The Mouse Watch, Volume 1

by J. J. Gilbert

  All of the New York agents gathered around Bernie and Jarvis shouted in the affirmative. Bernie liked this tough, no-nonsense mouse. She was a leader who she felt she could definitely follow.

  Jarvis leaned over to her and whispered, “Have you ever had cheese spray from a can? It’s soooo good.”

  Major Flatpaw marched up to a human-size digital tablet that was twice her height. She tapped the screen and a map of New York City appeared. She pinched the screen with her paws and the map zoomed in on Times Square.

  “Our number one objective is to find out exactly how that spray is turning the humans into zombies and who is behind it. Judging from the recent attacks, we think that Times Square is the best place to start our investigation as it has the highest concentration of affected humans, as well as rats. Be vigilant of the strange cheddar cheese scent in the air. Somehow, it is linked to the mind control. Keep your noses down and your whiskers alert. Don’t engage with any humans or rats. Your only goal is to get one of the cheese spray machines and bring it back to HQ immediately.”

  “I once ate a whole can of cheese spray,” Jarvis again whispered to Bernie. “I was sick for days, but it was worth it!”

  “Shhh,” said Bernie.

  “You! Sharpears!”

  A young, tough-looking mouse stepped forward. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Take a team and scour the area near Broadway. Use every sensitive listening device we have and try to figure out who is giving the rats orders. Whatever you do, don’t get caught.”

  Sharpears saluted and selected a group of other agents to go with him. Bernie watched as they ran over to a beat-up green trash bin in the corner. At first, Bernie wondered why. But then, after Sharpears entered a secret access code hidden near the bottom of it, a door swung open. Bernie’s eyes widened when she saw that the inside of the bin was sparkling clean and loaded with all kinds of tech.

  “Wow, that’s clever!” said Bernie.

  “We have EEKs all over the city. They’re available for all agents to use.”

  “Why is it called an EEK?” asked Jarvis.

  “It stands for Emergency Equipment Krate. EEK. Your goggles should show you where the nearest one is and will display the access code. The codes are updated on a daily basis.”

  “Nice!” said Jarvis enthusiastically. Bernie noted that anytime technology was mentioned, Jarvis would light up. She liked seeing him optimistic rather than worrying all the time.

  Man, I hope I get a chance to peek inside that EEK, thought Bernie. She really wanted to get her paws on some of that high-tech equipment.

  Major Flatpaw gave similar orders to the other agents in attendance. They were all instructed to use their Mouse Watch–issued goggles to record everything they saw, hoping to find any clue that would indicate exactly how the humans were being subdued and, if possible, to retrieve a spray dispenser.

  Finally, the only agents who were left were Bernie and Jarvis. Major Flatpaw turned her severe gaze upon the new recruits. She softened a little as she observed how young and inexperienced they looked.

  “And as for you two, I’m going to try to go easy on ya. All I really want from you is to keep a close eye on the Times Square subway entrance. If you see anything suspicious, report it over your goggles’ transmitter.” She sighed. “Whiskerpaw informed me that you haven’t even made it to basic training yet and I don’t want you to get hurt. We’ve reached out to Gadget and Chip and Dale and informed them about the situation, so hopefully you won’t need to be in the field very long. Help yourself to anything in the EEK, but please, no weapons. Just surveillance and safety equipment.” She gave them both a stern look and wagged her finger warningly as she added, “And by all means, stay put.”

  Bernie was about to say that she would be fine and to not worry, but before she could say anything, the major turned and marched away. She and Jarvis exchanged glances.

  “Well, I guess we’ll be getting our training directly in the field,” said Bernie. “Isn’t this exciting?”

  “Not really,” said Jarvis worriedly. “I kind of liked learning in a place where dying wasn’t a possibility.”

  “You worry too much,” said Bernie. “We’re gonna be just fine. Nothing bad will happen, okay?”

