The Tillamook Escapade
Act VI - Catching The Arrow
Four bone-weary rodents dragged through the superstructure of the hanger to the field office. Each of them flopped in a chair and sat unmoving for several minutes.
“Okay,” Gary said. “Does everyone feel a bit decompressed?” No one answered, but they made an effort to move. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Gordo, call in what we found ‘up the string.’ G.G. and I will start a net search on...”
“On what?” G.G. asked.
Gary rubbed his eyes hard. “I don’t know. What could be carrying the staph bacteria that late in the production process?”
“As Chip often says,” Gadget replied, “we have to use deduction. Eliminate possibilities until we at least narrow it down.”
“Good plan.” Gary nodded. “We’ll hack into the factory records for anything that’s changed in the last thirty days. Machinery, personnel, suppliers, whatever.”
“I’ll advise the higher-ups,” Gordon said. “We can warn rodents and maybe arrange to intercept future shipments.”
“I’d like to undertake some deduction of my own,” Gadget said. “I want to cross-check my analyzers accuracy. Will anyone need the kitchen?”
G.G. rolled her eyes. “I think a baked Brazil nut would come out tasting like cheddar right now.” The guys nodded in agreement.
“I’ll just need it for a short time.” Gadget picked up her analyzer and bag of samples and went into the tiny kitchen as the others set about their own tasks.
Gadget laid out her experiment swiftly. She prepared samples of both contaminated and uncontaminated medium cheddar as well as some longer-aged extra-sharp cheddar. She carefully cleaned and sterilized samples of the original packaging to duplicate original conditions as closely as possible, then sealed the different cheeses in the different wrappers. She decided a couple of hours should be enough to let the experiment set. If her device were doing its job, only one set of cheeses would give a reaction. The one’s she knew to be contaminated from the beginning.
When she left the kitchen, Gadget found G.G. alone at the computer, just closing out the web browser.
“Where did the fellas go?”
“Showers. We tapped into a water pipe down by the cafe. Cold, but effective.”
Gadget folded her arms across her chest and regarded the red squirrel with narrowed eyes. “All right, lady. Name him.”
G.G. eyed her just as suspiciously. “Name who?”
“Whoever I have to kill to get a bath.”
“What makes you think there’s a bath to be had?”
“You said cold showers. You wouldn’t be here for long before you rigged up a hot bath somewhere. You enjoy your pleasures too much.”
“Busted,” G.G. acknowledged with a smile. “Come on. Let’s get out of these sweaty drawers and I’ll show you.”
Each snugly wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, Gadget followed G.G. through the hanger superstructure, across the highest part of the arch and to a conveyor lift on the far side. A brief trip down and a short walk brought them to the restoration shop. G.G. showed the way to a point inside the wall where one of the hanger windows had been covered over by the shop’s wooden wall. G.G. started a Zippo lighter that served as the water heater as well as the light source and Gadget smiled at what she saw. A large tub fashioned from a deep hollow in the bottom-most structural beam. The water pipes fed it from underneath and there was a pair of small stools next to the tub.
“A Japanese bath,” Gadget purred. “I knew you had good taste.”
“This is my biggest secret. Well, the biggest one I keep here.”
The water was steaming within minutes and G.G. set aside her robe, drew a bucket of water from the tub, sat on a stool and began to soap herself vigorously. Gadget followed suit.
“This is the right way to end the day,” G.G. said. “Let the Scruffies have the cold showers. They could use ‘em.”
“I don’t know. They don’t seem to be the cold shower type to me. Of course, they’re men of the world, educated and sophisticated. They’ve probably met all kinds of girls. I must seem pretty plain by comparison. Maybe I just don’t interest them.”
'Don’t put yourself down. You have a fine feminine figure, a beautiful face, the prettiest eyes and I’ll bet you’ve never cut your hair. They’ve noticed you. And you’re certainly not ignorant or naive. You know enough about the world.”
“Just how do you mean I know ‘enough’ about the world?” she asked suspiciously.
“Well, for instance, why male squirrels always wear pants.”
