(Author's notes: I did not write this chapter all in one go or even in the same week, and it's a little rough. I've had a rough couple of weeks, and I stopped writing for a long time. I'm back on my feet and I will have the next chapter posted soon (I know this because I finished it today as well, but I still need to edit it.))

Chapter 16

Maria Cabrera wasn't happy when she was called by her son to come pick him up off the boardwalk that went along the beach. Not only was the call unexpected—she was in the middle of one of her shows—but he had told her where to pick him up in a cryptid way.

"Mom, I need you to come pick me up at the place where I cried when you gave me an ice-cream," he had told her.

It wasn't a hard clue. She loved to tell the story about his third birthday when she took him to one of those kid's centers with games and rides and a ball pit where he ran himself ragged. He had been having such a good time that he had skipped his nap. Before they left, she took him to his favorite ice-cream place to have dinner and dessert, but when the food came to their table, he had been so exhausted, hungry and over-stimulated that he started bawling at the sight of his ice-cream cone.

Even remembering the story didn't raise her spirits. She had had a tough day working her beat as a cop. Not only did she put every ounce of her energy into her job, but usually whether she did something wrong or something right, someone gave her flack for it. If she didn't arrest someone, she was yelled at. And when she did arrest someone, she was yelled at as well. The last thing she wanted to do was leave her house in her bathrobe and pick up her son who she put through college and—even though he had two master's degrees—couldn't find anything better than an unpaid intern.

But when she saw him standing on the sidewalk waiting for her, arms across his chest and shivering in nothing more than a bathing suit, her anger dissolved. While her motherly instincts worried about what happened to her son and how she could make it better, her cop instincts kicked in and said there was something not right about this situation. So as Fenton hopped into the passenger seat and she cranked up the heat, she began talking.

"Okay, patito, you had better explain yourself because I know you've been up to something, and I better get the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

At the same time, Fenton started talking.

"Mama, I have something I need to tell you, and you can yell at me all you want but only after I explain everything to you."

The two fell silent at the same time.

Maria narrowed her eyes, put the car into drive, and said, "Well, it sounds like we have a long night. Do you want to wait until we get home where you can put on some warm clothes?"

"I can't go home," Fenton said. "It's not safe for me."

"Fenton! What have you been doing?" Maria cried out, her foot pressing harder on the gas than she intended. She forced herself to slow down. "Are you…are you in trouble financially? I told you, I would pay for everything until you get a promotion. If you borrowed money from a loan shark, I can help."

"No, it's nothing like that," Fenton said. He gulped. "I broke my promise."

"Which promise?" Maria inquired, raising an eyebrow. Her mind ran through her memories for promises that her son had made to her.

"Yesterday, I went looking for Fethry," Fenton said, his voice going hard. It was a sign that he had done so purposefully and that he wasn't sorry.

Maria wasn't angry. A ball of anxiety formed in her gut, and something told her that things were bad. "Okay…" she said, indicating for him to go on.

Fenton revealed everything in addition to what he told her two nights ago, that he found the mermaid once again, that she told him that Duckburg was in danger and that he had to find Fethry. Out of an educated guess, he had gone to the mental institute up in the mountains. His narrative hesitated, but he told everything, the break-in, the patient that escaped, and what he had found.

Maria became dizzy from the different emotions she felt, anger and worry the least of these. She had heard from others on the police force about the disturbance at the hospital and after a whole night's search, they had found the mental patient trying to hitch-hike out of town without a stitch on her. Thank goodness there were road-signs warning drivers not to pick up hitch-hikers because of the hospital, otherwise some Good Samaritan might have "helped" her. At least the damage that Fenton had done by letting the woman go had been fixed.

But then he spoke of the bugs that were placed on his clothing and phone, and she saw red. The laws regarding civilians using such things were gray areas at best, but it wasn't her cop-self that was angry; her motherly protective side had come out.

How dare McDuck spy on her son! He had no right.

But then one of Mr. idiota McDuck's nephews had intervened, warning Fenton of the bugs. And her little patito had been smart enough to find them with his inventions and free himself of that. She grew even more proud when he explained how he invented his breathing apparatus. No matter that it was powered with magic—although she still wasn't sure how much of all this story she believed—but when he told how he used his invention to travel the ocean to the mangrove trees, she hoped that when things died down that he could use that invention to make something of himself. She always knew he would, but it was part of being a mother to worry when she saw her child struggling.

