The three searched the Klaw as quickly and discreetly as they could, but they hadn’t found any sight, smell, or sound of the captive cats. They were now on the empty bridge, and there was nothing they could do, “….Where in perdition does he keep everything?”
“All that’s here is this,” Lisa said as she gestured to the room, and the only thing that seemed out of place was a large wardrobe. All three of their instincts felt there was something strange about it, but it was just a wardrobe and the cats couldn’t have all fit inside…
Tepic looked out the windows, whistling, “Goodness….. never seen quite so many air kraken, wonder what’s up with em…. errrr…ALL the air kraken seem ter be comin THIS way!”
“We’ll have to find them before they-” Arnold sniffed as he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before, behind the wardrobe. He pounced suddenly and looked underneath the wardrobe’s legs at the source of the scent. “Something’s there…Tepic, your side!”
“What we got here? A black an’ white vole?” Tepic asked as he knelt down on the other side, grinning. Lisa watched them and sighed, missing her feline sense of smell.
He hoped that it was a vole, then they could ask it where the cats were being held. Arnold reached out his paw and grabbed the funny creature, which wasn’t a rodent at all. The thing warked several times in terror, and when he took it out he found himself facing a tiny penguin…
“Well done, Mr Arnold!” Tepic cheered as he came around, and Lisa looked on curiously, “What is it?”
“It’s….a penguin…” Arnold said as he held onto the struggling creature, as it stared at him in terror. He looked up at Tepic, “I…don’t suppose you speak penguin?”
The young boy looked unsure, “Errrrr…… no…… birds is more a cat speciality…..” He turned to Felisa, who was now biting her lip.
A crash against the window made them jump as shards of glass sprayed the cabin. A metal raptor screeched as it clutched at the side of the Klaw, and then was pulled the rest of the way out by the kraken tentacle that had thrown it through in the first place.
His heart beating rapidly he turned to the bird yowling, “If you don’t want to be eaten….tell us where to find the cats!”
The penguin warked at Arnold in penguinese, and he was surprised that he caught even a word of it. Apparently at least one of the hundreds of voles Tepic had given him might have tried to speak with the penguins in the aquarium…but even then it was mostly unintelligible. “….did anyone catch half of that? All I really got was ‘egg’.”
Tepic shook his head, “‘fraid not……” Lisa Fargazer frowned, looking and listening to the penguin intently.
Crashes from above made them jump again as they all looked about nervously, the tesla guns firing repeatedly as kraken shrieked in the air around them. Arnold frowned down at the strange penguin, wondering what it was doing here, but at this point they needed a guide and he was desperate enough to threaten it for help even if it was just Dr. Dinosaurs next meal. He squeezed it slightly and yowled, “Just show us! Hurry!”
***
Lisa peered around the corner of the open door of the wardrobe, and stepped forward into the strange room inside the wardrobe which seemed to have no exit. Confused, she looked around. There was a black, metal stand in the middle of the room, festooned with blinking lights and buttons. A rhythmic, metallic clanging issued from the stand; Lisa had the feeling it would drive her crazy if she had to stay there for too long. “Now what?” she asked.
Tepic shouted as he looked about, “Blimey, it’s bigger in here!”
“No it’s not,” Arnold argued as he started to test the walls for an opening, while keeping one hand squeezed tightly around the penguin.
“Yes it is, it’s only a small wardrobe, an’ this is….” Tepic gestured grandly, his arms stretched out to either side to the walls covered with metal and strange blue circles, “Bigger!”
The excited urchin looked around the room and pointed, “There’s a map of the city…and look at all these buttons…….”
“Don’t press buttons!” Arnold yelled in horror. “Buttons are not your friends!”
Tepic moved his hands back quickly… “I wasn’t!”
The source of the banging worried them, until they noted a maintenance drone hard at work, ignoring them as it checked wires underneath the console.
Arnold shook his head and asked the penguin to lead them again. Following it’s warks and pointing they found another room which was just as big as the last one. As he looked at the immense space inside the cat came to a conclusion, “…it’s not bigger on the inside…but we have been shrunk.” He was willing to accept that when they walked into here they were hit with some strange shrink ray stolen from Avariel or Dr. Obolensky.
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