Chapter 12

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He deserved a dish fit for a king.

He made due with a drink fit for a tsar.

His small paws held his glass in front of him, spinning it around gently and letting the dark amber slowly but surely move around, lagging behind his movements and showing its age. Its smell filled the room, shunning away the aged must and dust that filled it, replaced with a blossoming scent of alcohol and sweet treacle.

Up to his lips the glass came, into his mouth the drink went. It didn't taste of wine anymore, rather a hundred different things melded together. Working it over his tongue, letting the taste transform and reform, letting the bite of the alcohol push out the bitter feeling of disappointment and anger in his mind.

He swallowed and exhaled, the taste of the Bual Madeira's vapours on his tongue worth more than a bottle that cost some mammals a day, or even a weeks, wage.

A taste that would arguably cost an infinity more than his, but that was to be expected. Because when you were Professor Padriach Ratigan, you did not take a wage.

The large rodent, king of all mice, sat upon his throne in his new throne room. The Charging Hall. Deep beneath the city where it had all begun for him.

A silver knife out, he cut a small slice of a deeply veined orange cheese, ribboned with blue like it was some ancient piece of granite. Onto a cracker it went, and into his mouth, letting him chew, chew, work his teeth, work out the frustration and the worry and the anger at the incompetence of his underlings and the idiotic short sightedness and demands of those he was forced to work with...

"I can supply you with something tougher, my dear."

He shivered ripples of pleasure as a large pawpad worked its way down his spine, stroking it through his silken black coat. A look up, and the soft yellow eyes of his Felicity gazed back, framed by her tabby face. His Pallas cat, his feline love, his one undisputed equal.

"Oh I'm sure you can, my darling dearest," he purred, as she moved his finger around and let him hold it, planting a kiss on the top of her paw before gazing up. "But each to their own, each to their own. I drink the lion's old wine." He motioned over to the bottle, coming up to her chest and dwarfing himself. "You…"

"Eat the lion," she practically purred, working her tongue over her teeth and lips before taking a playful bite out of the air. She rolled her eyes as he gave one of his deep, pronounced, hearty chuckles. "Though king of beasts they may be, king of meats they are not," she added, her ears drooping down in hammy disappointment. "Your dark furred maned one just isn't worth it, though had he chosen to have that paw removed then, well…" She licked her lips. "I wouldn't allow it to go to waste."

"If only he had the same sentiment about the rest of himself," Ratigan sneered, swilling his liquid ambrosia around in his glass. "King of beasts? Oh, please… The king of beasts wouldn't come back from a weasel hunt with no weasel and a broken paw. Or an antique pick-up with no antique and a broken rest of him. And the tiger is hardly any better, taking my goat to pick up a key piece of intel? Well, marvelous job, he loses them both. Bravo, bravo, bra-vo," he huffed, muzzle riven up and teeth baring.

"They merely ran into… unforeseen complications," Felicity waved off, marching around the room. "By all accounts, the item at the auction was all theirs, only that dull headed eucalyptus muncher sold it from under them. And our new friends are busy converting him into a usable asset. Your plans didn't require that to begin with, anyhow. You can carry on regardless…"

"I can carry on, maybe so. But only by getting closer and closer to the wire," the rat hissed. "I'm happy to accept that it was pure luck discovering something like that." He then slammed his glass down, head snapping up and screaming. "But that was payback for the lost years spent chasing around abandoned palaces and dusty forts and bunkers, trying to steal back what that filthy, lecherous, flea infested church rat took from its rightful place a hundred of years ago! And, as for the other thing, what we came for in the first place, we still don't have it in our possession!" His mood iced over. "The bear keeps it on him, at all times, except when he doesn't, dispensing it to someone or other for safekeeping. I was hoping with his little trip, item not included, bat-brain could try and swipe it from his home. But, quite irritably, he is a paranoid old ursid, it seems, His brief sabbatical put tonight's meeting back by weeks, and he may well back out of that too if he has enough sense about him. And things are very different now." With that, he huffed, looking down.

"You don't trust your two large felids to do a non-negotiable retrieval, for a start."

