*** The buttons ***
* Although some people keep them in boxes or jars outside (having good judgment), it's not uncommon to find loose buttons inside the box. They're always rests of clothes that don't exist anymore, lying at the bottom of the box until one exactly alike is needed... something that never happens. Any other button in the real world has more uses than that: a payment terminal, an elevator, a remote control, a cell phone... or an explosives detonator. *
.
Skipper, Manfredi and Johnson had spent two days hidden in the sewage system. Hidden under a manhole cover, observing all what was happening on the street with a periscope improvised by Johnson. It was Manfredi's turn; at that moment Skipper was trying to contact the agency, unsuccessfully. Coverage failed under ground.
"We're famous! We are on TV!" Manfredi shouted.
Skipper didn't understand Manfredi's happy tone. He climbed up the ladder and pushed him, placing himself at the periscope. He saw the window of an electric appliances store: on a TV screen the photos of the three were being shown while teleprinters were running, in white and red, at the bottom of the screen. He also noticed that the street was full of police officers.
"They're still there... As soon as we go on the surface, we'll be caught."
From the place where they were he tried to phone again, but there was still no coverage. He unleashed a curse that made Johnson raise his eyes from the Copenhagen map where he had drawn possible routes, with marks at strategic places.
"At least... had they told you anything during these two days?" he asked. "Because the deadline is here."
"Only that they'll come and look for us by helicopter near Sibbarp, in Sweden," Skipper replied. "And this is your fault. You and your damned payment terminal! Nothing would have happened if we hadn't gone to look for it. And you haven't even finished your invention!"
"Hey!" Johnson confronted Skipper. "It's not my fault! The one who stayed alone was Manfredi! Just ask him!"
"Me?!" Manfredi asked indignant. "I don't remember anything!"
"And that's why, you idiot!" Johnson replied to him. "I still have to find the way to recover the flash drive because you weren't fit for coming with us and we couldn't lock you!"
"What do you know?!" Manfredi asked. "Maybe you'd lost it before!"
"No, because that very same evening I had it in my flipper."
"You'd just imagine it."
"No."
"STOP!" Skipper shouted. "It must still stay in the Ministry. We'll recover it and we'll run away from Denmark."
.
Guided by Johnson, who was taking the map, they arrived near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Skipper raised the manhole cover. It was getting dark.
"Guide me, Johnson," Skipper said through the intercom. "Right now I am the eyes and you are the brain."
"You are at the crossroads, right?"
"The crossroads is in front of me, but I'm not at it. I'm not as crazy as to get myself in the middle of all the traffic."
"You see an area with buildings and a park, right?"
"Affirmative."
"Go towards the park. Tell me when you see a tower."
Skipper saw that next to him there was a young man who had gone walking with his dog, a Great Dane. Hoy typical, he thought. They had stopped at a traffic light.
"Hey, you..." he whispered to the dog. "I need you to carry me, I'm on a secret mission for the sake of the animal kingdom."
"Okay," the dog said, and Skipper quickly held on to his stomach. "Eh... why don't you climb to my back?"
"I've already told you that it's a secret mission."
From his canine taxi Skipper saw a water mass to the right.
"Johnson, it seems that I'm crossing a canal... and I see the tower."
"Perfect, don't take your eyes off it."
At the other side of the canal, the young man and the dog stopped.
"We're staying here," the Great Dane said.
Skipper loosed him and thanked him. He contacted Johnson again.
"Now I'm surrounded by buildings. Here are lots of stores, lots of people."
"Go ahead until you see a building totally glazed to your left."
Skipper went ahead, saving time on the hood of a car which was traveling in the central lane. When it changed its lane, he jumped onto another car which went on in the same lane. When he saw the glazed building, he jumped to the median strip.
"I've just arrived," he announced gazing at the building... a wonder of architecture in his opinion.
"That's the ferry station. The Ministry is right opposite it."
