by Julie Bihn
Chapter 4: A Betrayal
Shadow's landing was closer to a crash than anything else. He tried to touch down lightly, but the landing gear didn't stop, and the plane went straight into the popsicle-stick door, finally stopping with its nose jammed halfway through the doorway. Shadow managed to climb over the dashboard of the plane and slide down into the house. He ran to the door of Gadget's bedroom and knocked.
"Miss Hackwrench, you need to get out of here!" After no one answered, Shadow knocked again, then opened the door. Gadget wasn't in her room. Was he too late? Suddenly, he heard the noise of a sputtering hair dryer. Following it, he soon found himself in Gadget's workshop. Gadget was there, dressed in her familiar lavender overalls again, and working too intently on the hair dryer to notice as her visitor came in.
"Miss Hackwrench!" he shouted a few times, louder each time he spoke. In frustration, he cried, "Gadget!"
The inventor looked up, and quickly turned the hair dryer off. "Hi, Shadow," she replied. "Thanks for that medicine--I feel a lot better."
"Miss Hackwrench--"
"You can call me Gadget," she interrupted.
"Gadget--"
"Unless you don't feel comfortable. I mean, I'd guess I'm only a few years older than you, but no one's really called me Miss Hackwrench too many times, unless it was to flatter me when they were older than I was or something, but maybe that was just--"
"Gadget!" Shadow cried. "You need to leave your house," he continued, urgently.
"Why?" asked Gadget, already following Shadow out of her workshop. Before Shadow had a chance to reply, Gadget saw the Ranger Plane poking through the door. "What's that doing here? Didn't the other Rangers take it when they left?"
"I flew it here," Shadow said hurriedly.
"Then where's the rest of the team?" Gadget asked.
"They got caught by Fat Cat." Shadow looked at the floor for a moment, then met Gadget's gaze. The inventor's eyes opened wide in shock.
"What? Are they all right?"
For some reason, Shadow was surprised to see the look of intense concern in her eyes, and he forgot the cool, ambiguous answers he had come up with to tell Gadget on the way to her house. "Yeah, they're fine! Fat Cat said he wouldn't eat them until he caught you. That's why you have to leave!"
Gadget stared at him for a second. "How--how do you know what Fat Cat said?"
Unable to think of a better response, Shadow mumbled, "I...was...there..."
"*Why?*"
Shadow finally said, "I'm sure they'll be fine!"
Gadget looked at him suspiciously. "How do you *know?*" she asked with pain in her voice. After a moment, she asked, "Why are you here?"
"To get you to leave! Fat Cat sent someone here to get you!"
"Why do you know so much about him?" Gadget asked, sounding curious. "Are you helping him?"
Shadow's silence spoke for him.
"You are! Did you lead the other Rangers to Fat Cat?"
"No!" Shadow shouted. "Samantha did!"
"Did you help?"
"All I did was pay her!" Shadow blurted out.
Gadget stared at him, and narrowed her eyes in disgust. Shadow knew she was too angry for words, and was almost afraid that she'd spit on him, or slap him. "You...you...I can't believe..."
"Gadget, I'm *sorry,*" Shadow said in a low voice, looking at the floor.
"Why did you do it?"
Shadow shook his head, not raising his eyes. "I didn't want to, but I needed money. You can't understand what it's like. To spend your life alone, with no one who cares if you live or die, without even parents..."
"My parents are dead!" Gadget cried. "That's no reason to hand over someone's friends to be *eaten*!"
Shadow suddenly realized why Gadget was different than the others--why he hadn't been able to give her to Fat Cat. She did understand what it was like to be left alone in an uncaring world. The other Rangers didn't. And yet, somehow, Gadget had been above stealing, and she still trusted others around her. Gadget was what Shadow could've been, if things had just turned out differently...if he had tried harder.
"Come on, *please*," Shadow pleaded, walking towards the door blocked by the Ranger Plane. "Whether you want to rescue your friends or just *live*, you need to leave before Mittens--" He gasped, looking out the door. There was Mittens, toying with the controls of the Ranger Plane. She had already released its balloon, and, though he was no pilot, Shadow figured it was already broken beyond flight, for the time-being, anyway.