  In spite of her confidence, Bernie’s words didn’t make Jarvis feel any better. But as for Bernie, fear always snapped her into action. She practically danced in place with excitement. Her first mission!

  Bernie led Jarvis over to the equipment “krate.” After entering the code displayed on her goggles, they stepped inside the cool tech center. Bernie felt like she’d walked inside the greatest spy and surveillance toy store that she’d ever seen! Staring around at all the gadgets mounted on the walls, she could hardly decide on what items to choose.

  “Wow, I need one of those. It looks like a hair clip but it’s also a homing device.” Grinning, she grabbed one and clipped it in her hair. “Oooh, and look at these!” Bernie said, holding up a pair of slipper socks.

  “Socks?” asked Jarvis.

  “Not socks,” said Bernie. “PARA-SHOES! It’s a compressed parachute that fits over your hind paws. Let’s try them on!”

  Bernie took one pair for herself and handed the other to Jarvis. They looked like slipper socks except they were made of some kind of really tough, tightly woven fabric. The soles of the slippers had treads on them that provided extra traction, and when Bernie put them on, they conformed to the exact shape of her paws.

  She walked around in the trailer, noticing that her footsteps were suddenly muffled and nearly soundproof. She jumped and was surprised to see that when she landed, she didn’t make a sound.

  “Cool!” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Jarvis. “Makes sneaking around much easier.” His eyes fell on a small gray box. It didn’t look like much to Bernie, but she saw his eyes widen with amazement.

  “That’s impossible,” he said.

  “What is?” asked Bernie.

  Jarvis held up the little box, examining it like he’d found a rare, priceless artifact.

  “It says that it’s a 10G wireless signal booster. Do you realize what that means for streaming content and download speeds?” he asked excitedly. “I mean, 10G? I had no idea that was even possible! I’ve always just stolen Wi-Fi from the humans I live with. Man, I could rocket to the top of the leaderboard in Mousecraft so fast with this, nobody would see it coming!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” admitted Bernie. Then feeling like she should humor him, she added, “How fast is it?”

  “The speed of lightning times two,” said Jarvis. He stared down at the little oblong box longingly. “Do you think it would be okay if we took one?”

  “Major Flatpaw said to help ourselves as long as it’s not a weapon, so I don’t see why not,” said Bernie. Jarvis let out a squeak of excitement. Bernie laughed.

  Bernie and Jarvis loaded up their pockets with several interesting items that might come in handy, including a pocket-size Drone Summoner, which would locate the nearest self-driving Mouse Watch drone and bring it directly to them. Jarvis took some climbing pegs that were inside a bandolier he could wear over his shoulder. Bernie noticed that they had once been simple foam-rubber darts with suction tips that were usually used in human children’s Nerf guns, but had been modified for extra “stickability.”

  They knew they were only supposed to wait by the subway entrance and probably wouldn’t get to use any of this stuff, but just holding it was exciting.

  With bulging pockets, she and Jarvis stuck to the shadows as they scampered over to the closest subway entrance, taking positions on either side of a fire hydrant. Bernie scanned the area with her goggles, noting the descriptions of the various rats milling about on the streets that were depicted in pop-up tags on her view screen.

  “Well, most of them don’t have any suspicious items on them,” said Bernie after studying the descriptions on her display window.

  “Wait a second,” said J
arvis, squinting through his goggles. “What’s going on with that guy over there?”

  Bernie followed the direction in which he was pointing. A rat wearing a lab coat with the number sixteen on the pocket was standing in an alleyway and talking to himself. She told the goggles to magnify the image by thirty percent so she could confirm what she was seeing.

  “Who’s he talking to?” asked Bernie.

  “Beats me,” admitted Jarvis. “But let me try to see if there’s any kind of Bluetooth signal.”

  Reaching into his pocket, he removed a mini-microphone and plugged it into the side of his goggles.