"Yes, yes," he muttered. "And that would be the easy retrieval. Trying the hard one, a good ol' traditional museum heist, well... Their litany of quite shockingly embarrassing failures can only grow, can't they?"

The pallas cat paused, tail frozen at an awkward angle behind her. "Museum heist?"

"That 'sarcophagus', my dear Felicity," he explained. "Currently safely and securely held in the museum vault, away from our paws, is a complete unknown. As far as I know, and that is very little without a certain academic roped into supporting me, nothing in the texts at that site mentioned it. But, even a humdrum laysmammal who knew half of what I do would know that there has got to be a connection." He took a swig back and gulped down a mouthful of his Madeira in a sommelier mortifying instant, then slammed the glass down hard enough to break it, letting what was left of his precious drink spill down and around, dripping onto the floor to lay with the nonexistent fainted wine experts.

"For all I know, I spent a decade travelling across the former second world in search of what was only ever a key. And now, having come so close, I have had the safe STOLEN AWAY FROM ME!"

He roared it out, his tiny voice echoing around the cold steel and concrete walls, ricocheting into nothing. Standing up on his metal chair, chest heaving, paws clutching, glass cracking and snapping and blood now dripping.

The pain caught his attention and he finally turned to his paw, tenderly held up by his paramour, and pulled it away from her. He shook out the glass and wiped at it with a white handkerchief. "Curses, curses, curses and more curses. -The Bual should have enough alcohol in it, so if you could…"

Felicity sprung into action, one paw shielding him on his back, the other uncorking the bottle and then dropping in a pipette, drawing some of the amber liquid out and dispensing five or so drops on his wounded paw.

Right now, any sommelier in the room would be trying to strangle him on pure principle.

Not that he cared.

Honestly, he mused, as Felicity handed him a tear off of a napkin, the massive sheet easily big enough to wrap around his own paw; given that his love didn't appreciate the drink, preferring far newer, fruitier and unproofed selections to pair with her unique personnel cuisine, the bottle was all for himself.

A lifetime supply that very much would last a lifetime.

He remembered it now, sneaking into the room, assuming it would just be like all the others. The locked cellars under palaces, the sealed up storerooms in the seaside hotels and here, the wine cellars of the Hoofmarschalls house on the edge of the Bialowilkza forest. Hoping against all odds that that careless filthy disgusting rat had misplaced it here, given that the records showed it hadn't been on his body when it was found. Nor had it been on him when he'd got what was so coming at the Laika Palace, a level of revenge unleashing overkill that he most certainly approved of, if not delighted in. That had been one of the earliest places he'd visited, and the first time he'd found a bottle of Madeira.

Knowing his history, he felt it best to leave that one.

But there, on that day in the largest remaining structure at Bialowilkza, he'd found another one of them, the end still sealed and the dust layered on the bottle. It had been his own age already when the formerly royal lion it was meant for and the rest of his pride were shot at, slaughtered, riddled with bullets and then cremated at the bottom of a mineshaft, one he'd scurried over and searched through himself on his long quest. And close to a century later, after being hidden away after its former home was bombed and torn down, and then forgotten about as mammals fled and borders redrawn, he'd found it again.

His own Lion sized bottle of century and a half old Bual Madeira. A drink literally fit for a tsar.

Opening it up, he'd had the first taste of the nectar of the centuries, and found it to his liking.

It was the start of his good luck, finally, as not soon after he read a report from a former Admiral, one of those forever opposed to the disgusting rat and who had wanted to see him gone. About how he had an odd relic in his grubby collection, found when enquiring about an archeological expedition with what was so naively thought of at the time as deep and true religious significance beyond measure. How the rat became possessive of it, and how the former admiral had chosen to steal it from him, to eventually put into the paws or hooves of a holy man more deserving. And then… Well, the letters had said it so themselves.

Visions.

Fears.

Something else.

And the request for an actual scientist to look at it, and how it was sent over to one of the empire's highest places of learning. Days later one of the republic's. Then one of the Union's. And that fresh trail had followed through the ages and finally, in a twist of fate, led Rattigan here.