"She's here!" Shadow whispered, turning back to Gadget. The latter glared at him, and walked to the door to see. Sure enough, there was a sleek black cat near the plane, holding on to the tree limb with her back clawed feet.
"Hello," Mittens smiled at her nonchalantly. Gadget quickly backed away from the doorway.
"Shadow," Mittens continued, "I saw you in there! Bring Gadget out here, and maybe our *boss* will still pay you!"
Shadow motioned to Gadget. "If you go with us, it'll be easy to take Fat Cat by surprise," he whispered.
Gadget looked angry. "You want me to trust you? Do you think I'm *stupid*?" she whispered fiercely. "You'd probably turn me in exchange for...for a broken worm gear or something!"
Shadow looked down; he didn't know how much a worm gear was worth, let alone a broken one, but was able to guess what Gadget meant. "I...I didn't know it'd be like this..."
"You didn't know I'd be upset when you gave my teammates--my *friends*--to a cat who wants them all dead?"
Shadow turned away, looking down. When he had been watching and researching the Rescue Rangers, he had figured that Gadget was the deepest member of the group; the others seemed simple, and almost one-dimensional to him. Yet Gadget obviously saw something in each of them. Something worthwhile. He decided he'd need to save Gadget's life four times to make up for causing the deaths of her four friends--a life for a life, so to speak. But so far, the only thing putting her life in danger was his deal with Fat Cat. The cat had asked Max the dog to bring the Rangers back, dead or alive, when he thought Shadow wasn't working quickly enough. Shadow hadn't really saved Gadget's life, but merely restored it--it was his fault she had been in trouble! The odds of him actually finding four independent occasions to save her, just to make things even, were slim to none. Even though he wasn't fond of the other Rangers, he knew he had to help Gadget save them, or his conscience would never be clear of their deaths. But how could he get her to trust him again...?
Shadow quickly slipped out of his jacket. Holding it by the collar, he handed it to Gadget. "Here," he said. "Take it."
Gadget shook her head. "I don't want your silly coat."
"It's not silly!" Shadow said defensively. He shook his head, then spoke softly. "I know you don't want to trust me. I just took your friends from you. And I'm sorry, I swear. Look, I've had this jacket since I was little. I keep everything important I have in it. I..." He glanced up at Gadget, who was still angry but also a bit interested. Shadow continued swiftly, thrusting the jacket into her paws. "I don't have any friends to lose--this jacket's all I've got. I want you to take the most important thing to me until we can get the things most important to *you* back."
Gadget was almost speechless. She had guessed that Shadow was really fond of his black jacket, and he sounded sincere. She slowly put the jacket on. "One more chance," she said seriously. "But if you even *think* about hurting the others again, I'll..." She shook her head.
Shadow sighed and smiled a little, nervously. "Thank you," he said. "You can trust me."
Gadget shook her head once, then seriously whispered, "Come with me to the other door. I'm still fixing the 'Wing, but we can try to make a run for it. " She tried the mailbox door, but it wouldn't open. She examined the door's seams. "We're glued in!" she exclaimed, alarmed.
"Could we get out a window?" Shadow asked. They looked around and saw that every window in the room was covered up by a sheet of glass crazy-glued over the frame. Gadget and Shadow futilely tried to push the glass off.
"Help me check the rest of the windows," whispered Gadget to Shadow.
"You'll find they're all stuck," Mittens said coolly. "There's only one way out, and you'll find I'm guarding it. Shadow, if you come out now, maybe the boss won't eat you like he said he would."
"What?" Shadow asked in spite of himself. His genuine surprise and anger amazed Gadget, and made her almost pity him, even if a double-cross was technically what he deserved.
Mittens smiled. "I suppose Fat Cat didn't *tell* you, but he wasn't going to *pay* you at all. He's going to *eat* you."
Shadow stared, shocked, at the doorway.
"That's the problem with bad guys," Gadget whispered. "You can never trust them."