But worry didn't accurately describe how she felt at the part when the mermaid was captured, McDuck threatened to lock up her boy, what he learned about Fethry Duck, and his escape.

During the story, Maria drove around town just as she did on her beat. She almost did it subconsciously although while she listened, her eyes were eagle-sharp, glancing at the sidewalks and pedestrians as if looking for crime. She should have pulled off to the side of the road to listen to her son or gone home, but again her instinct told her to not stay in one spot, and once Fenton was finished talking, she knew she had been right. Scrooge McDuck would be looking for her son.

However, she wondered if the story could be true. After all, it did sound fantastical, almost false what with mermaids and the destruction of Duckburg and everything. There was one other explanation.

"That's why I can't go home," Fenton said after finishing his story.

Maria's knuckles tightened on the steering wheel, and the muscles around her beak tensed. "How could you do that, Fenton? How could you go against my wishes and look for Fethry?"

"What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't ignore what the mermaid said. I have to find—"

"What the mermaid said?" Maria cut him off. "Have you heard yourself? I thought that when you talked about the mermaid before, it was from stress or something from working so many late nights, but now I have to wonder if you're on drugs. Are you on drugs? Whatever you're on, I'll get you some help."

"Do I look like I'm on drugs? Do I sound like I've taken something?" Fenton demanded, raising his voice.

"Well, you are sounding more emotional. And you are not acting like yourself," Maria shot back. "I've seen enough stoners and druggies to know that anything is possible with drugs. And what else explains you coming home several nights in a row soaking wet or you ignoring me or you getting in arguments with me when we've never fought before, and now you're talking about mermaids and saying that McDuck has locked up his nephew up because of some conspiracy theory. So forgive me for saying that its drugs."

Fenton sighed. "I'm not on any drugs. I haven't even had any caffeine today. But your reasoning is justifiable. I know that you're processing a lot tonight, but if you can't believe what I've told you, then that's fine. But one way or another, I won't be staying at the house at all, not until I can clear this up. I was just hoping to borrow some money, and if anyone comes looking for me, you can tell them with a clear conscience that you don't know anything."

"So, you're still going to look for Fethry?" Maria asked icily.

"I have to," Fenton said.

"For the mermaid."

"For Duckburg. And for Fethry's sake and his family," Fenton said. "Mom, the man's been missing for near five years. You may have been told he was taken to a mental institute, but didn't you follow up on that? Didn't you make sure that Fethry was getting the care he needed if you truly thought that he was mentally unstable?"

"Well…My partner and I understood that Mr. McDuck would have everything in order," Maria defended. "Despite how powerful and imposing he is, Mr. McDuck and his family are a law-abiding people. Other than a few indiscretions of youth and the Fethry incident, the police hardly ever have reason to talk to them."

"Well, now you have another excuse. Fethry is a missing person," Fenton said. "And if the police won't investigate it, then I will. And if you won't help me, I won't blame you. I just need you to give me some money and then I'm gone."

Maria sighed heavily. "Don't talk like that, Fenton. If Fethry is missing, then I will investigate. And let's clear things up with Mr. McDuck. He's a reasonable man."

"Who wanted to lock me up!" Fenton protested. "I know you have to follow the law because of your job, but you can't fix this, Mom. I got myself into this mess, and I'm seeing it through. And didn't you warn me to stay out of McDuck's business because people could get hurt. That doesn't sound like a reasonable man."

Maria's eyebrows knit together. "I…I don't want you to get hurt. You're all I have in this world, patito."

Fenton's frown deepened. "Don't use that on me, Mama. You know you still have Abuela and Abuelo and your brothers and sisters, not to mention your friends and everyone on the police force."

Maria shrugged. "It was worth a try. But if you think I'm going to let you go off on your own, then you have another thing coming. Nobody takes on Mr. McDuck without resources."

"Mama, you can't—"

"Don't argue with me," Maria insisted. "I'm helping you and that's final." She finally turned off of the main road into a shopping district. Once she parked, she pulled out her purse and took out all her cash. "Here, you go get some clothes and something to eat. I'm going to go make a call."

Maria left the car before her son could protest, knowing that he must reeling from her sudden change of mind. She was reeling as well. Looking back, her conversation with Fenton was confusing and had left her feeling out of sorts. She had heard rumors about Scrooge McDuck and how he dealt with anyone who was against him or his family. But she had also seen the family as law-abiding citizens. And the few times she had interacted with them—aside from when she was a child—they had been polite and helpful.