Led him home.

Zootopia.

Where to his shock a twist in fate had revealed itself, all as he prepared for his final move.

One that, as was quite evident, required mammals by his side. Mammals who, as he had so insistently been taught and showed again and again and again, failed!

Miserably...

He gave out a disgusted shiver.

Things were hanging on what happened tonight. Compared to all else, that was the true main goal, the one he'd been after the longest. His most coveted, his precious.

The black box recording? Well, that would have been useful information by any means, but he could live without it. The loss of one of his longest standing allies was, for all accounts, the bigger blow. That goat would at least get things done.

Unlike his two big cats and bat, who had soooo greatly downgraded in his opinion as of late. "Maybe I need some new underlings," he murmured.

"Could I maybe deal with the old ones," Felicity said playfully, leaning over backwards.

He smiled at her. "Oh, never change dear, never change. Maybe I could bring in the Gen…"

"-That hare is a mad loose cannon and you know it," she cut in, snapping to attention.

Rattigan glared at her before huffing. "I suppose you're right," he muttered. "More wine please."

She found a new glass and pipetted some more in, the rat swilling it around and taking a large tongue burning swig. She was right and that was what irritated him. The site he had learnt of so long ago wasn't the only one in the world, that he was certain of. Interpol, for all their searching, had found one too, up in the highest of the high north. And near the end of his seemingly futile quest, his studies had suggested another, buried deep in the forests and jungles of Oaxaca or Chiapas. Some liaising and negotiating with a local warlord here, some almost acted upon plans there.

But in the end, none of it had panned out, and thankfully so. Felicity was right, that hare was mad. To bring him aboard wouldn't bring skills or competence. No, that wild canon was an agent of chaos, without a shred of fear and thus no way of keeping him in line.

A large bang signalled out from across the hall, a heavy metal door slamming open. His 'equals' in this mission on the way, to berate him for his lack of attention on his side of the deal. He picked up a piece of cheese on a cracker and gave it a chew. A long time ago they very much would be equals in this endeavour, he still felt some inherent admiration for their scheme after all. The concept, the scope, the inspiration.

Only now all put into perspective.

It was annoying that he'd needed their resources, their base, their skills to get him going and reestablished again. He could hardly cosy up to one of the existing crimelords after all. Peccarri, Vladzotz and Lang despised him even in his old days as ruler of Little Rodentia, and the latter of those had treacherously gone all soft and 'legit' anyways. It disgusted him. Whoever it was on Outback was simply not worth the consideration and Mr Big? Well that ship had sailed a long, long time ago, thank you very much.

If anything, it was worth bringing these two onboard just to orchestrate the shrew's fall.

"Professor Ratigan," the larger of the two spoke. The rat looked him over and remembered Felicity's advice. Just remember, or in his case imagine, how delicious every part of them is, lean tasty cuts to cured meats to soup boiled from their feet to fatty belly meat glistening in hoisin sauce. A beautiful blank canvas for her own unique form of artistry. Even if not a partaker, he loved the happiness it brought her, and the fear it struck.

"I have good news," the mammal said.

"Good news you say?" He leant forward, genuinely surprised that he wasn't about to get another pithy admonishment.

"The plant growth and refinement stages are complete, the former easier than the latter, given where my expertise lies. However, given the loss of my former underling and most of his work, the supply is short. Even if I risk blowing my civilian cover to get more in, we'll still be behind." His eyes narrowed. "So the inciting incident for Project Chaos needs to be far larger, and the tension in the spring far greater for it to work."

"And you expect me to do something about it, again," Ratigan followed on, taking a more tempered sip of his drink.

The other mammal stepped forward. Their kind tasted awful, according to Felicity, though fortunately for this one he quite liked him, given how he'd been instrumental in bringing down the shrew. Sadly, he had his own Basil and Dave after him, but, dare he say it, he could at least empathise with that. More precisely, appreciate the difficulties. Regardless, what did this sly fellow have up his sleeve this time?