“Why do they? Most male rodents don’t.”
“Aww, you know. Everybody knows”
“I thought it was tradition.”
“That’s what they say,” G.G. snickered.
“You mean, that isn’t the reason?”
“You don’t know?”
“Well, umm, what’s to know?” Gadget said, trying desperately to seem blasé.
“You don’t know!” G.G. squeaked with delight. “You’re riding around with two of them and you don’t know!?”
“All right! There’s a whole lot I don’t know! What is it about male squirrels and pants?”
G.G. sing-songed, “I ain’t gonna tell you.”
“I’m not sure I want to know now!”
“You can’t help it. Your curiosity’s aroused. You’ll have to ask one of the guys. And since you won’t believe a word of it, he’ll have to demonstrate for you.”
“Demonstrate what?” Gadget's apprehension was growing.
“Let’s just say female rodents aren’t the only ones with pheromone troubles, or that ‘visual effects’ problem, with the opposite sex.”
It finally sank in. “Oh, my gosh!”
“Trust me, you’ll never regret it.” G.G. said with a sly smile. “Just be sure you pick the fella you like the best before you ask.”
“Oh, no! Nonononono! I’d never in a million years...” Then Gadget caught G.G.’s widening smile. “Ooooo, you’re just making fun of me!”
“Well, I’m having fun,” she said gleefully. “C’mon. It’s just a tradition.”
“Is that the truth?”
“No.”
“G.G.! Owowowow!” Gadget had reached over her shoulder to scrub her back, and her shoulder wasn’t having it. “I must have landed harder than I thought.”
“Allow me.” G.G. took a soft bristle brush and scrubbed Gadget’s back. Gadget closed her eyes and enjoyed the rare luxury.
“Gary has always been polite and thoughtful with me,” Gadget said earnestly. “A perfect gentleman. What did he do to make you hate him so much?”
“Hate him?” G.G. sounded startled. “He and Gordo are the two finest people I know. I couldn’t hate him.”
“Then why all the arguing?” Gadget pleaded. “I know I shouldn’t pry, but it really bothers me when my friends fight.”
G.G. poured several ladles of hot water from the bucket over Gadget’s shoulders to rinse away the suds. “You already count me as a friend?” she asked softly. “I warned you about getting too close to any of us, especially those two. Oh, they’re both great guys. The best. If this were the tenth century they’d be riding around in bumper-chrome armor rescuing poor damsels like you and me from dragons. But, Gadget, they are just as impossible to reach as Lancelot and Galahad were then. This work takes a tremendous amount of dedication. And it doesn’t leave room for anything -- or anyone -- else.”
Gadget stood and took the brush. “Your turn.” G.G. pivoted on the stool and Gadget soaped and scrubbed her back. “I didn’t come here husband hunting. I’m here to help those Scruffy Guys do something about this poison in our food before anyone else dies.” She finished by giving G.G.’s thickly furred tail a brisk scrub as well, then rinsed her by upending the bucket across her shoulders.
“What we intend doesn’t always come to pass,” G.G. said as she headed to the tub. She lowered herself in and settled her head against the rim. Gadget flipped her hair on top of her head and wrapped it in a towel before joining her.
“Did Gary do something to hurt you?”
“I suppose we hurt each other. A few years ago, Gary and I were on a mission when our chopper went down in the Cascade Mountains. Winter, ten-thousand feet, high winds, no rescue on the way. It took us four days to get to safety. On the second day I got careless and fell through the ice into a stream. Soaked to the skin. Gary dug a snow cave to get me out of the wind. Do you know how you treat hypothermia in the field?”
“Yes. Two people, one blanket. No clothing.” She felt a little embarrassed just at the thought.
“With Gary, it’s like two blankets. He wrapped his patagium -- that’s the proper name for that gliding cape of his -- and our sleeping bags over us both. He was so warm...” G.G.’s eyes closed as the memories tumbled in on her. “He kept talking to me about, I don’t know, anything. He kept saying he wasn’t going to let me go, that we were going to be all right. I stopped shivering and I finally slept.