  “I should have grabbed one of those when we were at the EEK,” Bernie said enviously. “Where were they?”

  “By the smoke-screen pellets,” said Jarvis. He adjusted a small knob on the side of the goggles and listened intently. “Yep, he’s talking to someone on some kind of Bluetooth earpiece. I think it’s a private channel because my goggles don’t register the network that it’s on at all.” He tilted his big, round ear forward and listened some more. “Whoever it is he’s talking to, they have a voice like a rusted hinge.”

  Jarvis stared intently at the figure across the street as he listened. “He said a name. I think he said…Doctor…Corncob.”

  “Dr. Corncob?” asked Bernie. “That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure you’re not just hungry?”

  “No wait, hang on….It’s Thornpaw. Dr. Thornpaw.”

  “Now THAT sounds more like a rat name,” said Bernie. She rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Corncob, seriously?”

  “Mmm, corn,” said Jarvis, licking his lips. “A little Tabasco on some hot, buttered corn. That would be so good right now….”

  “He’s moving!” whispered Bernie. “Let’s follow him! Stay low!” And before Jarvis could say otherwise, Bernie shot off after the mysterious rat.

  “Why does she always do that?” he muttered. Then, as he loped after her, he added worriedly, “I just know we’re going to get in trouble for this.”

  Number Sixteen half ran, half walked out of the alley and down the sidewalk. Bernie and Jarvis were close behind, but they made sure to stick to every wall, stoop, and gutter as they followed. Sixteen made a left at a Greek bistro packed with rat customers. Then he made a quick right, jumped onto the stairs of a nearby city bus, and squeezed through a tiny crack between the folding doors.

  “Should we follow him?” asked Jarvis.

  “Let’s see if he comes back out first,” said Bernie.

  The two crouched behind a soda can that had fallen on the floor near one of the tables. After about thirty seconds, Bernie felt concerned.

  “All right, something’s up,” she said. “We need to get over there and find out where he went.”

  But just as they were about to leave their hiding place, the hydraulic doors of the bus sprang open. The wafting, delicious smell of melted cheese filled the air as a dozen glassy-eyed humans stepped down the stairs. Number Sixteen was right behind them, along with a second rat. Bernie noticed that this one had a number twenty-eight on its pocket and that it carried a large device on its shoulders. It had a clear tank filled with orange liquid and a spray nozzle. A big troop of rats with variously numbered lab coats followed behind Number Twenty-eight. The last rat, a hulking female with the number sixty-six on her coat, carried a second sprayer. This one, Bernie noticed, was filled with purple liquid. It was a particular shade of sparkling lavender that she felt she recognized from somewhere. It took her a second, but then she had it. She knew that color! It was the same unique color of the mist from the drone that had released sleeping gas on everyone in LA’s Union Station.

  It was Gadget’s memory-erasing Sleep Spray.

  Bernie put two and two together. It was too coincidental. Somehow the rats had gotten their hands on Gadget’s formula and were using it, altering it to affect the humans.

  “Did you see that?” hissed Bernie excitedly. “Those are the sprayers that Whiskerpaw told us about. We’ve got to get the orange one with the cheese scent. The purple is filled with Gadget’s Sleep Spray.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” said Jarvis. “There’s rats everywhere. If they spot us, we’re done for.”

  The two watched as the zombie humans were led to the nearest subway station stairs and, like orderly ants, continued down below. None of them seemed to have the least idea of where they were or what was happening.

  “Come on,” said Bernie.

  “Wait!” squeaked Jarvis. “Just wait a second. Maybe we should just report this back to HQ and not get too close to the danger. I don’t see any version of following all those rats down there where we wouldn’t get hurt.”

  Bernie leveled a stare at him. “Jarvis. Agents get hurt sometimes. That’s what we signed up for.”

  “I know, but…you heard Flatpaw. We don’t have any training. We’re just supposed to stay put.”