"We planned to use the howlers as an accelerant, to stoke the city up, and then let it rip. However, with such a limited stock, I was thinking we use it more tactically. This city is on edge, it's splitting apart, let's split it apart further. All I need is the assistance of one of your underlings."

Rattigan raised an eyebrow. "Why, what for?"

"This mammal here, to start with." A file was handed over, the rodent starting to flip through it. "But he's just a… Oh, oh I see," he began to chuckled. "Oh you devious little cretin you." He put it down and laughed. "That will make mammals angry."

"Exactly," he said, leaning forward. "And when they're angry, they're so busy fighting you can work in the shadows and get what you want. Say, a certain item, from a museum."

The mirth drained from Rattigan's face. "WHAT!?"

The first mammal spoke. "The principles of project chaos work for you just as much as it does for us. We both have skin in this game. We both stand to win our goals from it."

Staring between the two, the rodent nodded. "Yes, yes, quite right. Clever. Clever. So that we will do. That we will do. Any more intel from your source?"

Shaking his head, the first mammal sighed. "I fear not, the decision making is no longer taking place there. All I've got is the sounds of normal family life going on. And unless some tragedy hits the ZPD, I won't be able to set one up there the same way. Even if I could, their paranoid security drive would make it far too risky. And just one peckish herbivore, and..."

He cut himself off and Rattigan nodded. With his superior intellect, he could easily see why this worked far better around those of a more carnivorous persuasion.

He dismissed them, letting them walk out of the empty hall and allowing the door echo closed behind him. He continued to wait once more. He couldn't help but smile as he leant back on his seat. The one of vulpine persuasion was quite right, project chaos could be used to help him get what he wanted. And project chaos could be stoked and set up further by one of his most... dimwitted, associates.

Briefing them all would come later.

Fidget could make his own flight out and roost, preparing to spring his little surprise on that vacious pit of anti-culture rooted offshore. Oh, how did it go in their de-facto anthem? Better run, better take cover? He smiled. If they thought they could get away from dealing with all this, then they were in for a rude awakening.

Just, he assumed, like the mammal he was about to talk to next.

He watched as Felicity brought out a laptop and began typing in, powering it up, threading through the dark web, and hunting for the link.

Looking on, waiting, Ratigan took a breath in, a breath out, and brushed himself down, putting on a smile and preparing to lather on the dues to his equals or betters.

A painful and irritating instinct from his younger years, if there were any. Having to cope and deal with those who looked down or level at him, having to train himself to defer to them and break the bread, coming across as generous and kind and cooperative when his instincts were anything but. After all, he was Professor Padriach Ratigan, and it was his right to take what he wanted, from who he wanted, when he wanted. To prove himself and claim his rightful place as the master of other mammals, their superior by far in all regards. When he was small, the only reality of life presented itself as plain as could be. He, the largest mammal wherever he went, could use his size and force to get whatever he wanted from those unwise enough to fall behind him, and praise him wherever praise was due.

Which was everywhere.

He was not one of those dumb school bullies they taught about, slow in the head, lone in the friends and so making up for it in the meat. For every mammal he could subjugate by force, there was another he could humiliate or manipulate or frustrate to defeat, to equal if not more satisfaction. And there were so many who followed him on in it, knowing what a ruler was when they saw it. His grades were the highest, his strength and size the greatest, his pack the largest and the fact those teachers had no instruction or reason why he should limit himself bar pithy morality only furthered the point.

It was his place to be master of all, servant of none.

'Predator supremacists would declare that there were no morals, no justice, that the right to rule was only there for those who took and seized it by force. But, in their arrogance, they limited that definition to themselves, and so invited their own implosion as those around ripped them apart.' 'You only get to places of respect and prestige by treating those in those places with respect and prestige, kowtowing and showing respect and earning it. And in a thousandth of the time and effort it takes to rise there, one wrong move can make you plummet.'

He remembered his father quoting him that on the day everything changed.

It had started so well, beating up a jerboa at school, kicking his legs from under him and whipping a newly liberated tie around them to shackle them to each other, laughing at how his gangly long legs and pathetic little arms struggled to right himself, instead only tipping him up and over. He'd told that little disproportionately designed dipodid that maybe he should try not being such a ridiculous little product of evolution, emphasis on ridiculous, then on little.

