9~

"If Ocean Land wasn't dealing with all of this Sea Beast nonsense, we would have been welcoming a new addition here, on loan from that aquatic park, Bubbleland. Their administrator, Chief Winchley says that he has a pink octopus that can actually talk and is intelligent enough to play music."

Marcie's scientific curiosity caused her to pause momentarily when they reached the foot of the curved stairs.

"That actually sound interesting. In fact, considering who I met today, I'm beginning to think that the number of animals that can talk might actually be growing. However, I have a case to solve and a talking cat of my own to find," Marcie reminded him.

Oh, sorry. I have seen some photos of the place here in the hub."

Marcie shook her head slightly. She had been before and hadn't even noticed the tastefully framed portraits of the aquarium that hung on the curved walls. They just didn't seem that important back then. Now, they were possibly critical to solving this case, but she decided to take it slow and weigh her actions more.

"Solving cases is a marathon, not a sprint," Marcie said to herself while she shined her penlight upon picture after picture, looking for one that was the right size. Then, she found it.

"I think I found one," she told Redding, who approached her.

He wasn't sure what her plan was, but, with the dread knowledge that the Sea Beast was real and a true threat, Redding was game to help Marcie with whatever she needed to end this monster's menace.

"Hold this," Marcie told Redding, passing the penlight to him. "Shine it on the picture."

With the portrait of Ocean Land's facade in full view, she placed the wet paper across its face. It covered over the building until they could see the building vaguely through the paper.

"There it is," she said in quiet triumph.

The diagram's network of paths superimposed neatly over Ocean Land's image, with the words 'Floors 1, 2, and 3' lining neatly off to the side.

"What is that?" Redding asked. "Some sort of map?"

"In a matter of speaking. Yes. You said that you ran into the Sea Beast and that he was standing next to an air grate. A ventilation grate, in other words," Marcie postulated as she pointed to the paper. "That what this is. A diagram of the building's ventilation system and the floors that it goes through. I think I know why this is so important."

"Why?" the doctor asked in rapt attention. Something Marcie noticed.

"I'll tell you a little later, if I'm right," she said with a slight smirk of confidence rising from the side of her face. "I have to look for Schrödinger, my cat..."

Marcie caught herself saying those words and froze a little inside. Her cat? She shook her head and chalked up her faux pas to her mouth running on unthinking, emotional auto-pilot. He was a pain at times, but she didn't want the Sea Beast to harm him.

"I mean...the cat who was with me," she amended, grateful that the aquarium's hub was dark enough to hide her blush. "I need you to call Sheriff Stone. He's not much of a sheriff, but we might need the muscle."

Redding wholehearted agreed with her on that assessment. "Right. I'm going," he told her as he headed back upstairs to find a working phone from another office.

When he was gone, Marcie took a breath and spoke to herself. "Well, if I were a Sea Beast, there's only one place I'd be in a dark place like this."

She turned and followed the walls and other archways until she returned the one opened that led to the corridor that sported the double doors of the building's basement.

When Schrödinger was unconscious, he could swear that he was flying in the silent darkness, that he was blissfully moving through the ethereal space of the feline mind.

He opened his yellow eyes to take in the gloom of wherever he was and as his brain began to reboot, he noticed that he was still flying through the damp, dank air.

It wasn't until he tried to take a deep breath to clear his thoughts that he figured something was amiss.

His ribs, he found, were having a hard time expanding fully because he was being held aloft tightly by two large, webbed hands, or an approximation of them, that was carrying him through what he recognize as the basement.

"You know, this where we first met," said the cat for conversation's sake. "I smelled fish from the rear loading area. I snuck in, not knowing that the loading area led here. That's when I saw you. Small world, hmm?"

His captor said nothing in response.

"Listen," he continued, already starting to wonder why he was trying to reason with a freak of nature. "I know you probably can't understand me, but why have you been so eager to capture me or Marcie?"

"No," the Sea Beast growled. "Just you."

Schrödinger mouth hung open in utter disbelief. Now he knew how people reacted when he spoke.

"You...You can talk!" the cat gasped, too shocked to see the personal irony of it all. "W-When? How?"

All the creature did, when it wasn't looking up at the ventilation ducts that hung from the ceiling, was give a laugh, a derisive, gurgling kind of laugh, at Schrödinger's incredulity.

Schrödinger began to wonder, with some trepidation, what the monster would do to him now, but before he could fret any further, they stopped.