“When I woke up, he was shivering. It was like I’d drained him of his body heat. I had to do something to get my temperature up.”
She opened her eyes but kept looking toward the ceiling. Gadget realized not all G.G.’s shyness had been lost.
“I have a very strong sense of fantasy, Gadget. So I used it. After a little while, Gary woke up and... Well, he caught me in the act. Just as he is with you, he was a gentleman. He said exactly what you said last night, word for word. ‘Even if romance were on my mind, this wouldn’t be the time for it.’”
“That’s why you were smiling last night,” Gadget responded. “What I said was an echo from the past.”
G.G. nodded. “Gary managed to get a fire going in the morning when the wind died down and dried out my clothes. We almost dragged each other off of the mountain. I was in the hospital for a few days. When I recovered I went looking for him and we... well...”
“Oh.” Gadget said quietly. “You had a... liaison?”
“More like a mid-air collision,” G.G. said. “Gadget, it was insane! It was passionate, warm and soft and intensely physical...” she let out a long sigh. “...And it lasted a month. We just couldn't stay together. There were things I wanted he couldn’t give me. And things he needed that I couldn’t be. In some ways we were just too different. In others, too much alike.”
Her voice was becoming husky from the memory, and she was fighting back her emotions. “Now,” G.G. went on. “Whenever we get close, we start trying to push each other away. We push hard, I guess, because it still hurts.”
G.G. spoke with soft intensity. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you had to watch out for your heart. You can recover pretty quickly from a romantic misstep that’s only physical. When you misstep with your heart, healing can take a long time. I’ve been hurt, it’s true. But I’ve also done the hurting, not that I meant to. And when you hurt someone, it hurts you back. And that kind of pain stays.”
“I don’t have any experience in romance, G.G. I’ve never let
anyone get that close. But I remember something my Dad used to tell me. He said
it was the formula for a happy life:
Sleep like there’s no today,
Eat like there’s no tomorrow,
Dance like there’s no one watching,
And love like you’ve never been hurt.”
“Now, there’s something I’ve never had before,” G.G. said. “Advice it’s not too late to take. And this from someone who says she never let anyone get close.”
“I haven’t.” Gadget said softly. “Not that kind of close.”
“You mean it? Oh, my stars, you’re still...”
“Don’t go making me feel bad about it. I know that you... have experience.”
“Gadget! I’d never make fun of you for that!”
“At least you know means to have someone that close. To have someone you want that close.”
“Ummm, it’s... been more than one.” G.G. confessed.
“Whatever. Even if it ended with being hurt, at least you learned what it is to be loved. To me, it’s all just words.”
“Oh, I’ve learned, all right. I learned waaay too much waaay too early and there’s a whole lot I wish I didn’t know. But you -- you have a chance to not make my mistakes.”
“Mistakes!” Gadget said, distraught. “I think I could stand to make a couple of mistakes! I’m so scared of making a mistake I’m afraid to do anything.”
“That’s something you might have to change. You can't get anywhere being afraid to make a mistake. It's like standing out on a tree limb at night with danger all around you. Someone below, that you don’t know nearly well enough, yells ‘jump!’ And when you're in love, you jump and you hope they'll catch you. You can’t afford to be afraid, because if you don't jump, you'll stay up there alone for the rest of your days.”
“I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t want anyone to get hurt either. I wonder if Chip or Dale will ever want to get closer to me, then I get scared when they try. I can’t tell how either of them feel. I don’t know how I feel.”
“That’s perfectly normal! It’s exactly the way you’re supposed to feel! Scared, excited, anxious, nervous, elated, exasperated, uncertain and hopeful. That’s love!”
“G.G.! I’m not in love with anyone!”
“But you will be. You’re ready, I can tell. There are times I wish I didn’t know it so well. You’ve got a clean start and no hurts in your past to keep you from taking the big chance. That’s something precious I left behind. Something I really regret. Gadget, You can’t imagine how much I wish I were you.”
“G.G., I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“Sounds like it’s you and me against the world.”
