bianca on his back. The two of them were dirty, exhausted and still in shock over the massacre they had narrowly survived the day before. Bianca couldn't stop blaming herself for not going back to help the other mice. Bernard insisted going back would have meant death. Once the two had staggered up to the roof and Wilbur dislodged his beak from the door, they explained everything, and resolved to make the trip to the nearest Rescue Aid Society outpost, located to the south, in the basement of the United Nations Information Center in Washington D.C. With any luck it hadn't been hit yet.
"So many great members…gone," Bianca lamented, "Vhat do you think became of the ones those…those dastardly humans took avay?"
"Hopefully they're alive," Bernard said, his arm around his wife, trying to comfort her, "We'll get them back. Rescuing is what we do after all."
"Ve've never had to rescue our own kind before."
"I know." Wilbur sighed, "I think we're about there now. I sure hope they know what to do there."
The building was on K Street, which was lined with offices and embassies, and someplace Bernard and Bianca had visitied many times before, being not too far from the Hungarian embassy. The albatross made a landing on the sidewalk in front of the building, making sure no humans were watching, and quickly Bernard and Bianca slid down his wing.
"I'll be on the roof waiting for you to come back out," Wilbur whispered.
"Okay, thank you," Bianca replied.
The two of them waited patiently at a rotating door in the front. When finally a man in a suit pushed his way out from the building, Bernard and Bianca ran in, keeping up with the spinning doors until they were in the main lobby of the building. The two of them scurried toward a little hole where the information desk met the wall, and squeezed through into the darkness. Turning a corner, the crevasse became a hallway lit by lights borrowed from a string of Christmas tree lights. At the end of the hall was a door marked 'Rescue Aid Society Information Center and Outpost'. The two of them walked in. The door rang a little bell as it opened, and heads turned. The staff gasped at the two of them, with their dirt-smudged fur, looking like something the cat dragged in.
"Bernard and Bianca…?" the bespectacled mouse in a suit and tie at the desk breathed, as if he were seeing ghosts.
Another mouse at a telegraph began typing out Morse code, letting it be known to other surviving branches of the Rescue Aid Society that the duo were alive. Around the office mice in security uniforms were moving boxes on dollies. It looked mostly empty already.
"Mr. Liederkranz, thank goodness you veren't at ze meeting," Bianca said, as they walked up to his desk.
"B-but weren't you?" he asked.
"Oh we were," said Bernard.
"It vas a narrow escape," Bianca added sadly, "Ve only had time to save ourselves."
"What happened in there?" asked Mr. Liederkranz, "What brought the humans down there?"
"It was just a normal meeting at first," Bernard answered, "But then suddenly some scientists came in with exterminators, and the next thing we knew we had to run for our lives as the gas spread."
"Are you sure no one else survived?" Bianca begged.
Mr. Liederkranz pushed the glasses up his snout, and sighed, shaking his head, "The humans didn't even leave any bodies behind. They cleaned out everything. You'd never know the Rescue Aid Society was there."
"A lot of delegates didn't show up because the meeting was such short notice," said Bernard, "I mean…couldn't we hold another meeting somewhere else and get to the bottom of this?"
"As a precaution the council rooms at the other United Nations locations are being quickly dismantled. The ones in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna are all gone, or should be by the end of today. As you can see we're getting ready to move out of here too. Our information center is the one closest to NIMH. We're not leaving a trace. We're just not sure how we're going to continue as an organization yet."
"Ve could hold a meeting somevere else," Bianca suggested.
"Everyone's just a little on edge right now," said Mr. Liederkranz, shaking his head again, "We suspect NIMH might have been behind it, though the lack of survivors meant there's no solid proof…unless you two saw or heard something?"
The mouse at the telegraph readied himself to tap out whatever they said.
"Well it seems obvious it was NIMH," said Bernard, "At the meeting, we were just talking about how they captured those Rescue Ranger vigilantes in New York when the scientists showed up."
"I…I remember that they said something about collecting some specimens, and exterminating the rest…" Bianca rubbed her forehead, trying to remember everything about that nightmarish moment, "I think…there must have been survivors."
"I think I remember that too," Bernard said, nodding.
"Henry, message that to the others," said Mr. Liederkranz, before turning back to Bernard and Bianca, "Anything else?"
Bianca looked to Bernard, "Do you remember? One of them vas named Penny…"
Bernard sighed, "Look, there's gotta be thousands of women named Penny, I don't see how-"
"But only one who ve told about the Rescue Aid Society, Bernard."
"Penny?" Mr. Liederkranz raised an eyebrow.
"She vas ze very first human Bernard and I rescued," Bianca said, "She'd be all grown up by now…"
"Do you really think she'd join with NIMH?" Bernard asked, frowning, "After what they do to animals like us? And not only that but then tell them about the Rescue Aid Society?"
