The Mouse Watch, Volume 1

by J. J. Gilbert

  Bernie couldn’t help feeling a wave of satisfaction as she realized that Jarvis may have been an ace code-breaker—but he was afraid of the dark. It must have been true—she was the brave one.

  “You feel the walls on your side and I’ll check mine,” said Bernie. “And try to be brave. We’re supposed to be Mouse Watch agents, right?”

  “R-right,” Jarvis said hoarsely.

  There were a few anxious moments of silence as they both searched, feeling around the walls in the pitch-black and hoping to find something. At last, Bernie let out a loud “HA!” as her paw closed around the familiar shape of a door handle.

  She pushed it open.

  Bernie found herself back in the huge airport hangar room that she’d first entered when disembarking from the drone. Only this time, instead of the hubbub of activity that had greeted her before, the sight was completely different.

  Every desk was empty.

  A dim red emergency light illuminated the entire floor.

  And she could tell in an instant that something was, indeed, terribly, terribly wrong.

  Bernie took in the vacant desks, the scattered papers, the numerous laptop computers in sleep mode and wondered what might have happened to prompt such a thorough and complete evacuation. And, more importantly to her, why had she and Jarvis been abandoned in the process? Wouldn’t Alph or someone, anyone, at least have remembered that she and Jarvis were in the simulation room and sent an agent to let them know what was happening?

  “Ummmm…it looks like everyone suddenly left in the middle of what they were doing,” said Jarvis. “Something horrible must have happened.”

  Bernie glanced up at him and noticed how anxious he looked. Beneath his flop of blond hair, his brow was furrowed and he was wringing his paws.

  “I guess we should look and see if anybody’s around,” said Bernie. She immediately set off to the nearest glass cubicle and headed for the laptop within. She observed that whoever had occupied this particular desk had left so quickly that whatever they were coding was partially done and that a half-eaten sandwich was left sitting on a plate.

  Must have been something really bad to leave a perfectly good sandwich, she thought. “An attack of some kind?” she wondered.

  “What’d you say?” asked Jarvis.

  “That cheese sandwich is half-eaten and the coffee in the cup is still warm,” said Bernie, touching the paper cup. Jarvis tapped the space bar on the mouse-size laptop, and a log-in screen came up.

  “Great. Password-protected,” she said. “So much for that idea.”

  “Hang on,” said Jarvis, suddenly interested. Bernie watched as the lanky rat looked over the computer carefully, noting the serial number on the bottom of it and the design.

  “Hmm. It’s a two-terabyte peanut drive with an integrated mousewheel graphics card. Nice,” he observed. Bernie noted with interest that all of the anxiety Jarvis had been feeling seemed to have disappeared. He was completely engrossed in the machine and talking half to Bernie and half to himself.

  “But there’s a design flaw,” he said happily. “Watch.”

  Jarvis’s nimble rat fingers flew over the keyboard, filling the password box with a series of numbers, letters, and symbols that went by so fast Bernie didn’t even have time to register them. After a few seconds, he punched the ENTER key, and the laptop, with an affirming chime, let him in.

  “Wow,” said Bernie. She couldn’t help feeling impressed.

  “Oh. Um, it’s nothing really,” he said awkwardly. “Occam’s razor.”

  “Acorn razor? What does shaving have to do with anything?” asked Bernie.

  “Not a razor like shaving,” said Jarvis. “It’s a mathematical probability theory. William of Ockham was a Franciscan friar who said basically that the simplest answer is usually the right one.”

  “Actually,” said the Candroid as it rolled by, “that is the law of simplicity. Occam’s razor states that when deciding between two similar hypotheses, the one with fewer assumptions is usually right.”

  “Actually,” Jarvis said, “one could argue that—”

  “So, what was the simple answer to the code you were cracking?” Bernie interrupted. The Candroid rolled away.

  “Cheeselover123,” said Jarvis with a shrug. “Probably the password for a lot of agents around here,” he said, glancing around. “Makes me kind of hungry, actually.”

  “How can you think about food at a time like this?” Bernie asked.