But could that have all been a ruse. Was Mr. McDuck really as cold and ruthless as Fenton had portrayed him? Did he really threaten to lock up her son? And what of Fethry? Where was Fethry? A part of Maria wanted to search for those answers but another part of her wanted to run away. Nobody took on the McDuck family.

And the mermaid?

No, Maria didn't want to think about that. Things were complicated enough without bringing in mermaids and whatever else. She needed to focus on the realistic problem right now and deal with the fantastical later. Whatever happened that night, Fenton needed to be taken somewhere safe until Maria could figure out what was going on, even if it meant marching up to that mansion on the hill and demanding an explanation from Mr. McDuck himself.

She knew that Fenton couldn't go home. If McDuck was looking for him, that would be the first place he would look. Maria suspected she would soon be under surveillance, but since the incident happened not that long ago, she could move about for the moment, but they would look up her records within time.

She went to an ATM and withdrew the maximum amount from her account in cash. It wasn't much; her bank account had limits to prevent anyone from stealing her entire savings, but it would be enough for Fenton to live off of for a few days. Especially if she could get some help.

Next, she went to the Starbucks in the shopping area and was glad to see that it was as busy as could be. It was just what she wanted.

"Excuse me, but I need to use your cell phone," she said, choosing a male duck that looked to be college-age and working at a laptop.

The duck was slow to take his eyes from his computer, and when he did, he started to protest. "I'm busy right now. Can't you—"

Maria shoved her badge in his face. "This is a police matter. Please hand over your phone. I need to make one call and then it will be returned to you."

The guy shut his mouth and complied; he didn't even roll his eyes or make any sarcastic remarks which Maria appreciated. She figured he really wasn't a rude person, just busy.

Using her phone to look up the contact information, she dialed the number on the man's phone. If Mr. McDuck was going to be trailing her soon, he would look up her phone records, thus the use of a stranger's phone. Even if they guessed she made a phone call on someone else's cell phone, it would be almost impossible to track down the complete stranger in the Starbucks.

The phone call went through and someone picked up.

"Hello?" the deep, rich voice said on the other line.

"Hey, it's been a while," Maria said. "And I'm cashing in my favor."

Gyro looked at his phone for the time. It was past eleven and it had taken the better part of the evening taking the boat out and searching for his intern among the mangrove trees. The return trip took less time since they didn't have to sneak up on anyone.

As Della manned the boat, Gyro took care of the mermaid. The sailboat was quite large for its type of water vehicle, but it still hadn't been big enough to hold that large of a tank. What they had available was more like a feeding trough for animals and was used by marine life researchers to place a shark within—reef sharks and similar in size, not anything bigger—inside while they checked vitals and tagged the animal before release.

For the mermaid, it was only enough to submerge her lovebird side with her long fish tail spilling over the lip and looping around the floor. The mermaid was kept bound inside the net to prevent escape, and her tail secured by rope least she thrash around. And since he didn't know mermaid physiology and whether or not she needed to keep moving in the water to breath like sharks, Gyro used a hose to pump aerated water through the tank. He kept an eye on the mermaid's neck where her gills were, making note that the flaps of skin fluttered as the mermaid breathed.

Once he made the mermaid comfortable but restrained, Gyro stared at the mermaid. During his years with Mr. McDuck, he had come to learn of the existence of mermaids after earning Scrooge's loyalty. However, he was only given evidence of the underwater people: pictures, video footage, and fragments of their biology such as scales, hair samples and some skeletal remains. It was one thing to study this evidence and another to see it before his eyes.

And she was glorious. She was the embodiment that every scientist hoped for within his career. And while Gyro's expertise was more with robotics and quantum physics, he wasn't unfamiliar with the many branches of the biological sciences. He dabbled in learning anatomy, especially when he was brainstorming cyborgs and androids—and thanks to his dabbling, he had helped Della with her prosthetic. He may not know as much as he should on anatomy and marine biology, but at the idea of his name being on the forefront of the mermaid studies, he was going to study up as quickly as possible.

But for now, he could easily start an elementary examination on the mermaid and get ahead of the rest of the scientific community, because once the existence of mermaids was known to the whole world, there would be thousands of people clamoring to study this new discovery, making their own conclusions and publishing their papers. But Gyro Gearloose would always be one step ahead.