“Did you think it wouldn’t be?”
They climbed out of the tub and towelled themselves dry. G.G. felt a pang of envy on seeing that Gadget had the sort of hair that fell into place with little more than a shake of her head.
“You know,” Gadget offered, “I have a big hair dryer at home that makes drying my fur a snap. I could build you one here,” .
“Gadget, is there anything you won’t try to fix?”
“If something isn’t working or could work better, I’ll take a try at fixing it. It’s just the way I am.”
“Well, don’t be in a rush to fix your love life. That can break something you can’t fix. Your heart. You should listen to your heart, but don’t let it drown out your common sense.”
“There, you see? You can give advice it’s not too late to take, too.”
They made the return trip to the office to find Gary and Gordon deeply involved in a web search.
“Ah, there you are,” Gary said. “We may be on to something. Go get dressed and we may have some good news when you get back.”
They hurried to their room and dressed, G.G. in her leather racing suit and Gadget in gray high-top sneakers and a dark blue combat coverall of the type the Scruffies liked for sneaking in the dark.
Gadget stopped in the kitchen to check her experiment. She re-set her analyzer, checked the samples and watched her experiment go terribly wrong. Only the samples that had been contaminated to begin with should have registered positive for the toxin. But several others were giving a positive reaction.
“What’s that face?” Gary said from the door. “You look like you bit into a bad filbert.”
“I don’t know what’s happened. Either my analyzer has made a mess of the measurements, in which case the whole night has been wasted, or something is still alive here.”
“Cross contamination?”
“No. I sterilized everything carefully. Some of the cheese is medium, some extra sharp. It’s aged longer. I don’t get it.”
Gary looked at the samples carefully, then took the corner of one of the plastic sheets and flexed it. “Gadget, this plastic is different than the others. It’s thicker and it feels like it wants to snap. It feels like old plastic that’s been left out in the sun.”
“I took all of it out of the trucks this evening. I was recreating original conditions. Gary, staph is a bacteria. It can’t survive in the plastic.”
“Come on, you two,” G.G. called. “We really do have something.”
They joined Gordon and G.G. in the small office space.
“Have a look,” Gordon said, surrendering the chair in front of the computer monitor. “You had the right idea, Gadget. Only one major thing has changed at the factory in the past month. They’re using a new recloseable plastic package for the sliced medium cheddar. It comes from Grigsby Containers, a company just up the coast in Astoria.”
“Can we find out anything about the structure of the plastic?” Gadget asked.
“I thought you’d ask that.” Gordon indicated the computer screen once more as the information scrolled up. “I broke into Grigsby’s quality control section. They’re using a new PVC materiel from Di-Tetralene Petrochemicals. There’s a molecular chart here.”
The screen showed a complex chain of atoms forming the basic molecules of the plastic. Joined together in near-endless chains, it made up the sheets of plastic that eventually wrapped the cheese for market.
Gadget saw something on the screen and pointed. “What’s this chain here? I thought all the chains were supposed to connect to each other in a polymer. This has a loose end. Anyone know chemistry better than I do? I’m not really up to this.”
“Let me at it,” G.G. moved forward. “Among other things, I make my own explosives.” She took a seat in front of the terminal. “Let me zoom in,” The string grew in size. “This shouldn’t be coiled on itself. It doesn’t help hold the rest of the polymer together. Does this graphic engine have a visual effects tool?”
“Yes. Right edge menu,” Gordon said. G.G. activated it and pulled the graphic of the chain out straight. “That looks awfully familiar.”
Gary pulled a paper out of a folder. “Here’s the chemical breakdown we got on the toxin from Dr. Goldsmith.” He held the paper up to the screen. “Well, it’s a partial match. What would it take to break this molecule off the chain?”
“Sodium chloride,” Gadget said softly, beginning to look pale. “Cheddar is loaded with salt.”
“That would do it,” G.G. agreed. “It would cause the molecule to uncoil and detach. It could then bind to the cheese with all these loose molecular bonds. But that doesn’t seem to...”