  “I can think of food at any time,” Jarvis confessed. “You know what sounds especially good right now? A cheese soufflé with Tabasco sauce.”

  “What’s that?” asked Bernie.

  “Heaven on a plate,” said Jarvis.

  “That good?” asked Bernie.

  “It’s the Tabasco sauce that makes it. Wish I had some right now. I live for Tabasco.”

  “Well, the sooner we can find out what’s going on, the sooner you can get some.”

  The rat started searching through the file folders on the desktop, and after a few moments located one that was labeled EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS.

  “Maybe that’s something?” Bernie asked.

  “Could be,” said Jarvis with a shrug. He clicked on the folder.

  A document came up that showed a map of HQ and various emergency exits. Bernie scanned the rooms depicted on the screen.

  “Not much here other than how to do basic safety drills. Fire escapes and stuff,” said Bernie. “Wait. Hey, what’s that one say?” She pointed at a file on the screen.

  “What, that one?” asked Jarvis. “It says Situation Room Access Code.”

  “Can you send it to me?” said Bernie.

  Jarvis clicked a button, and the file appeared in the corner of her goggles’ screen.

  “Now, I think I remember passing a door on the tour….” She snapped her fingers. “Okay, I remember where it was…follow me,” she said to Jarvis.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “The Situation Room. When there’s a government crisis that’s where the president meets with his staff. Maybe it works the same way here.”

  “Oh,” said Jarvis.

  The two followed the map down empty corridors that had until recently been bustling with activity. They would have tried the Zoom Chutes, but since Bernie hadn’t been shown how to use them yet, she decided that keeping her feet on the ground would be a better idea.

  When they finally got to the place that the map indicated was the Situation Room, they found it locked.

  Bernie examined the solid construction of the numerical keypad. She entered the code that they’d found in the file, but nothing happened.

  “Rats! I guess they changed it,” said Bernie.

  “I could give it a try,” said Jarvis. Then he added, “You know, ‘rat’ isn’t a bad word.” He reached into his pocket and removed a small device attached to a wire. After plugging it into the side of the numerical keypad, he pressed a series of buttons, listening closely to the touch-tone sounds it made. A few seconds later, Bernie heard the bolt slide and the door click open.

  “How’d you do that?” asked Bernie.

  “Touch-tone locks are pretty easy to figure out. This little device looks for the keys that have been pressed most frequently and then quickly derives a pattern.”

  “That’s a pretty fancy device,” Bernie said with suspicion. “Did you swipe that off Alpha this morning? Since you’re a rat, I assume you stole it.”

  “NO! Will you stop…I’m not what you think I am,” he said irritably. “I made this myself.”

  “Well, you need to prove that to me before I’ll believe it,” Bernie shot back.

  “And what do you think I’m doing helping you right now? Spying for the R.A.T.S.?”

  Bernie didn’t want to admit that she’d been wondering about that. The trouble was, Jarvis had been acting very helpful and nice. She decided to hold off on her judgment for now.

  “Fine. Okay. Good job on the lock,” she
said, pushing the door open and cutting the conversation short. Jarvis made it aggravatingly hard to keep her guard up. If she wasn’t careful, she might forget how she felt about rats and start treating him like a friend.

  Inside the massive room, dozens of screens lined the walls, each showing up-to-the-minute news broadcasts and data reports. Against one wall was a long desk with several computers, and in the middle of the room was a large gleaming conference table. This room, like the rest of HQ, showed recent signs of a hurried exit. There were papers strewn everywhere. Monitors sat blinking, waiting for the next command. The chairs around the table were askew—some were even still spinning, as if the mouse who was sitting there had only just rushed off.

  “Bernie—” Jarvis started, but couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he pointed at the screen mounted in the very center of the wall.

  Bernie stared. A bespectacled mouse news anchor was speaking urgently. At the bottom of the screen in bold letters it said: New York City under attack…smells delicious!

  “Sources say that the zombielike virus has already affected over three thousand people, each of whom seemed to be under some kind of mind control. Witnesses reported the scent of warm melted cheese before the victims fell into a complete stupor. Only those who are lactose intolerant seem to be immune….”