"Gadget," Shadow said sincerely, looking at her, with pained eyes. "I'm so sorry I betrayed your friends..."
Gadget shuddered briefly, remembering again that her closest friends were trapped, and could be killed at any time. She blinked a few times, then, with a determined look on her face, whispered, "We'll get 'em back--come on."
Gadget led Shadow to the hallway, out of sight of the front door. She quickly opened a door and walked down a long staircase, not looking behind her to see that Shadow was following. It took a couple minutes for them to reach the end of the stairs, and Gadget stepped into the Rangers' garage, then quickly and carefully tried the garage door at the foot of the tree. She opened it a crack to make sure it wasn't stuck, and motioned to the Ranger Skate, the only vehicle down there at the time. "Get in."
Shadow silently obeyed, and Gadget threw a helmet at him while he put on his seat belt. She put one on herself, and quickly opened the door. She jumped in the Ranger Skate and started it, buckling her seat belt as the fan started to turn. Gadget drove the vehicle as quickly as it would go, out of the grass of the park and onto the sidewalk, and then out into the city. She kept her eyes focused ahead of her, but Shadow glanced back behind them. He sucked in his breath.
"The cat's following us!"
"How fast?" Gadget asked.
"She's walking pretty quick--she's gaining on us."
Gadget cringed. "We need a plan." Thinking quickly, she turned to Shadow. "Take the wheel."
"But I don't know how to--"
"You drove well enough when you took me home."
"Do you *trust* me to?" Shadow asked, his voice low.
Gadget looked over at him for a second before answering. "Yes," she said simply, to Shadow's surprise. Gadget unbuckled her seat belt and went to the fan in the back of the Ranger Skate. Shadow slid into Gadget's seat, caught the wheel, and managed to steer fairly well, though the vehicle was going at its maximum speed.
Gadget rummaged through the pockets of Shadow's coat, searching for his rubber gloves. Fumbling, she cut her finger on something sharp. She carefully pulled the item out, thinking it was a knife, and was surprised to see that it was a fragment from a mirror, perhaps a poor mouse's switchblade. She put it back and found the gloves in another pocket. She put them on and disconnected the wires that linked the battery to the fan. The fan blades slowed to a stop.
""Gadget, what are you doing?" Shadow cried, glancing back from the driver's seat.
As Mittens drew nearer, Gadget whispered, "When I say go, run for your life."
Shadow gave Gadget a doubting glance, but undid his seat belt.
Gadget bent down and pulled off a metal bar from the framework of the Ranger Skate. She pushed it through the cage that surrounded the fan, lodging it between the blades. Then, she reconnected the wires, awkwardly. As Mittens approached, Gadget readied herself, and when the cat was only a foot or two away, Gadget pulled the bar out and shouted, "Run!"
The battery had been connected backwards, and the fan, which was up to full speed but had been held back by the piece of metal, powered the Ranger Skate backwards to hit Mittens square in the nose. Surprised and a bit hurt--the cage hadn't protected the tip of her nose from the spinning blades--Mittens let out a pained yowl, and overturned the skate viciously with her paw. Shadow and Gadget weren't in it, though, and when Mittens finally regained her wits, they were nowhere to be seen.
*****
"I don't like this place," said Shadow, breathing hard with exhaustion and looking around him when they finally got far enough away from Mittens to be confident she wouldn't find them. The room was filled with long wooden benches leading up to the front, where the raised podium was all but obscured by the light coming from the huge stained-glass window behind it. Not only were they in a church, but it was one of the beautiful old-time churches, the kind which made people feel like mice and mice feel like ants.
"It's not like you're gonna get struck dead in here. I've already forgiven you--I'm sure that if you asked God--"
"I know! He helped me rescue *you*!" Shadow whispered fiercely.
Suddenly, one of the large double doors in the main entrance of the church opened slightly, and a scared, dirty little girl came in.
"Please...help me..." she said.
Neither Gadget nor Shadow knew who was the man who appeared almost out of nowhere to answer the girl--probably a priest or deacon or something.