"Maybe she vas tricked…" Bianca said, "I don't vant to believe she could have become that either but…ve don't know vhat became of her after she vas adopted. Ve don't know vhat her life has been like. She may not have expected us to have been real. Children usually forget us, later in life."
"A former rescued child by the Rescue Aid Society…becoming a member of NIMH and remembering us," Bernard let that idea sink in. It was something none of them had ever fathomed before. In it's over 2,000 years of existence, nothing of this magnitude had ever happened to the Rescue Aid Society.
"If you want we can try a background check, try and find out if this Penny really does work at NIMH," Mr. Liederkranz offered, "I think it's worth finding out."
"Yeah uh…good idea," said Bernard.
"If it does turn out to be a match, why don't you two handle her case while the RAS regroups," Mr. Liederkranz said, "Either way I don't think we'll recover enough to organize some kind of counter-offense for a week at least. Everyone's too afraid to meet again."
"Even if NIMH has some of our delegates?" Bianca asked.
"Miss Bianca, these are tough times, and our members are frightened. Besides, that facility is fool-proof. We'd need one hell of a plan to even get in there."
Bianca frowned, "Vell, ve vill just need to come up vith such a plan."
"When are we doing the background check?" Bernard asked.
"We have some files stored away in the back. They're being moved out today of course, but we're not through yet. We don't keep track of the children we rescue for long, but we keep notes of the immediate aftermath of each case. It'll be up to you to find out where she is now based on the information we find. Did this Penny have a last name?"
"Ooh, vhat vas the name of her foster parents?" Bianca rubbed her temples, trying to remember, "It began vith an S…Stace…Stacy. I think it vas Stacy."
"Good, that will help a lot when you try to find her. Unless she's married, that is. What year was her rescue?"
"It was 1977," Bernard answered.
"Okay," said Mr. Liederkranz, "Come with me, I'll take you to the file room."
He led the two of them into the back as Henry the operator tapped out more Morse code to other RAS branches. Behind a door was a room filled with file cabinets, each one labeled with a different year. Security guards were loading them up at one end of the room, but the records went back centuries. Liederkranz found the cabinet marked '1977' and opened it, thumbing through folders until finally finding the one containing some documents related to Bernard and Bianca's first mission together.
"You know, I remember this one," Liederkranz remarked as he looked through the copied documents, coming upon picture of Penny, clipped from a newspaper, "She was such a cute little girl."
Bianca looked down with a long, sad sigh. Bernard put a comforting arm around her shoulder as she blinked back a tear.
"Aha, here we go," Liederkranz said, snapping his fingers, "She was adopted a short time later by the Stacy family, and they moved her to Baltimore. That's all it says."
"Baltimore isn't too far away," Bernard remarked, "But that record is from 16 years ago. Suppose she moved since then?"
"The National Institute of Mental Health is in Bethesda. Still in Maryland. I'd say if you heard what you think you did, that one of the scientists was named Penny and she was the one who knew about us, the evidence leans toward it being the same person."
"So vhat do ve do, find the home of her parents first?" Bianca asked.
"We'll go to Baltimore real quick, and then look through a phone book," Bernard suggested, "Once we find them, if we find them, maybe we'll find clues about Penny."
"Maybe she vill still be there, and this will all be a mistake…"
"I sure hope so," said Bernard, "But if it isn't, our next stop is Bethesda. Maybe we can reason with her. It may be our best shot."
"Are you going so soon?" asked Mr. Liederkranz.
"Ve couldn't sleep if ve tried," Bianca said, "You know, vith NIMH not so far away from Vashington, you ought to leave quickly before they gas you too."
"That's what we're trying to do," said Mr. Liederkranz, handing them the folder, "Take this. You may find it useful. And good luck out there. As sad as yesterday was, at least two of our finest made it out alive."
Bernard gave a nod, taking the folder and leading Bianca to the exit. Once finally outside, Wilbur spied them from the roof and swooped down to the sidewalk.
"Whadja find out?" he asked.
"We're going to Baltimore," said Bernard, as the two of them climbed up Wilbur's wing, "We'll be looking for Penny's parents to pick up clues, so when we get there we'll have to stop at a pay phone and go through the phone book."
"Sounds tough, but uh, shouldn't we head straight over to NIMH ya think?"
"We need to find out about Penny first," said Bernard, "We can't get inside there without help."
"And ve just have to know," said Bianca sadly, "Ve have to know if it vas really her…"
"Alright, I get ya," said Wilbur, snapping goggles over his eyes, "Our next stop is Baltimore then."
He flapped his wings and took to the air, flying north east as Bianca buried her face into Bernard's shoulder, overcome with grief and fatigue.