  The camera cut to a scene of humans walking calmly down the street in a single-file line. Like a row of ants, they walked down subway stairs and out of sight.

  “Worse still, an infestation of rats has appeared almost out of nowhere, driving people from their homes and workplaces. The mayor is considering issuing a quarantine on the entire city. We will provide up-to-the-minute details as they come after this commercial break.”

  The anchor paused in his report, and seemingly unaware that the cameras were still on, said to someone offscreen, “That cheese smell is driving me crazy. Anybody else hungry?”

  “Starving,” replied Jarvis, nodding at the screen.

  “Whoa,” said Bernie, taking in all that she’d just seen and heard. “I’ll bet the R.A.T.S. are behind this.”

  “Did they really say it smelled like melted cheese?” asked Jarvis. “As if I wasn’t hungry enough already…”

  “Hey, check this out,” said Bernie.

  Jarvis went over to where she was standing. A computer monitor with a map showed the locations of all the Mouse Watch agents and drones, indicated by each of their names appearing over a glowing red dot. The dots were spread all over a grid of New York City, but because of the clusters of dots on top of each other, it was hard to make out any individuals by name or figure out where they were precisely located.

  “I wonder if they might be in the subway system?” said Bernie. “I’ve heard that in New York there are tunnels that go everywhere under the city.”

  “Seems like a good guess to me,” agreed Jarvis. “Probably trying to keep out of sight while they find out what’s causing all this mayhem.”

  Bernie glanced back up at the news report. “A zombie virus? Seriously? It sounds so cheesy.”

  “Smells that way, too,” said Jarvis. “Hold on, check these out.”

  “What’d you find?” Bernie asked.

  “Look at this,” he said excitedly, shoving a sheaf of papers at Bernie. She scanned the documents, all of which were labeled CLASSIFIED.

  Bernie looked over the papers. They were blueprints for a secret underground transport system. It was labeled SECRET WATCHER INTERNATIONAL SEWER SYSTEM or S.W.I.S.S. Jarvis let out a low whistle.

  “A secret subway system that goes all over the world, even under the oceans?” Jarvis’s long tail swished excitedly.

  “Gadget can do pretty much anything,” said Bernie admiringly. “She’s a genius, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” admitted Jarvis. “It was one of the main reasons I wanted to join you guys. That, and well, I didn’t like where I was very much….”

  But before he could say any more, Bernie spotted something.

  “Ooh, look! The entrance to S.W.I.S.S. Past the cafeteria there should be a secret entrance right behind the drinking fountains. Come on!”

  She was about to set off when Jarvis held up his paws.

  “Whoa, whoa! What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m gonna catch up with the Watchers. Whatever this zombie virus is, it’s obviously the reason the entire headquarters evacuated in such a hurry.”

  “Wait a minute. If they evacuated, do you really think they’d just leave us behind? We’re new recruits! We have no idea what’s going on!” said Jarvis.

  Bernie wheeled on him with a suspicious expression. “You know, how do I even know I can trust you? You seemed to figure those codes out awfully quickly. Almost like you got them from an organization of evil rats trying to take over the world? And now you don’t want us to even try to help? If you’re hiding something…”

  Jarvis shrunk back. “Knock it off, Bernie, I’m not a spy,” he said. “I was recruited because of my code-breaking and computer skills, remember?”

  “I remember,” said Bernie. It still stung that she hadn’t been chosen for that reason. “By the way, I’m totally watching you,” she added fiercely. “The only reason we’re working together is because we have to. Don’t start thinking we’re friends or anything like that.”

  Jarvis nodded, but he looked hurt.

  “Fine. Yeah, I get it,” he mumbled. “The rat is always the villain. Like I haven’t heard that a million times before.”

  “Whatever,” said Bernie dismissively. Deep down, she knew that Jarvis was unlike any preconceived idea she’d ever had about rats. He was, after all, the first one she’d ever met. He was actually kind of nice, in a nerdy sort of way. And it’s not like mice were beating down her door to be friends. It might be nice…

  Stop that! Bernie warned herself. She wasn’t about to let her guard down and allow a rat to jeopardize her chances of becoming a real Mouse Watch agent. You are NOT friends. Just get on with the mission. Prove to the Mouse Watch what you can do.