He'd quoted the very same to his father when he came into the office, suit still neatly brushed and pressed, and then dragged him home by the paw, ripping off his blazer and tie and then throwing him into his room, a whisker breadth away from lifting his tail and rendering his rear end red. Father didn't believe in liberal use of corporal punishment, but he was a forceful defender of a parents right to use it responsibly, should the other options run out. 'You can scold them, educate them, make them sit alone in a room or do chores, or count to ten to make them act. But if your child rebukes or ignores or escapes or absconds or just lets you reach ten thinking they can call your bluff, well then you need something up your sleeve.' He himself never pushed him that far, unlike his older brother who did once, and only once.

In the end, his father settled for education on the jerboa affair, and the rest of them, built up over his short life. Led through the streets of little Rodentia, eyes raised above the vast sweep of the crowd even at his own age, a king. And up to the great high fence he went, and then through.

And he was no longer a king among mammals, he was but a peasant. A near nothing.

And so his father quoted his take down of the pred supremacists, and how if he followed on his own path with his attitude, he'd be taken down and thrown away like the tiny thing he was. He was no giant in the land of mice, he was one of them, and if he wished to be a good rat like the rest of his ilk, he had to put in the time and effort and make himself someone people would actually like.

There was wisdom there, even back then he could see it. If mammals didn't approve of his physical domination, he could still exert his mental, his social. He could work at his studies over the next decade and half, he could rise to the top of his field, he could make himself that giant once again.

But not as a rat, oh no. His father failed to see his true position in life, his birthright, so in that case everything that he could get back would be cut.

A rat.

How dare he.

He was the ruler of his field.

Deferring and paying respect and lavishing tribute and all that disgusting stuff, putting up with it until finally he got there and could take off that cloak, only to find some painfully glued on and refusing to come off.

And oh, it was not anything like he'd been promised. Some students here, questions there, but power, respect, fear? Oh no, instead he was surrounding by giants who did not care, or scoffed, or laughed at him. Who called him a rat. Who, in some cases, labelled him a sewer rat. A filthy, disgusting, petulant, miserable scum of the earth creature. If he had grown past his birth species before then, now?

Now!?

He was no rat, he would be king of mice. On that blasted cloak went on again, just a little, as he went back to seeking true power. Get enough mammals on his side, and then the cloak could come off, the snowball in motion and picking up speed. He used his knowledge to make the drugs, used his influence to bend the authorities, used the threat of his strength to make sure the news never got out. Those giants out of the gate were no concern to him, for he was the underworld king of Little Rodentia.

Only for him to stand at the highest point of his new empire, to look around at his mighty works, and despair.

The towers outside were taller, as were the mammals, and they didn't fear him. He'd kept himself secret, but if they knew? They wouldn't fear or respect him, the only two valid responses. They'd laugh, they'd mock, he'd used their disregard for smaller mammals as a disguise but now it was a clown costume.

The cloak on once more, he began working outside, bringing on allies. The other crime lords. At first, they accepted him as one of their own, ruler of Little Rodentia. But soon, even with the cloak on, they turned their insolent arrogant noses up at him and scoffed, nagging with their quaint notions of honour and respect. Pah, they might as well have painted themselves grey and black, stuck on masks, and all changed their last name to Cooper. But the most painful was Big. One far smaller than him. One who should surely know the burning pain of indignity. After all, he had polar bears, he had what he wanted, what he deserved. And if he wished to stay humble with that, then sure, he could waste himself like that. But for all his talk of honour, he should know that he owed the great Ratigan a leg up, a boost on his path to achieve what was rightfully his.

The shrew replied that he had never wished for one of his brothers in crime to be busted, until now.

Oh how the wheel turned, oh how the wheel turned. Setting him up to fall was the only way that shrew deserved to fall.

And so, putting on the damned cloak again, he had set out to rise, to conquer, to ascend, to subjugate…

And all had been cut so short, when he'd found out the truth, the secret, the thing buried in ash and tuff. All because they were so scared that someone like him might come along and find out.