"Yes, I can talk, and I already know that you can," it snarled at the cat. "That means that you are smart."

Schrödinger dipped his head humbly. "Well, I am flattered that you would think-"

"Silence," it commanded as it knowingly looked up and Schrödinger quietly followed its gaze. He looked to see an opened ventilation grate along the ductwork's length. Then, he felt the monster lift him up to the mouth of the grate and simply stuffed him in it.

"What on earth is going on here?" Schrödinger fumed

"You will go into the vents. I have located the canister somewhere in this ducting. You will find and retrieve the canister...or die."

"I suppose I haven't much choice in the matter," the cat gulped.

"No...you don't. Now, go."

Schrödinger wished Marcie was there. She seemed recklessly driven and somewhat sad around him, but she was smart, resourceful and strangely caring when she wanted to be, as well. The odd scratch behind the ear whenever she was in deep thought about something was something to actually...cherish.

Musings like those kept a dour Schrödinger grounded from the chimera's threats as he sighed and resigned himself to doing what he was told. He silently slunk into the dark of the ducts.

The Sea Beast afforded itself a gurgling snicker after Schrödinger disappeared. So pleased was it with present developments, it failed to notice Marcie standing boldly just a few yards away.

"No wonder you came back, you big mouthed bass," she said, loud enough to startle the creature. "The canister is still in the building."

The creature recovered, turned, and bared its fangs and claws to her. Marcie, however, stood her ground.

The Sea Beast hesitated and thought about Marcie's actions. Firstly, she was alive, which made him have to rethink whatever actions it was going to take.

Second, she didn't look intimidated, something he tested by bellowing a bellicose warning in her direction. Marcie didn't even flinch, shrugging her thin shoulders and staring him down.

"Are you gonna quit pretending that you can't talk, or are you gonna keep wasting my time, you puffer fish," she challenged it.

"Very well," it finally replied to her. "You will hear me laugh in your face before I kill you." And with that, he launched after her.

Marcie turned on her heel and dashed down the basement's murk, heading back towards the ramp and possible safety, as long as she maintained her lead on it, which seemed assured, as the awkwardly moving monster, though powerful, wasn't much a sprinter.

The teen made a mental note of counting what she considered landmarks of the place, a water pipe bent to go down a service corridor, here, a directional marker stenciled along a damp wall, there. It wouldn't be long, now.

Marcie didn't want to turn her head for fear of missing a landmark or slowing down upon seeing the Sea Beast's approach. So, she gauged its distance from the animalistic racket it was making by listening to it bounce off the walls. From what she could estimate, it was still a safe several yards from her.

Then, she saw it. The janitors' lockers, and beyond that, the offices of Maintenance and the janitorial supervisor across from it. Beyond that lie the ramp and freedom.

A freedom that was suddenly snatched from Marcie with a cruel trip of her feet, causing her to crash to the concrete floor.

She rolled a couple of feet and then stopped mercifully. She looked back to see how close the creature was gaining. It was dangerously close. Close enough to hear the laugh that it promised Marcie. Too close.

It saw her on the ground and roared in feral triumph, spreading claws that could rend walls, acrylic faces on fish tanks, and amusement park concession stands eagerly. Combined with its inordinate strength, it would make quick and bloody work of a prone Marcie.

With its shadow blanketing her, Marcie decide that now was the time to act. She rolled to avoid a clawed foot, hopped over a near-invisible line that stretched across the hall and ran up the side of one wall, and then reached out to pluck that line.

It took seconds for the trap to be released. A lattice made of disassembled fishing poles hung from the ceiling, until the trip line was disturbed, then the lattice dropped about a foot and stopped hard enough for it to shake loose individual lengths of fishing line armed with hooks of various types.

With the Sea Beast at full charge, it couldn't stop its momentum in time, ran into the lines, and was promptly snagged deep by the hooks. Thoroughly captured, it thrashed in rage, getting itself more and more tangled in the lines.

Marcie sat fascinated where she rested on the floor, watching this desperate display of animal ferocity being defeated once more by human ingenuity.

"I guess live bait does work best," she said, jauntily. "I was inspired by the jellyfish. You should see their exhibit. Top-notch."

Marcie turned her head to the sound of the basement's double doors being burst open with self-righteous sheriff action as Bronson Stone and a pair of deputies marched into through the entrance, followed by a pensive Doctor Redding.

"Have you…caught it?" Redding asked from behind the deputies.