It did bother him a little at the idea of the mermaid being a sentient being. He had told Fenton truthfully that he would go through the proper channels, test the mermaid and find out just how intelligent she was. After all, some people had taught members of the great apes to communicate with sign language but did that mean they were capable of higher thought? Just because Fenton spoke to the mermaid and she responded with gestures didn't mean anything. Only through tests and observation could anyone know for sure if this mermaid—and by extension, her entire species—was just as intelligent as the men and women who walked on the earth.

Gyro was determined not to let anything taint his judgement in regards to the mermaid. Both Fenton and Scrooge McDuck had strong opinions about the mermaid, and Gyro wasn't going to let them sway him. He was a scientist, and he was doing things by the book. And he was true to his word to Fenton. If he did find that the mermaid was sentient and capable of higher thought—although he doubted that they could be as intelligent as that with no technology of their own—then he would treat the mermaid as one would from a strange race.

He knew what Mr. McDuck would say about that.

It did concern Gyro a little how his employer felt about the mermaids. He understood obsession, but Mr. McDuck's determination to capture the mermaid had almost crossed the line. But he chalked that up to the fact that Scrooge was a passionate person. And perhaps now that a mermaid had been captured and their existence could be proven, the elderly duck would calm down. No more would his family legacy be tainted with those childish folk-tales of the past.

Yet Gyro still felt uneasy, especially how Scrooge dealt with his intern. Scrooge, Della and Fenton all acted rashly, irrational and utterly undignified. No doubt Fenton was now out of a job, and that meant Gyro had no assistant in the lab. That was unfortunate. Out of all his interns, he had disliked Fenton the least and thought the young duck had a lot of potential.

Perhaps he could talk to a few colleagues and find Fenton a placement in a different lab, somewhere far from Duckburg. The way Scrooge held grudges, Fenton would find no work in this city for as long as there were McDucks. He only hoped that his ex-intern would compose himself and not try to make any more scenes in regards to the mermaid. Somehow, within the few occurrences that he had been with the creature, Fenton had formed an emotional attachment to the mermaid.

Although Gyro rarely let his emotions dominate his mind, he was able to understand his intern's actions. From the waste up, the mermaid was an attractive female with exotic features that weren't seen often in Duckburg. Other members of the parrot races were common but lovebirds tended to stay within their own community. So the fact that the mermaid attached herself to Fenton, it gave to reason that a young, single male would respond in such an emotional way.

Gyro suddenly wished that his intern was there. It would be interesting to see the two interact, especially since there was an obvious bond between the two; not to mention, interspecies communication and interaction was a fascinating subject. Not only that, but the mermaid would be a lot more cooperative for the intern. The little that Gyro had seen of the two through the night vision goggles, the mermaid could even be called tamed.

The sound of the boat's motor lowered in pitch, and Gyro felt the watercraft slowing down. They were coming to the docks. Gyro wished they could have taken the mermaid directly to the lighthouse, but using the underwater docking system of the lighthouse would have been risky. Mr. McDuck didn't want to give the mermaid any chance of escape. However, transporting her from the docks to the lighthouse might just kill her.

Before, when they were planning the capture, Gyro thought little of this part of the plan, but now he felt uneasy. If the mermaid was just another marine animal, this wouldn't have bothered him. Animals die all the time in captivity, and while it was a sad loss if the specimen perished, there was always the chance of capturing a new one while studying the body. However, if the mermaid wasn't just an animal but something more like Fenton said, then this wasn't about science. It would then become an ethical and moral dilemma. And while Gyro's compass didn't always point north, being party of an intelligent being's death was not something he was willing to be a part of.

And for the first time in a long time, his conscience was speaking to him.

"Let's hook this fish and get her in the truck before someone sees," Della shouted to him, getting the crane in position and lowering the cable and hook.

"Wait a minute," Gyro said, halting Della. "Let me check the truck first. I want to make sure we can transport the subject comfortably."

"Comfortably? Why? Has she been giving you a hard time down there?" Della asked flippantly.

"Well…no," Gyro said. In fact, since the mermaid was put in the very small tank and the water pump kept going to help her breath, she had been docile. Other than keeping her eyes on Gyro, she had done nothing unusual. "I just want to make sure the equipment is working."

"It's only five minutes to the lighthouse," Della said, waving her hand in the direction of the bright light sweeping across the ocean. "She can wait that long. There's sea water in the truck. That's good enough."

