"Alright, we need a game plan."

Louie dozed off, resting his beak on the cold, laminate table top as Huey cleared a space between glasses of orange juice and chocolate milk. He closed his eyes but between the early morning diner commotion and the bossy pitch in Huey's voice, there was no way he was falling back asleep.

"Lou, hand me the salt and pepper, and the ketchup, and maybe a few of the jelly packets."

Lou barely opened his eyes to glare diagonally across the table at him. It's a good thing he sat the furthest away from me. He grabbed the entire condiment caddy and glided it across the table towards him hard enough that the whole thing tipped over. Salt and pepper went everywhere and the packets of jelly covered Huey's lap and fell on the floor.

"Wow. Thanks."

"You woke me up for this so you groggy Louie for at least another hour." He muttered, pushing his hat down over his eyes and yawning. Apparently years of having him as a brother actually did teach them something because neither Huey or Dewey argued with him.

After cleaning up the mess, Huey set the condiments out across the table and cleared his throat. "Alright. Pay attention. Webby, you're the grape jelly packet."

"Ooh! I love grape jelly!"

"Louie, you're the salt shaker."

Shocker.

"Fitting, fitting," Dewey piped up. "And what am I?"

"I'm the bottle of ketchup and, Dewey, you can be the tabasco sauce."

"Oooh, spicaaaaay!"

Louie could hear the shuffling and feel the rumbling of glass against the laminate table top. Without lifting his hat, he could tell Dewey was incessantly gliding the bottle of tabasco sauce back and forth between his hands. Although the repetitive sound of it made it seem like he was grinding it into the table just to grate on Louie's nerves.

"This is DASA's headquarters in Duckburg."

Louie peeked from under his hat to see a relatively crudely-drawn copy of DASA's headquarters laid out on the table with each of their drink glasses holding down the corners.

"I tried calling them but, understandably, they wouldn't release any information. That means we're going to have to do this the hard way. We need to search the records in their filing room, which is here." He pointed to a room on the map.

The handwriting across the map was illegible so it was hard to tell what any of the other rooms were around it. That is without a doubt Dewey's awful handwriting.

"Where'd you get the map?" his voice croaked with lack of sleep.

Huey looked up, seeming surprised that he had been paying attention.

"What? Sure, your whole plan talk is boring, but I want to find Dad too."

Dewey spoke up as he spun the bottle of tabasco sauce like a top. "Launchpad and I drew it up. He worked for DASA for several months to become an astronaut before he started flying for Uncle Scrooge. After a long… and I mean long discussion about aliens and monkeys, I finally was able to jog his memory and get a general layout of the building."

Louie tipped his hat back on his head. "Wait, so we're basing our entire operation on Launchpad remembering the lay out of an office building he hasn't been in in over 10 years?"

"8 years. But yes. I know he's not always the most reliable source of information but I trust him, okay? He was very detailed. Down to a mustard stain on the wall that he thought about licking every day."

Webby made a face. "Did he lick it?"

Dewey sighed. "Knowing LP? Yeah. Odds are, he licked it more than once."

Louie sat back in the booth. "And this is the information we want to stake our mission on?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Huey raised his eyebrow.

"Uh, yes! Literally anything. Just let me go in there and talk to the receptionist. I could have Dad's file in hand in five minutes." Louie stuffed his hands in his hoodie and kicked his feet up on the booth across from him.

Dewey pushed his feet off his knee. "Wow, cocky much?"

Louie groaned. "I just don't see why we have to go through all this planning. I thought you hated stealing. I'm pretty sure sneaking into a high-security building and taking a classified file would be considered stealing, Hubert."

Huey's jaw clenched. "I spoke to the receptionist on the phone and she said that they didn't have records of Dad working there. Maybe she's right and Professor VonDrake had it wrong, but if there's the slightest chance that DASA is hiding something, it's on us to find out the truth. I don't like the idea of breaking and entering, but if that's what it takes, we don't have much of a choice. Webby says she can get in and out unnoticed and, if Dad was a F.O.W.L. agent, she would have clearance from S.H.U.S.H. to get his records."

"We're just… thinking proactively." Webby, nudged him in the arm, giggling. "It's not stealing if you're a secret agent that needs to borrow it for the safety of the entire nation."

"Riiiiiight." So in other words, they are being hypocrites. Because everyone knows that quote on quote "borrowing" is just another word for "stealing" in the moral code book. His mind went back to his hiding spot in the RV. Where he used to hide candy from his brothers, now hid the key to his freedom from Gus and possibly his future if he played his cards right. He considered that borrowing but would Huey? Would Dewey and Webby see that as borrowing? No. Not in a million years. "No, Louie. That's stealing, Louie. You're going to go to prison again, Louie." So what? You know what you can go to prison for? BREAKING AND ENTERING A MAJOR FACILITY. All while his mind practically screamed the injustice, Louie sat motionless in the booth, watching Huey maneuver the condiments across the map like a game board.

"Here's the plan." Huey grabbed the ketchup bottle. "With Webby's connections at S.H.U.S.H, I'll be able to get an interview with the DASA director. Since his office is right next to the filing room, I'll try to keep him occupied while Dewey sneaks Webby in a janitor cart. Louie, it's your job to talk up the receptionist so that Dewey and Webby can get past undetected, got it?"

Louie yawned, stretching out and sinking into the booth.

"Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, schmooze the receptionist or whatever. Just as long as you get the records," he mumbled, folding his hands behind his head.

"Good. I think this should work. With Webby's expertise, Louie's talent for distraction, and my planning skills, it should be a cinch… I mean, relatively speaking. This is still DASA we're talking about."

"Ahem, you forgot to mention my superb acting skills." Dewey raised his chin and crossed his arms.

Huey heaved a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. "Of course, and Dewey's ability to push a cart around in a hat."

"Aaaaaand jumper with my name on it."

Webby cringed. "Well, actually, it may not have your name on it, Dew." She pulled the disguise out of a duffle bag. "You get to be-"

"Melroy Jenkins?! Well that's a dumb name." Dewey scrunched up his beak. "No. My character needs a different name."

"It happens to be the name of our janitor at S.H.U.S.H. so be nice."

"But my character is a misunderstood skateboarder slash street artist who had to take the job as a janitor to pay for art school so that he could fulfill his mother's dying wish… for him to be the famous graffiti artist that she always knew he could be." He stared off at the highway through a dirty window, all dramatic like, before turning back to Webby. "Melroy Jenkins is not his name. Besides, Jenkins is the last name of my arch nemesis as a kid, remember him? Timmy Jenkins… what a self-involved jerk."

Webby shrugged with a small smile as she stuffed the jumper back in the duffle bag. "Well, that's a shame. I guess I'll have to find someone else who's willing to play the role of Melroy Jenkins, the janitor who sneaks me into DASA headquarters undercover. Where can I find your friend Timmy? If he has the last name already, I'm sure he'll fit the role perfectly."

Dewey squeezed his fist around the bottle of tabasco sauce. After several moments and a silent exchange of glances, he groaned and held out his hands. "Give me the duffle bag."

Webby beamed with a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she handed Dewey the bag over the table. "That's the spirit!"

As Huey began to walk through the DASA operation again, Louie stared down at the salt shaker, jelly packet, tabasco sauce, and ketchup all spread out across the map. I better pack some popcorn. This is going to be a complete disaster.