“Then a mouse eats the cheese,” Gadget continued, her voice cracking. “Dr. Goldsmith said it was something in the bloodstream that changed it. That’s why there’s no effect on humans. There’s a protein or an enzyme in our blood they don’t have, and that completes the toxin, and we die.”
“Yeah,” Gordon said. “Aimed at us like an arrow. The Doc wasn’t kidding.”
“Oh my gosh!” Gadget gasped, verging on tears.“I had it in my hand at the hospital! How many mice have died just because I didn’t run a test on the plastic?”
“You couldn’t have foreseen this,” G.G. said gently.
“It’s my fault!” Gadget cried. “I should have checked it! I should have done something!”
“Gadget!” Gary grabbed her and caught her face with his hand, forcing her to look at him. “You are not going to take the blame for this! No one could have guessed that the plastic was the culprit! I told you about thinking you have to personally save the world!”
“You’re pinching my cheek,” Gadget said angrily, despite her tears.
“I’ll pinch a lot harder if you don’t pull out of this! We need you too badly to have you emotionally disintegrate. You are not responsible for any harm this has caused. I want you to repeat that back to me.”
Gadget set her jaw. She wasn’t about to say anything.
“I want to hear it from you, Gadget, and I will squeeze you like a set of bagpipes to get it. ‘I am not responsible for any harm this has caused.’”
Gadget sighed and relented. He would squash me, too, she thought. And if he hits my ticklish spots, he could make me say anything. “All right. I am not responsible for any harm this has caused.” Gary released her, but she didn’t draw away from him.
His voice was now gentle and sympathetic. “I should make you write it a hundred times on the side of the hanger so it sinks in. I know it doesn’t help very much, but it’s a start.”
“It does help, though,” Gadget dabbed her eyes. “Even if only a little, it helps.”
G.G. let out a deep sigh now the crisis was past. “Gadget, how’s your chemistry, really? I know these two can’t mix a decent Mai-Tai.”
“I know a bit, but I’m far from a chemist.”
“Stay and let me bounce ideas off you, then. Let the Scrufamundos fix us a midnight snack.”
“You’re talking breakfast, if you check the time,” Gordon said. “And if I remember how thinly stocked this kitchen is, it’s going to take more than chemistry for a decent breakfast. It’ll take wizardry.”
“You’re the one reading Harry Trotter,” Gary reminded him.
Gordon rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Okay. Potions and transmutations, coming right up.”
They worked through the day in the cramped quarters of the field office, Gary and Gordon sending out advisories to various animal agencies warning about the danger, then helping G.G. and Gadget pull together the resources they needed to deal with the lethal plastic. Even though G.G. had the initial idea for dealing with the threat, Gadget had taken the idea and was rapidly turning it into a workable plan. G.G. was increasingly impressed with Gadget’s ability to draw together obscure threads of chemical potential and make rapid headway. Gadget may not be a chemist, G.G. decided, but she certainly was a plain old genius.
Gary checked up on their progress in the afternoon. He peeked over their shoulders and watched the screen for a few moments. The formulae and molecule chains that danced across it made him think it was what Picasso would have done for a screen saver.
“How’s it going?”
“Gadget’s on to something,” G.G. said. “It looks like we can piggy-back on to the toxin if we can break a part of it open without shearing it off the plastic.”
“What are you going to piggy-back?”
“This,” Gadget responded. She clicked on the screen and popped up a fairly simple and short chemical sequence. Gary looked it over and frowned.
“This... looks familiar and unpleasant. Gadget, you’re not going to poison humans just to get their attention, are you?”
“Of course not, Gary! You make it sound like I had an evil twin that had taken over from me.”
“Gadget, you DO have an evil twin.”
“Oh! That’s right!”
As day wore into night, they began to take turns for short naps in order to keep at least one of them on the case at all times. Gary awoke from several hours sleep and tapped on the next door to rouse G.G. She answered at once and opened the door.
“I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“No rush. I know you didn’t want to oversleep.” He looked in the door and saw the other bed. It hadn’t been slept in. “Did Gadget get any sleep?”