So much power, more than a despot, a devil. And all so hideously, hideously, wasted.

And a throne left unclaimed.

And so his decade long quest had begun. For him to become alpha of alphas. The king of all mice, king of all mammals. Emperor of all. To pursue his ambition, to its terminal end.

And maybe then, maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to purge himself of that lingering taint. That deference, that faulty instinct of respect, for those still 'above' him. The one that his useless forgettable father had said he had to drag around his life like a ball and chain. The one his father had first made him clamp on, and now, no matter how hard the son tried, never fully left his leg.

After all, here he was, still feeling it for the wolf, or rather his boss.

Above the lupne, secret, powerful, mysterious. Compared to them, Jim McCrodon was a peashooter seller. Richard Onslow Gopher? He sold knives to teenagers. All nothing compared to Elsa, the greatest arms trader of them all.

They would have their chance to bow to him or perish in due course. But for now?

The screen flickered, and a one eyed wolf appeared on the screen, leaning back and with his legs raised. "Hey-up."

"Greetings, greetings," Ratigan chirped, putting on a smile. Having them 'like' him was an appropriate substitute for now. "How are we doing, Mr…"

"Wolf, as usual," he said, shooting a finger salute.

"Yes," Rattigan twitched, recomposing himself. He was polite, dapper, clever, an excellent product of refinement that should radiate betterness to those lower than him. The wolf's abject casualness cut through uncomfortably enough that only that damned respect was holding him back from a scolding frenzy. "Not Mr Wolf, or Lt Wolf…"

"No, just Wolf. Add a name on the front or back if it makes you feel better." He opened his mouth and began picking at a tooth with a claw.

"Hmmm, you don't want mammals treating you with respect?" Ratigan asked, muzzle twitching.

"Oh I do, and they do. I'm just very informal about it. Also, it really helps with the anonymity." He chuckled. "You know, you know what I'm saying. 'We're after Wolf'. Which wolf, there's a lotta them."

"I can see why that would be helpful," Ratigan huffed.

"Oh yeah, the boss really likes it from his operation. Unlike you." He chortled a little. "I mean, c'mon, just announcing it was you! Via, what, cabaret? Very, forties… sixties… twenties? I dunno, when the heck was all that stuff anyway."

"It was time to reveal my return," he said bluntly. "And my decision, and my decision alone."

The wolf's eye widened. "Hey, hey, you're the boss. You're the boss of you, right. What you says goes. Not complaining here."

"No," Ratigan said, leaning forward. "Unlike, me. Oh, I am complaining. I am complaining, a lot."

The canine's head tilted. "About…?"

"Hmmm, well let's see, let's see. First off, I didn't get back that item I paid so handsomely for."

The wolf sat up. "Well, I certainly gave it to that goat of yours."

"Secondly, I didn't get my goat back."

…

The wolf shrugs. "Seems more like that goats problem than mine."

"It's both of our problems," the rat hissed. "Because do you know where that goat is now? He is currently being held by the ZPD, in the grubby paws and hooves of the law, and that delivery of yours is not with me."

"And you want me to do… what, exactly?"

Ratigan's left whisker twitched.

"I mean," the wolf carried on. "I'm pretty sure we did all we were meant to do. Sucks to be you, really sucks to be that goat, but…" He shrugged. "That's why our side doesn't announce things in cabaret form."

"The ZPD will probably have the recording."

"...And?"

"You really are a spectacularly du…" He managed to cut himself off from following through with a 'mb-dumb' as befitted the canine right now. "-bonair fellow. But what do you think happens when they, and those they've got in from overseas, from Interpol, listen to it."

The wolf looked back, blinking. "I don't know."

The rat's eyes narrowed. "Let me spell this out for you. What was on the recording."

He shrugged. "Something, something, some very handsome canine fellows supposed last words? Wasn't it?"

Ratigan gave a shiver. "Which were?"

He shrugged. "I dunno."

"What!?" the rodent hissed, glass tilting, Madeira sloshing. "What do you mean, 'you don't know?"