Skipper turned around. "Copenhagen is beautiful... but the Ministry is terribly ugly."
He checked that no vehicle was coming, crossed the avenue and skirted the building to reach the main door.
.
Whereas on the contrary side it looked like a highly simple building, Skipper saw from behind a column that they were two buildings connected by a bridge with grazed corridors. Their corresponding doors had security cameras, as expected. Going inside as any Ministry worker was not an option: he would give the Danish government enough footage to frame him, besides the fact that he wouldn't reach the buttons in the elevator.
He took a look at the windows on the ground floor. He was lucky to find an open window and sneaked inside not thinking, at full speed, passing next to the unaware employee who had opened it to smoke without being discovered.
"A RAT!"
A rat? Skipper was outraged, but it was better not to be recognized.
"A broom, quick!"
At the moment when someone appeared with one, Skipper slipped away through the door and looked for the stairs, waddling with his back against the wall. He made sure that nobody saw him and slid towards the stairs. He went down to the basement.
The basement was in the dark, but everything was familiar there: it was the place where they had held the meetings the previous week. But it wasn't just the place: it was also a laughter which was resounding in the corridor. Skipper, however, didn't manage to identify it.
He got near an open door, from which a dim light came, and then he saw that unmistakable beak: Hans. He stayed motionless next to the door.
"That's right... yes. Hey, everything is there... isn't it? It's what you asked me for... Yes, let's see... I'm sure that - Hey, I did what I could, okay? ... The names, the photos and - No, I don't watch TV... why? Okay..."
Skipper saw one of Hans' wings grabbing a remote control. Hans laughed again when he saw the news and heard the anchorman, who was telling the news in Danish. Skipper didn't understand a word.
"You're hearing, aren't you? ... Okay, I'll translate: they are saying that they have discovered a secret plan from the United States to keep Greenland as soon as they become independent. ... Of course I don't want it, I'm from there! ... Eh, krones, not dollars. ... Then do the math! ... Whatever you say. Later, gator!"
Skipper slid silently under the couch where Hans had sprawled with the phone in a wing and the remote control in the other. Then he kept his eyes on the TV: the three penguins were on an office desk, Johnson typing on the computer. It wasn't just the photos: there was an incriminatory video too, and all Denmark had seen it.
"Oh, shit!"
As soon as he noticed, Skipper covered his beak with his flipper. But there was nothing to be done: Hans had heard him and was leaning on the couch back.
"Get out of my home now," Hans said with a very severe and threatening tone.
"What if I don't?" Skipper's tone was defiant. His physical stance was too.
Hans frowned. "A duel to the death."
Skipper undid his defensive stare. "I'd like it, because what you have done is so dirty, but... a change of plans. Do you see this?" he asked, pointing at his intercom. "It has recorded all what you have said since I got here."
"How much have you heard?"
Skipper played thoughtful. "I think... everything."
"Then there's no other option. I won't let you get out from here alive."
Skipper touched the intercom. A "click" was heard.
"What were you saying? I've just sent the recording," Skipper lied.
"Bastard! I'm going to kill you!"
Not knowing well how, Hans was on top of Skipper hitting him desperately and with no technique at all. The only thing he had managed to do was to take his intercom and throw it against a corner. Hans was a civilian puffin, so he hadn't been trained at wing to flipper fighting. Skipper felt a little pity, but he wasn't going to give him an easy fight. With a punch he shook him off and slid through the corridor. He thought he knew where the flash drive could be. Hans ran after him, but Skipper was faster.
They went next to a cart full of covered trays with food. Hans took one of them and dropped the cover on the floor. He used its contents as a projectile against Skipper: mortadella sandwiches wrapped by melted cheese, still steaming. Open sandwiches, how ironic. But, if Hans hadn't been trained at wing to flipper fighting... he hadn't been at shooting either. The sandwiches ended up decorating the corridor walls and floor. Skipper had evaded him and had disappeared from his sight.