"Oh, yeah," she said, getting up and dusting herself off. "I hooked a whopper."

The Sea Beast stopped its struggles when it saw everyone approach it, looking as defeated as a monster's face could ever convey.

Marcie carefully reached her hands past the few hooks that didn't bury themselves into the creature's blubbery flesh, took a firm hold of the fins that doubled as its ears and yanked its head off.

The shame-faced visage of an elderly man hung low upon his unmasking. He was defeated and tired. Tired of his old bones trying to fight free of this hastily built trap, tired of schemes and attempted murder, tired of dreams of avarice that got him nowhere.

"Mr. Alphonse Gibson, I presume?" said Marcie.

"Who?' asked Stone, confused as to what had transpired.

"He's one of our janitors," Doctor Redding answered, unsure. "I think."

Alphonse's face twisted into a mask of indignation. "See? That's why I did what I did," he sneered. "Nobody appreciates what I do to keep this place looking the way it does. Those younger janitors couldn't hold a candle to my years of experience, and what do I get for my troubles? 'He's one of our janitors, I think.'

"You did all of this because you felt unappreciated?" Marcie asked him, though no one around him looked entirely convinced about the motive. "Ever heard of a suggestion box?"

"And…also for the money," the janitor added under his breath.

Everyone nodded in agreement to that admission. That was, at least, a worthwhile reason.

Alphonse, realizing that he might as well lay everything on the table, took a breath and started to confess his sins.

"I blow off steam after work in this bar and I guess somebody must've heard me gripe about work, because I was soon approached by this red-headed man. He told me that he was connected to Ocean Land and that the reason that they were treatin' me like old trash was because the administration was thinking of laying off the older workers and replacing us with cleanin' machines."

"He said that I was his favorite janitor," he continued with a wistful smile. "That I reminded him of his father. He said that he would set me up on Easy Street when the hammer fell by making me a part of his little caper. If I did this, retirement was mine and I could fish 'till the cows came home."

"And you believed him?" asked Redding.

"So what if I did?" said Alphonse, his face regaining its sneer. "If Ocean Land was going to throw me into the street, what did I owe them, huh?"

"This mystery man must've needed you because, as janitor, you had better access to most, if not all, of the rooms in the place," Marcie figured.

"Yeah," he said, a touch of bitter regret souring his voice. "I was given a tiny, hidden camera and told to put it someplace where it could see The Vault's security keypad, if someone were to use it."

"I know," she agreed. "Schrödinger smelled something on the wall of the Vault room and when I analyzed it, it turned out to be spirit gum, an adhesive. Coming back, I measured the distance and angle of where the gum was on the wall. It lined up perfectly with the Vault's security keypad. The only thing that would make sense to stick up there would be your hidden camera."

"Then, I was given a false ID card to replace the one I was given by Ocean Land," he continued. "Only this one had a computer virus in its magnetic strip, so that when I swiped it at the employees' entrance before going to work, it would infect the building's security system one hour before my shift ended."

"Well, that explains the security camera failure," Redding mused.

"When that happened, I would go into the Vault room, use the code given to me by the mystery man, by way of the hidden camera earlier, take the canister, hide it in a paper bag, and then, after work, meet up with an associate of his at the bar for the trade off," Alphonse said.

"But something happened, didn't it," asked Marcie.

"Yeah, something happened, all right," the old man sulked. "A guard was coming into the lab. If he saw me with that can, I'd be fired, if I was lucky. I panicked and hid the canister in an air vent. After I pulled the wool over the guard's eyes and he left, I opened the vent to get the can. Talk about bad luck. The ventilation shaft was sloped, so the can rolled down to who knows where."

"The canister has a refrigerator built into it, but you had to get to it before the batteries ran out," Marcie said.

"Yep. Then, I figured it out. If I could scare everyone that got in my way, then I could be left alone, and I could do a floor-by-floor search for it in the building with an old diagram of the vent system I stole from Maintenance."

"I heard about the Sea Beast rumors while I worked among the scientists, so I went a bought a Fish Man costume, went down to the beach and soaked in the water. Y'know, to get that real, deep-down, fishy smell. I even lucked out when some seaweed get stuck in the suit. Then, I came back as the Sea Beast and scared the heck outta you and everybody else while I looked through the ventilation system."

"That's why that piece of paper I found was so important," Marcie related. "It was your old diagram. You must've dropped it when you were busy tracking the cotton candy we used to catch you through the basement."