The truck was rigged with several gallons of salt water connected to an electric pump and hose with nozzle. The idea was to keep the mermaid moist by spraying her with a constant shower, but now Gyro was wondering if that was enough.

"Move it, Gyro. We don't have all night," Della snapped, pushing past the scientist and hooking the mermaid's net to the crane. "There's a few looky-lous nearby, and even if they're drunk, they may talk in the morning."

Before Gyro could stop her, Della was back at the operating chair of the crane and was lifting the mermaid from the tank into the air. She was pushing the crane to go as fast as it could go, limiting the time when someone may see what they had in the net, which would catch any passerby's attention since over ten feet of tail hung out of the net and dragged along the deck.

Mr. McDuck was on the dock where their driver had backed the truck within the crane's reach. "Get over here, Gyro," McDuck ordered. He was waving his cane, trying to hook it onto the net. "We're on the clock."

The clock: just how long did the mermaid have until she died of asphyxiation? Would the water in the truck be enough for her to survive until they reached the lighthouse? Gyro hoped so.

Gyro was watching the mermaid as he climbed up on the deck and headed for the gangplank, hoping that the reason that the mermaid wasn't moving was because she was just passive and wasn't dying.

Just as the crane was above the gap between the sailboat and the dock, the mermaid's tail came to life, whipping and lashing out. The net and the mermaid bounced and swung on the crane's hook as the strong tail built more and more momentum.

Gyro was nearly knocked off the dock as the round fluke whipped passed him, the tip slapping him in the face.

"Della, get her down now," Scrooge shouted. "She's trying to slip off the hook."

Gyro looked up, his eyes widening as he watched the part of the net that was looped over the crane's hook. All the commotion of the mermaid struggling was causing the crane's cable to swing and the net to wiggle back and forth. With a little more effort, the net would slip off and the mermaid would fall.

And just as he thought that, the mermaid and net became airborne after one incredibly strong whip of her tail, slipping away from the hook. By that time, the mermaid was over the dock where her body landed hard but part of her tail went into the water with a splash.

"Della! Gyro!" Scrooge shouted.

After years of following commands, Gyro moved faster than thought, grabbing two handfuls of the net and pulling. But between Scrooge and Gyro, the mermaid was too strong, using her arms to pull herself across the deck and her tail as propulsion like a snake.

Jumping over the side of the sailboat, Della used her metal leg to take most of the impact and raced to join the scientist and her uncle. With her added muscles, they became more than a match for the mermaid, but it was still close call. For every foot that they moved the mermaid toward the truck, the mermaid earned back six inches.

"Keep her still," Scrooge ordered without more explanation, letting go of his end of the net. He unscrewed the top of his cane, revealing a thin needle.

Gyro quickly assessed the situation, knowing that his employer had many different canes with hidden compartments for one reason or another. "Wait! Don't do that!" he shouted, guessing what exactly was inside the needle.

But Scrooge didn't listen. He plunged the needle in the thick, fleshy part of the mermaid's tail just below her waist.

The mermaid gasped but no noise came from her throat. She continued to struggle for a minute longer, her actions quickly getting sluggish. Eventually, she stopped moving and her eyes closed.

"Why did you do that?" Gyro demanded. He knelt down by the mermaid's head, checking to make sure her heart was still beating, seeing that her gills kept fluttering and that her eyes still dilated with light. "I specifically said no tranquilizers. We don't know how much she weights or how her species reacts to drugs. You could have killed her."

"And if I didn't use it, she may have escaped," Scrooge said, returning the needle to his cane.

Gyro stood up and straightened his spine to his full height. "You promised me that if I helped you find and capture the mermaid that I would be in charge. And that includes the use of tranquilizers."

"I did what I had to do," Scrooge said, adjusting his top hat. "And I suggest that we get her back to the lighthouse as quickly as possible so that if she does react badly to the tranquilizer, you will have a better chance of helping her." Then he turned around a left.

Gyro had been called cold before; it was a side-effect of his logical mind and his ability to separate the pathos from the ethos in his work. But even he was disturbed by Mr. McDuck's lack of care in the situation. Didn't Scrooge want the mermaid to live? Didn't he want to show off the greatest oceanic discovery since a submarine was built to survive a venture into the Mariana Trench?

Gyro had to wonder if the answer to both of those was 'no'. That meant that Scrooge McDuck had a different reason for capturing the mermaid. And that in itself disturbed him.