He put his arm around the girl and led her into another room. "Don't worry, honey. Everything will be all right." Shadow looked after them, his eyes open wide, almost longingly. After a few seconds, he glanced over at Gadget and turned away, ashamed. Gadget just looked at him.
"Are you all right?" she finally asked.
Shadow looked at the ground, turning pink. "Yeah," he said. "I just wonder...if I had asked for help...I don't think anyone would've cared."
"There's *always* people who care," Gadget answered, touching Shadow's arm. "You just have to find them. Or let them find you."
A while later, a door opened, and the little girl and the man with her came out. The girl was now clean, wearing nicer clothes, and eating a sandwich.
"Your aunt will be here soon, Laura," the man said, smiling at her. The girl nodded, seeming comforted. She looked down and saw Gadget and Shadow. She shied back, scared.
"Mouses!" she cried.
Gadget and Shadow froze, and, as the man bent down to look at them, they ran and hid under a pew.
"It's all right," the man said calmly and quietly, addressing the mice as he slowly approached them. "I won't hurt you." Sympathetically, he looked down at the scared creatures and said, "I'll bet you two are hungry. Laura, would you give them some of your sandwich?"
The girl was trembling. "Laura, they're scared of you too." The man took a piece of Laura's sandwich and dropped it in front of the mice. Gadget was trusting, and, more importantly, hungry, not having eaten that day, so she picked up the crumb.
"You hungry?" she asked Shadow.
Laura gasped. "They're squeaking!"
"They're talking," the man corrected. "Watch."
Gadget sniffed at the food. "It's peanut butter and jelly. You want some?"
"What kind of jelly?"
"Gadget took a bite and answered with her mouth full. "Grape."
Shadow looked up suspiciously at the man. "I suppose he wouldn't poison a little girl..." Gadget pulled the piece of sandwich into two, and they both ate, looking up every so often at the humans. The mice seemed fairly relaxed. Laura was amazed by all of this, as if the mice were robots or dolls.
"Can I pet one?" she asked.
"You'd better not," the man answered. "They're wild animals--you don't want to scare them."
Gadget smiled appreciatively at the man. Even though she liked kids, she didn't usually like being petted too long by complete strangers, especially when children tended to pull her hair or squeeze her too hard. Shadow was just surprised that a person would actually respect their right to exist for something other than human pleasure. It was just as well; he probably would have bitten the girl had she tried to touch him.
After watching the mice for another minute, the man said, "Come on, Laura. Let's go outside and wait for your aunt."
"Bye," Laura waved to the mice. Gadget waved back, and the girl laughed, obviously delighted. The two humans left.
Gadget smiled at Shadow. "Wasn't that *cute*?"
Shadow shrugged, raising an eyebrow, and spoke with his mouth full of sandwich. "Sure. Not that I enjoy being put on display like a circus freak."
"Hey," said Gadget, "maybe that girl won't set any mouse traps, at least. It's a start." They chewed in silence for a few minutes, having a little trouble swallowing the sticky peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Finally, Gadget said, "What are we going to do now?"
Shadow shrugged again. "I don't know. What?"
Gadget leaned against a leg of the pew and thought. Sounding very nearly annoyed, she asked Shadow, "Where are the other Rangers?"
"In Fat Cat's hideout," he answered without hesitation. "At least, they were there the last I checked," he corrected.
Sighing, Gadget said, "I'm so worried about them...what if they're... not alive?"
"I'm sure they're fine," Shadow said. "He wants to get you all together before he does anything, you know."
Gadget sat down, leaning against the pew leg, and saw that her paws had jelly on them. She absently wiped them off on the pantleg of her overalls.
"I hope you're right," she sighed.
*****
Mittens entered Fat Cat's office via the elevator. Her natural good looks were now marred by a bandage on her nose. She glanced at Fat Cat, who grinned at her, leaving his prisoners to meet her.
"Mittens, my dear, where did you put the mice you found for me?"
Mittens narrowed her eyes, motioning at her bandage. "I didn't get them."
The Rangers all breathed a sigh of relief, but Fat Cat was angry. "What?" he cried.