“Didn’t she sack out when Gordon did?”
“No. She took a long break, but not long enough for any decent sleep. I’ll check on her.”
Gary found Gadget still at the computer terminal. She sagged in the chair and her eyes were half closed. She was fighting hard to keep them from closing the rest of the way.
“Didn’t you get any sleep?”
“’m okay,” she mumbled.
Gary looked over her shoulder at the screen. “Is ‘ljksddnv nvjfd’ part of a chemical formula?”
“Oh! I just got my fingers misplaced on the keyboard.”
“Three times?”
“I’m okay!”
“You’re going to fall out of that chair. Go to bed!”
“Gary, I have done nothing today but sit on my tail, type and websurf. I’m not tired.”
“The body needs rest, Gadget. The brain needs sleep. You’ve been up since nine o’clock yesterday morning.”
“This is too important. I couldn’t slep if I wanted to.”
“Slep? That’s it, young lady. Bedtime.”
Gary knelt beside her and scooped her out of the chair, catching her under the knees and shoulders and carrying her away. Gadget wasn’t going to go willingly.
“Doggone you, put me down!” She tried to connect with a weak roundhouse left and only grazed his arm.
“You can’t even throw a punch. You are utter and complete toast and you are going to bed for a few hours.”
“Cut it out!” she struggled in his arms ineffectually. “You’re treating me like a baby!”
“You’re acting like a baby. A stubborn little mouseling that won’t take her nap.”
She wasn’t getting anywhere. He was too strong and she was too tired. “Okay," she relented. "An hour.”
“Four hours. You need it.”
“Gar-eee, that’s too long!”
“Four hours, and I mean sleeping. Otherwise, I’ll hold your nose and poke a pill down your throat that’ll flatten you for twenty-four hours.”
Gary pushed her room’s door open with his toe and set her on the bed. When he knelt to get her sneakers off, she swatted him and tried to push him away. He responded by simply standing up while still holding her ankles and dumping her backwards on her bed. He popped her sneakers off and dragged the blankets loose from under her, then tucked them up under her neck, effectively immobilizing her.
“Two hours,” she pleaded.
“Four.” he insisted. "And if you start wandering I’ll tuck you in with a staple gun.”
Gadget’s eyes closed almost at once and her breathing slowed. Gary gave her blankets an extra tuck around her neck and gently brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Her fur was as fine and soft as an artist’s new brush. Gary marveled at how Gadget had taken charge of the operation and kept them on course when he and G.G. argued. She had stopped the cheese delivery, succeeding at what he had thought not only impractical, but insanely dangerous. She had not only attached herself to the team, she had fit in perfectly.
He heard G.G. sniffle behind him. He turned and realized she had been there all along. She stood in the darkness with her arms hugging herself and the saddest expression he had ever seen on her face.
“I remember when you used to touch me like that,” she said. Then she flinched, realizing she’d opened herself up for a stinging retort.
It never came.
“I remember, too,” Gary said quietly.
He stepped over to her. They took each other’s arms in their hands, not an embrace, but an awkward nearness. Neither of them could draw closer, but neither could they pull away.
“This can’t work,” G.G. whispered painfully. “Any more
than the last time.”
“I know. But we... What are we going to do?”
Gadget spoke sleepily from her bed. “So it doesn’t work. If you can't love each other, try being friends.” A moment later, she was snoring softly.
G.G. smiled at her timely interruption. “I was right. She’ll try to fix anything.”
“Be careful,” Gary said. “She is a genius, you know.”
Gary led the way back to the office. They stopped close enough to touch, but the distance between them was greater than their arms or hearts could bridge.
“We never really had a chance, did we?” G.G. asked.
“Maybe not. But maybe Gadget had the right idea.”
He put out his hand. “I’m called Gary. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She smiled and shook his hand. “I’m Gloria, but everyone calls me G.G. Nice to meet you.”
It was far from a perfect solution. Perhaps the hardest thing in all of life was to go from being lovers to being friends. But this was not a new beginning. It was a good-bye they had never managed to say.
* * *