But it wasn't just that. It was the mermaid that also gave him pause. Her escape attempt was strange. She hadn't struggled and fought the net until she was clear of the boat. She had waited for the best time to slip off the hook when she had the best chance of making it back into the water. That took a clear mind and forethought.

And in a second, Gyro's perception flipped completely around. And he slipped into his usual logical frame of mind. He had to think like a scientist. He had to act like scientist.

"Della, get her tail. I want her in the truck and strapped down, now," Gyro said, giving orders in his usual deadpan way. He grabbed the mermaid under her arms and dragged her toward the truck. "The whole night's work will be wasted if we lose her just because you were slow."

"Oh, shut up," Della muttered, moving to help the scientist.

He didn't rise to Della's bait because he never did. He had to act as if everything were normal. He had to pretend as if he thought that nothing was wrong about what they were doing.

Fenton leaned back in the passenger seat chair, summoning both physical and mental energy to do as his mother suggested. He wished he could just stay in the car, go to sleep, and when he woke up, everything would be fixed.

With the car off, the vents no longer pumped warm air toward him, and he shivered from his still damp feathers. Some were dry, but they were stiff from the salt left over from the ocean. He had only his swimming trunks on and nothing else, although he recalled that his mother kept a blanket on the back seat. He wasn't sure what would be more acceptable inside a clothing store: bare chested or draped in a blanket like a homeless person?

Just as he was about to get out and look for clothing and food, he felt the seaweed-wrapped package slip off his lap and onto the floor. Although he had kept a tight grip on it since he had picked it up off the ocean floor, his mind hadn't been on Fethry's journals until then. Food and clothing were important, but his curious mind was determined to take a quick peek before anything else.

It took a while to pick away at the knotted rope keeping the seaweed together, but soon he unrolled the large leaves to reveal three different books, each wrapped tightly in thick plastic and kept together with water-proof tape. Each book was a spiral-bound notebook, much thicker than the ones he used in school.

His heart pumped with excitement as he tore the plastic away from the top notebook with trembling fingers. The anxiety and worry he felt earlier was still there, but it was combined with the hope that answers would be provided within the pages.

He was careful to make sure no moisture got on the notebook which already looked as if it had been through the ringer. The pages were crinkled and stained from other sources of moisture long ago, and it looked as if pages were hanging on the spiral by only a few strands of paper. He could see post-it notes and other pages stuffed inside, perhaps taped or glued in place, making the notebook bulge in the middle with all the extra content.

With a final breath, Fenton opened the notebook.

On the first page, it was a sketch of the mermaid, his mermaid, complete with the details of her long tail, her curly hair and the long sail along her spine. It was life-like with texture and shading added, done in ink with only a few smudges from the liquid from a time when Fethry carried the journal around.

Fenton stared at the picture for a long time, letting his emotions grow stronger with every second. He regretted letting the mermaid get captured, and he was going to do everything within his power to save her. He just wasn't sure if that would be enough.

Finally, he turned the page, ready to take on the secrets of the notebooks and whatever mysteries of the mermaids it revealed. However, he stared at the page, dumbfounded.

It was filled with words in a scribbly, cramped hand but everything was complete gibberish. At least, that's how Fenton saw it. Could it be another language? As far as he could tell, it wasn't of any language he was familiar with, and there weren't any other symbols used than the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. It could be that Fethry purposefully wrote the language phonetically with the English alphabet, but if he meant to hide the information from certain people, then the journals would have been easy to decrypt.

Or what if it was written in a language that wasn't known? At least, unknown by all those on land. If Fethry wanted to keep this information hidden from his family—the family that hated mermaids—could he have written everything in the language of the mermaids?

Realizing he had been looking at the journal for far too long, Fenton closed it and replaced it inside the torn plastic. He then grabbed the blanket from the back seat and wrapped the journals in it, tucking them under his arm as he exited the vehicle. He felt certain that he shouldn't leave the journals alone, even in a locked car. And if he explained to the sales person in the store that his clothes had been washed away by the ocean, they would understand if he shopped in just his bathing suit.

He didn't want to make his mom wait, so he rushed to the cheapest clothing store and quickly bought a few t-shirts and a hoodie that wasn't exactly his style but something that would keep him comfortable. Then he went to a fast food restaurant and ordered a large meal with a hot cup of coffee, the drink not only warming him up from the inside but also sharpened his mind. He may get jittery later from the caffeine but he didn't want to fall asleep once the adrenaline had worn off.