"Anyway," the janitor continued. "I eventually found it. It had rolled down into the basement's vent system. Trouble was, but I couldn't reach inside to get it. Lucky for me, though, I ran into that talkin' cat down here one evening. I knew that if I could get that cat into the vents, he could get that canister for me."

Marcie brightened with revelation. "That's why you kept coming after me. You wanted Schrödinger and I was just in the way."

Alphonse was taken a little aback at the knowledge of the cat's name. "Schroeder, huh? That's what you called him? Didn't think he could play the piano."

"No," Marcie corrected. "That's what he calls himself, and it's Schrödinger."

"Pheh!" the old man scoffed. "Anyway, how did you know it was me in all this get-up?"

"I'll tell you," Marcie said. "When we first met, you told us earlier that you had to finish working because it was almost time for your lunch break. When we ran into the Sea Beast at my father's theme park, I wondered how did it know where we were. Now, it dawned on me that you must have followed me when I drove to the park on your lunch break. You would have had plenty of time to do it."

"Then, there was the death trap you put me and Doctor Redding through." She could see the doctor shiver from the corner of her eye. "You were practically showing off with those fishing skills of yours. The accuracy to wound me in a tank full of sharks and take out our raft at the same time? That's when I knew it had to be you, since, on the two times that we met, you mentioned your love of fishing. Three, if you count just a few minutes ago.

She then added, "Oh, I also broke into your locker, by the way, and found all of those cool rods in there. You're just a fishing fool, aren't you? They really came in handy when I built this trap."

With authority, Marcie turned to Sheriff Stone and told him, "You can take him away, now."

Stone took out a pocket knife and began cutting Alphonse free of the lines, then he stopped when he noticed who was telling whom what to do.

"You listen here, Miss Smarty-boots!" he barked in Marcie's face. "I'm the sheriff here and I'll say who takes who away!"

Marcie gave a crisp, if mocking, salute and said, "Yes, sir!"

With a growl, Stone finished extricating the old janitor from the cut lines. As the criminal was flanked by the deputies and walked by Marcie, Alphonse himself growled, "It would've been such a sweet caper, if you and that dumb cat weren't so darn meddlesome!"

"Cat!" Marcie cried out in remembrance. She still hadn't found Schrödinger. She turned to Alphonse. "Where is Schrödinger?"

The old man knew that he was going to pay for his crimes, but he knew an opportunity for revenge when he saw it.

"Do you think I'm gonna tell you?" he asked, coldly. "I hope you never see that stupid cat ever again."

"C'mon, animal lover," Stone said as he followed his deputies and his charge out of the basement.

Marcie's stomach almost ached with that pronouncement. She remembered that he needed Schrödinger to look through the vents in the basement and that she found Alphonse all the way down the hall.

She wasted no time. She ran back, calling the cat's name, her mind playing the direst circumstances to befall him, such as getting stuck somewhere he couldn't maneuver out of and eventually...

"Marcie!" came the welcome sound of Schrödinger. "Could you be a dear and get me out of here?"

Marcie skidded to a stop under the open vent she heard the voice from. With her arms open and a grateful smile to greet him, Schrödinger happily leaped out of the vent into her embrace.

Doctor Redding huffed behind her from his run and asked between puffs of exhalation, "Did...you find...the canister?"

"Get me back up there," the cat said, to which the girl obeyed. He crept into the vent and all was quiet for a few moments, then came the sound of something rolling and bumping into the corners of the ducting.

"Head's up!" Schrödinger warned Marcie, who readied herself and caught a steel-grey canister with a steady green light on its side showing the status of its refrigeration.

She handed the canister over to a overly pleased Redding, who had to fight from dancing a jig.

"One canister with intact sturgeon eggs," Marcie said, feeling quite pleased herself with what happened over the course of a day.

"Oh!" Redding breathed reverently. "I promise you, you two will have a permanent pass to visit Ocean Land for as long as you want. You can even visit the laboratories. The administration will certainly trust someone like you after today."

"Thanks, Doctor," she said, catching Schrödinger once more. "We really appreciate it. Don't we, Schrödinger?"

"Oh, most definitely," said the cat, licking his chops. "By the by, what do you do with your dead fish specimens. We shouldn't have all of that go to waste, now should we?"

Redding gave a thought. Bio-recycling?

"We'll think about it," came his answer.

With the criminal caught, the Sea Beast no more, and himself safe in the arms of a good and clever girl, Schrödinger pleasantly thought that it was good enough, for now.