The wolf chuckled. "Well, what do you think it means?"

"Don't take me for a fool," he hissed. "You've listened to it, why wouldn't you?"

"Why would I?" he shrugged.

The rat trembled, furiously, before closing his eyes and swallowing it down like the bitter pill it was. "So you just let it be. You picked it up, and after you contacted us you came all this way and delivered it, at great expense. And you didn't listen to it!?"

The wolf chuckled, before bringing his paws together. Clap. Clap. Clap. Cla...

The tiny bottle of Madeira shattered as it crashed against one of the cold steel plug tiles making up the floor, Ratigan rising out of his chair, finger out, eyes boiling. "You…!" He clutched his fingers out in front of him, gripping tight as if he could reach in and strangle the life out of the insolent, stupid mutt in front of him. Oh, there was 'respecting' ones criminal betters, however much he knew his own potential would one day exceed them, but this!? "I will not have my superior intellect mocked by you, you… glorified secretary!"

"Urgh, Okay then," the wolf grunted, sitting up in his chair, letting his fingers steeple in front of him. "So I'm a secretary now, right?"

"Yes, doing pathetic little odd jobs for the real brains behind this operation!"

"-And so do you think the secretary would get to see the super secret stuff?"

Rattigan froze, chest heaving in and out, before he closed his eyes and shook it off. Sitting back down, brushing his fur, composing himself into the pinnacle of refinement he was. He looked on at the screen, steepling his fingers and putting on a big smile. "Yes, yes, of course, of course. The boss. The mysterious one. So, he will know the implications of what was in the recording. He may be able to tell me what was in it, given that it never reached me despite what I paid for it?"

The wolf scratched his chin. "So, you remember you asked us to deliver it as was, nothing done to it?"

Ratigan didn't even bother this time. He just shuddered and let his head drop into his paws, moaning. "You formerly fine mammals once had my respect. Not any more. How? How may I ask did you end up being some of the most elusive mysterious masters of crime on the planet, when in reality you are some of the most pathetic, DOPEY, USELESS!"

"-We follow our instructions," the wolf cut in, a smile on his muzzle. "Oh, and we tend to be pretty laid back. That and being super cool means we make some good friends. The globes despots do actually get a bit lonely." He let out a snigger. "I mean, I remember when I just started this whole thing, been living a bit of the…" He sniggered a bit. "Bit of the highlife before, took a bit of a big fall, and so reinvented myself to work with these guys. Didn't know it would be this long term, but there you go, must be the positive work environment. Good pizza on Tuesdays, no annoying cub-scout optimist good guy fox being a pain in our tail, yadda yadda. Now where was I. Right, little old me starting out my gig here just into the new millennium, and ol' Saddam Hisanein was trying to be a good host. -Know what they say against not looking a gift giving horse in the mouth, well add in genocidal tyrant and very generous presents and there's something for ya…"

Ratigan moaned, rolling his paws on, just blanking over whatever industrial produced econo-kibble claptrap the stupid mutt was speaking about.

"-'Course Dubya Bushytail never found em', we hadn't delivered them yet. Anyway, the point is, and I'm gonna make this pretty clear for ya, we may act casual and friendly, but it doesn't mean we skimp on our customer service. We do what the client wants, we get it done. And now listen…" The wolf's eyes narrowed. "I'm in this for the long haul, y'here. So, it does pay to at least be likeable. I'd of thought with all your experience you'd have learnt that by now."

"Yes, one of the most irritating things I ever did have to learn," Ratigan muttered. "However, unlike you, I'm more true to my true inner spirit…"

"Aw, you think this is a front?" The wolf asked, paw innocently going up to under his lip, the canine criminal becoming the picture definition of 'Uh-oh, embarrassing'. "Naw, I'm always like this. Now, you wanna hear about a front, I... " He trailed off, smirking. "Well, I'm not gonna tell you as that defeats the point."

"Let me guess," the rat said, sitting up, almost out of effort at this point. "The front that you do know what's in that thing, and you're not telling me for some super secret reason of yours."