Hans looked backwards and saw how he had left the corridor. He decided that, whatever happened, he would incriminate Skipper for what he himself had done. There were still two sandwiches on the tray and he was next to the kitchen, when he sometimes hid things. There it was: a metallic briefcase. He put the two sandwiches inside, also two mackerels from the fridge and went towards the only open door in the whole corridor: Skipper had to have entered there.
It was an old empty events room which had been used until some years before. Hans slid his wing on the switches before entering. The walls and the floor were coated by a red carpet which looked crimson with such little light there, and the ceiling was black. And there was Skipper, waiting for him. He surely wanted to take the flash drive. Hans took the two mackerels out of the briefcase and stood opposite to Skipper.
"If you want the briefcase, fight against me," he said with a spiteful smile, and he threw a mackerel to him.
Skipper took the mackerel up in the air and started to use it as if it was a sword. He approached Hans, who at least was trained at sword fighting and dodged his blows without any problem. The fight was evenly-matched. Skipper only saw one possibility: jumping over Hans and knocking him out with a kick. He went running to open the briefcase.
What a disappointment: inside the briefcase there were only two sandwiches (one on top of the other) and several paper flags inside a mesh pocket in the top half. Hans had screwed him over.
At that very moment, the door opened and several Ministry guards went in. Someone had activated a silent alarm. Everything had happened so fast and everything had been in the dark until Hans' arrival... so it had been him. With his dexterity at sword fight, he had lasted for so little... Hans had planned everything so the humans could catch him.
For some seconds, nobody moved. Skipper opened the briefcase again. The guards were motionless, waiting for Skipper to show a weapon or an explosive, and Hans used that moment to run out of there. Skipper surprised them taking the two sandwiches out and putting them together as one and, knowing that they had lowered their guard, he jumped upon their faces and decked them by kicking, leaving them all unconscious. Then he left the closed sandwich on top of the briefcase with the United States flag pinned on it. Since they were going to declare him penguin non grato, he wanted to give them a reason.
Skipper retraced his steps and went into Hans' room. He took back his intercom and left at full speed. When he left the Ministry, there were several police cars around the building. Skipper didn't hesitate and slid under one of them, arriving at the avenue. Some police officers were running after him. Skipper, doing acrobatics, managed to climb the first traffic light he saw. From there he contacted Johnson.
"Johnson, call and ask for the helicopter."
While he was running, sliding, dodging... he heard Johnson leaving a voice message, desperate. There had been almost two days and no-one had picked up the telephone.
"Done, Skipper. I set plan B in motion. Where are you?"
"At the very Ministry crossroad. The cars are already moving."
"Perfect."
Johnson, underground, pressed a detonator button. A manhole cover hopped in front of one of the police cars, making it stop to avoid hitting it. Every time Skipper passed near a manhole cover, he gave the order and Johnson detonated the explosive he had placed under it, wasting the police officers' time as they were trying to hunt Skipper by car, bycicle or running. Right after detonating the last one, which was the one through which he had reached the surface, Skipper got into the manhole hidden by the cloud of smoke. The police officers went on up the avenue.
In Skipper and the Police's wake remained a trail of smoking manholes and civilian panic. The neighbors from that avenue called the emergency number, many of them saying that it looked like a terrorist attack. People went to the street frightened, the cell phones were sounding and vibrating; some were taking photos to upload them on the Internet. The mass media appeared soon later and after a short while on the transistors of some neighbors that hadn't gone back home one could hear about "The Copenhagen incident".
Little by little, people went back home. The young man with the Great Dane was about to leave when his dog went to sniff the last manhole cover which had flown off, and he made a sound: for the human ears, just a howl; for the penguins' ears, the warning that the Police had started to sneak into the manholes to look for them.
When the last blue glints weren't seen anymore, the three penguins stepped the surface and hid in a small garden at a near house. They had a long way to arrive at Sweden.