Back at the car, his mom was in the driver's side and the engine was rumbling. Once he was inside, Maria backed out of the parking space.

"I got in contact with an old friend," Maria said once they were on the main road. "Not only had he agreed to put you up for a few days, but you'll be safe with him since that will be the last place Mr. McDuck would look."

"I'll just need to stay with him for one night," Fenton said. "Fethry's journals are written in an unknown language. If I could get in touch with a linguistic friend of mine from college, I'm sure that it can be translated. There's something in this journal that Mr. McDuck wants, and I think it may help me save Duckburg and find Fethry. And I hope it will also help me figure out a plan to rescue the mermaid as well."

He looked to his mother, wondering what she thought of all this, but her face was unreadable as her eyes were locked on the road ahead of her. Did she believe him? Or was she only humoring him? At least she understood that Mr. McDuck was looking for him and that she was trying to keep him safe. But how much did she believe?

"What do you need from me?" Maria asked.

Fenton raised his eyes at that.

"Mama?"

"I know I haven't…accepted everything you've told me, but I realized that you've never lied to me before," Maria said. "And I don't think you would start right now. I'm sorry that I haven't believed you until now, and it's taken a long time for your stubborn mother to see reason."

Fenton smiled. "I didn't exactly stumble onto something that was easy to swallow."

Maria glanced at him with a half-smile before her eyes went back to the road. "So, is there anything I can do? Just let me know."

Glad that he was no longer alone in this, Fenton had no idea what his mother could do to help…except…

"I don't know what's going to happen, but I think another natural disaster is going to hit Duckburg. I don't know when, but I think it'll happen soon," Fenton said. "If I'm right, the best thing to do would be to evacuate the city."

Maria frowned. "I can't do that. I may be a detective, but I don't have that kind of power. Even if I persuade the police, they can't order a full city evacuation. Only the mayor can."

"I realize that, but perhaps you can warn everyone at the precinct to keep an eye out for anything," Fenton said, making a plan. "As soon as something seems hinky, you get people to safety."

"I can do that," Maria said. She switched on her blinkers and turned off the main road.

Fenton hadn't paid any attention where they were going, but as he took in the wide, well-lit streets, the full, leafy vegetation on either side of the road and the tall, iron fences lining the properties, he realized what part of Duckburg they were in.

"Mama?" he said in a warning tone.
"It's alright," Maria said as she went the suggested speed limit of fifteen MPH within the gated community.

They passed by one large home after another, each one grand and luxurious in its own way. And then they passed by the largest gate that had been gilded in gold. A large MD had been crafted onto the gate, and it sparkled in the headlights. They could see the large manor on the hill overlooking the city, the highest point within Duckburg without traveling to the mountains.

It wasn't until the gate was behind them that Maria and Fenton released their breath, not realizing they were holding it.

"Mama, who is this friend of yours?" Fenton asked. The only friends of his mother's that he was aware of were fellow cops from the precinct or those in their neighborhood. He had no idea that his mother had a friend that lived among the elite of Duckburg in a part of town that many referred to as "Snob Hill".

"Well…he's more of an acquaintance," Maria said and turned off the road to a gate only a few property lines away from the McDuck mansion. She stopped at the gate and pressed the intercom button. "It's me," she said after the buzz, then the gates noisily opened. She drove through the gates, through a curvy driveway bordered with tall, oak trees, and stopped in front of a two-story mansion, a modest one for such a neighborhood.

"This isn't his house," Maria explained. "He's merely house-sitting for friends, so it's not likely that Mr. McDuck knows he's even in town. Not that he'll ever be connected to me considering that we are never in contact with each other."

Fenton grabbed his hastily purchased clothes and the journals, and joined his mother as she got out of her car and walked up the steps to the door.

They didn't even need to knock. No sooner had they stopped on the threshold that the doors creaked open, revealing a tall duck around Maria's age wearing a silky bathrobe and holding a martini in one hand.

"Maria, I'd like to say it's good to see you but you know just how much I hate to lie," the duck said with a crooked grin, raising his glass to Fenton's mom.

"Fenton, let me introduce you to Gladstone Gander," Maria introduced.

It was no wonder that his mother said this would be the last place Mr. McDuck would look for him. Maria had delivered him right into the arms of one of Scrooge McDuck's nephews.