  She turned on her paws and marched off in the direction of the S.W.I.S.S. terminal indicated on the map. Jarvis, seeing that the choice was between staying there alone or following after, pulled his hood up, and after shoving his paws deep in his pockets, ran along behind her.

  Bernie ran toward the secret area indicated on the blueprints on her goggles screen, first dashing past the cafeteria, which still had the delicious aroma of lunch—a buffet of truffle macaroni and cheese—wafting from it. She scurried past the locker room that led to the gym and workout areas and noticed that, like everywhere else, it was completely empty and abandoned.

  What had made all the agents in the Watch leave in such a hurry? Shouldn’t there be a procedure for sending agents to a crisis that was more orderly and organized? Would the cafeteria workers leave all that food cooking and not put it away?

  Bernie reached the drinking fountains that were indicated on the blueprint well before Jarvis did. By the time he caught up, she’d already found a switch behind them that opened the secret door.

  “What took you so long?” asked Bernie.

  Jarvis was huffing and puffing so hard that he couldn’t answer for a full thirty seconds. He just held a finger in the air, indicating for her to wait while he caught his breath.

  “Too…much…time…” he wheezed.

  “Too much time for what?” asked Bernie. “Too much time for you to catch up?”

  Jarvis shook his head no, breathing hard. He contin-ued, saying, “Too…much…time…playing…(huff, huff)…video games. I prefer running in virtual…reality. I really need a drink of water.”

  Bernie rolled her eyes as Jarvis took a long swig from the drinking fountain. Then, motioning for him to hurry up and follow, she led him through the entrance to the underground S.W.I.S.S. facility.

  Bernie sniffed, noticing that the air had changed as she’d descended the stairs from the dry and sterile HQ to the damp underground. When she reached the b
ottom of the brick staircase, she saw that the room opened up into a vast, gloomy cavern. Above her were huge archways and vaulted ceilings, and in front of her was a train platform.

  “Wow,” said Jarvis, looking around. “This all looks really old.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Bernie. “Hey, there’s a train platform but no train. I wonder if our goggles can give us any info, like a schedule?”

  They both lowered their Mouse Watch goggles. Once activated, the lenses lit up with a blue glow that cast an eerie light in the dim shadows. Bernie saw a series of pop-up balloons appear in the corner of the screen, indicating information on how to use the transport system.

  STEP ONE: SUMMON TRAIN USING VOICE COMMAND. “HEY, SWISS!”

  STEP TWO: STATE DESTINATION.

  STEP THREE: AFTER BOARDING THE TRAIN, SELECT SPECIFIC DESTINATION FROM THE POP-UP MENU.

  STEP FOUR: BUCKLE UP!

  “Seems simple enough,” said Bernie. Then, speaking loudly and clearly, she said, “Hey, Swiss!”

  An electronic female voice with a light British accent replied from a speaker somewhere, “Coming…”

  A low, magnetic humming noise came from the dark tunnel. Seconds later, a bright white light shone through the darkness, which, as it drew closer, revealed itself to be a gleaming tube that looked like a subway from the future.

  “Whoa,” said Jarvis. “It’s like something out of a video game!”

  As it pulled up into view, Bernie marveled at the sleek design of all seamless curves. Like much of the Mouse Watch tech, it was brilliant white with windows tinted so dark that she couldn’t get a glimpse inside. The entire train seemed to hover above the track rather than roll on wheels along a rail.

  And perhaps most impressively of all, it was just the right size for a small rodent. This was no human train they would have to sneak aboard.

  “It’s a miniature Maglev train!” marveled Jarvis. “It’s got almost no drag due to electromagnetic repulsion. I’ve heard about these but never seen one up close.”

  The door slid open, revealing a comfy-looking interior. The seats were perfectly mouse size. There was no need for a set of smaller seats hidden away in the shadows.