"They got away. Shadow helped her. He knows you're not going to pay him, and he helped her escape."
Fat Cat asked, "Where are they?"
"I don't know--their car hit me, and I lost track of them."
"Well, go find them!" Fat Cat was less than sympathetic.
Mittens's mouth grimaced as she thought for a moment. Suddenly, her eyes got big, and she looked at Fat Cat sadly.
"But, my dear, I tried *so* hard! They were just too much for someone like *me*..." She hid her face in her paws and started to make sobbing noises.
Fat Cat very nearly lost his cool. "Mittens! It's all right! Don't cry!" He waited a moment before continuing, now sounding more in control. "Mittens, let's go take a little break. There's a show in my casino in a few minutes--let's go watch it. Who knows? When we come back up here, maybe we'll catch those two trying to rescue their friends."
Mittens smiled, deep in thought. "Yes, perhaps..." The two cats left the room. The Rescue Rangers looked at each other through their jelly jars on the floor, then, almost immediately, they all started talking. No one could understand what anyone else was saying, though; the echoes inside the glass jars were too loud. Soon, all the Rangers stopped speaking.
Chip took charge and shouted, "How are we going to get out of here?" His own call answered itself in the jelly jar prison, but the other Rangers managed to decipher what he was saying.
Dale shrugged. Standing, Monty yelled, "We're gonna break these bloomin' jars!" Without hesitating, he got a running start and threw his shoulder, with the full pressure of all his weight, against the wall of the jar. The jar tipped easily, but didn't break.
"Unscrew the lid," squeaked Zipper, but no one could hear him. Chip independently came up with the same idea and offered it.
Monty tried to remove the lid, but couldn't get a grip on either the floor or the top of the lid. He couldn't even fit a finger through the lid's miniscule air holes, so he had no leverage whatsoever.
"It's no use," sighted Monty, leaning back against the wall of the jar. This set the container rolling. He hit Dale's jar, which fell, then started rolling as well. Dale stuck to the sugary walls of his jar as he rolled and, when the two jars came to a stop against a wall, he was upside-down, stuck to the top side of the glass container. It was several seconds before he fell down to the bottom.
"Dale! Take the lid off your jar!" Monty, Chip, and Zipper all shouted. Dale peeled himself off the floor of his jar and tried to unscrew the lid from the inside. His sticky paws adhered to the sticky lid and after about a minute, the lid was off.
Dale immediately went to help his friends, and none of the Rangers saw Fat Cat's elevator door open. Suddenly, Dale found himself in Mittens's claws.
"Trying to escape?" she asked, grinning cruelly at Dale.
Monty rolled the jelly jar he was in at Mittens, who easily dodged him. Then, putting Dale into her mouth, she picked Monterey's jar up with both paws and placed it in a cardboard box. She walked back over to Chip and Zipper, then grimaced, and spit Dale out with disgust.
"I hate grape jelly!" she cried.
Chip and Zipper, who could see the proceedings, told Dale to run. Dale refused to leave his friends, though, and looked around for a way to rescue them.
Mittens glared at the chipmunk, then chased him around Fat Cat's office. She didn't catch him, though, and Dale climbed onto Fat Cat's desk. He found a sharp letter opener and picked it up, ready to attack Mittens. The cat narrowed her eyes at Dale and picked him up, taking the weapon from him, and speaking angrily.
"Perhaps you do not understand my intentions," she hissed. She pressed the button near the door the Rangers had entered. The door opened, and Mittens threw Dale through it. Dale screamed on his way down the stairs, and landed outside Fat Cat's office.
Chip was confused; his expression clearly showed that. Why would she let one of the Rangers escape? Mittens smiled, then put her face against Chip's jar sweetly. "He'll do more to hinder your friend than help her, I believe. But you don't need to be telling anyone about this." She set his jar in the box next to Monterey Jack's, and then placed Zipper's there as well. She kept a watchful eye on the box and, though none of the Rangers could see this from their box, she reclined in Fat Cat's chair behind his desk, filing her claws with his letter-opener and smiling to herself.