The second it left his lips, his eyes widened. If they were doing this whole thing to make him think that they didn't know what was in this, when they did, then in that case they were playing something too. Oh those sneaky, disgusting, backstabbing, treacherous… -He'd have to keep his wits about them. He didn't know what they were up to, but dammit he could guess. They knew, they were after the same goal, they wanted to beat him to it and had followed his request here to see how far along the trail he was. So they could cut him off at the pass when the time came, steal his hard work. Ohhh, now he really wanted to strangle that wolf. Or amputate him bit by bit and let his love cook the parts up and enjoy them in front of him as they drew his demise on and on and on.

Well, if he knew they were going to backstab him then he could backstab the backstab! Honestly, they deserved it, the pretentious upstarts. But, he needed to make them think that he didn't know, that he was still guessing.

The wolf had just finished denying another bluff, so back in the great Ratigan came.

"Well, maybe then the front is that you're not the front," he mused, acting as if they were still just casually discussing this like gentlemammal and dumb wolf. "There is no boss, you're the boss, you just make others think that there's this boss out there so they don't come looking for you." And treat the organisation with some measure of respect, he added silently.

"Oh, I'm not the boss," the wolf said, shrugging.

"Ah, now you say that," Ratigan teased, finger tapping the side of his muzzle. "But can you prove it."

"Oh no, but I can." The voice was mature, refined, haughty but with an ever so slight taste of poison at its back. Like it could turn venomous at a seconds notice.

Ratigan blinked, feeling his whiskers go down. In all his years, of all the rumours, nobody had ever actually mentioned hearing about the boss. And in that instant he was no longer putting up with the notion of deference or respect. It, seemingly bubbling up from nowhere and constricting and coiling through him, just… came to him. "It's a pleasure…"

"Yes, yes," he said, off screen but seemingly moving around. The sound of sharp metal on metal rang out with each step, delicate but lethal. "I wish I could say the same thing."

He could somehow note that the fact that his anger wasn't coming back right now was very, very, disturbing. "About the…"

"Oh, the box? Well…" He let the condescension come to prominence. "We both know what happened there, don't we? Now, as for you…"

"Yes."

"The koala's recalibration is going as planned. We'll hand him back to you in due course."

Ratigan nodded. Bullet through the marsupials head the second he came on shore. It was the only way to be certain.

"That will be all for now."

And with that the screen shut off, Ratigan taking the time to hold his head in his paws. Felicity didn't need to be asked, she produced a glass full of Madeira and cradled her lovers back in her paws. He downed the whole lot in one go, throwing the glass away and breathing out. "How do the inferior mammals cope, my dear? How do they?"

.

And far away, another conversation was going on. "Well, I suppose we were damned if we do," the wolf said, spinning around in his chair. "Damned if we.. AAAAA…"

He froze still, a razor sharp prick resting lightly on his adam's apple. His boss looked up at him, eyes cold. "Which 'front' were you talking about, may I ask?"

"The…" He stammered slightly. "The fact that we let everyone get our name wrong, and we don't correct their misspelling… Good thing, given how your name is in..."

The blade was pulled away, silent as it cut through the air, to be observed by its owner, half the gaze kept on his underling. "That will do. I'll carry on trusting in your loyalty, as far as I can. After all, I need you for a little... operation."

Letting the tension out a little, the wolf let out a nervous laugh. "Right. Operation, on land, not operating theatre, of course. And if you don't trust my loyalty, then hey! Just take out the koala for a sec and line me up for my usual old program. Serve the boss, right?"

"Correct. On both counts. He's after his own seed, trying to do with it the same thing that the last one did. Only, instead of unintentionally ensuring a return could never occur, his plan could see him take over. I WILL NOT ALLOW IT! Follow up his sources and interests, if you find what he's searching for, make sure he never gets his filthy paws on it!"

The wolf nodded. "Yes sir. I won't fail."

"I know," he 'smiled'. "You've done the impossible before, you can do it again. After all, if you hadn't, you wouldn't be here, would you?"

"No sir," he smiled.

"Good. Begin immediately."