  “No buts! The only ‘butt’ should be yours following mine after those rats. We gotta help those humans and get that sprayer. We can report back when we bring it with us. Can you imagine how relieved everyone will be if we actually get that thing? We can save lives!”

  Jarvis looked conflicted, and Bernie could tell how scared he was. But his expression told her that he knew Bernie was right. Being a Mouse Watch agent sometimes meant taking risks.

  “Let’s go,” said Bernie.

  Jarvis reluctantly nodded. He removed several of the Nerf darts from his bandolier, handed two of them to Bernie, and kept two for himself.

  “We can be smart about this,” he said firmly. “Let’s stick to the walls and not get spotted.”

  And by “sticking to the walls” Bernie soon realized that Jarvis meant it literally. As soon as they got to the stairs, Jarvis stuck one of the dart’s suction cups to the tiled wall and then, after plopping it in place, he stabbed a second one next to it, creating handholds.

  The rat worked hand over hand, sticking them one at a time. Right hand, stick. Left hand, stick. Right hand, stick. Left hand, stick. As he worked, he swung back and forth, creating each handhold as he held himself suspended high above the stairs and the platform below where the rats were gathered, staying out of their range of vision. It was impressive to watch. Maybe she had underestimated her partner after all.

  “Okay, here goes,” Bernie said to herself, and followed him.

  Bernie’s arms burned with exertion from climbing, but she held on tight, knowing that to fall now would mean certain death. Her arms shook a little as she gazed at the scene below, taking in what the goggles revealed to her about the people involved.

  A pop-up balloon identified the numerous rats, the Mouse Watch database informing Bernie if there were any known criminals among them. Most of the rats must have been recently recruited because they had no case files available. There were, however, a couple of notable exceptions.

  Germy Fangtooth, armed robbery. Assault.

  Bernie read the rap sheet associated with the piebald rat, noting that he was considered “armed and dangerous.”

  Better watch out for that one, she thought. He was carrying one of the sprayer tanks with the orange mind-control formula inside of it.

  The other exception was a rat named Tiny Leathertoes. Contrary to his name, he was the biggest rat Bernie had ever seen! He hulked over the other rats and nearly came up to a human’s knee. His prison record was even more extensive than Fangtooth’s and included some terribly violent acts that Bernie really wished she hadn’t found out about.

  Hopefully he’s slow. Speed is going to be our best chance of getting in and out of here alive.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Jarvis as they clung to their foam darts, high above the rats and out of sight.

  “Hang on, I’m thinking,” said Bernie.

  “We have to do something,” said Jarvis.

  The truth was, Bernie realized, they were kind of winging it. Without any special training for handling a hostage situation, she really had no idea of what she wa
s supposed to do.

  “What are they doing?” Jarvis asked worriedly.

  Bernie noticed that the rats were ushering the humans down a small ladder that led from the platform to the tracks below. Once a human was there, Tiny Leathertoes would position them directly on the track, facing toward the empty tunnel. The rats continued lining them up, one by one, and Bernie noticed that the expression on the two criminal rats’ faces was one of sinister anticipation, as if something terrible was coming and they couldn’t wait to see it happen.

  Bernie suddenly realized what they were up to and shuddered so violently, she almost lost her grip on the darts she was holding.

  “They’re gonna run them down!” she whispered.

  “Wait. What?” squeaked Jarvis.

  “The humans! They’re—”

  But her whisper was cut off by the long, low blast of a subway train’s horn. Somewhere down the tunnel was a train—probably piloted by rats. And Bernie had a feeling they wouldn’t be hitting the brakes.

  “We gotta get down there, quick!” she said.

  “Bernie, have you seen us? How are we going to stop a train that size?” exclaimed Jarvis.

  “I have an idea. When we drop down there, you cause a distraction.”

  “Me?” Jarvis looked pale. “What kind of distraction?”

  “I don’t know, think of something…distracting. While everyone’s attention is focused on you, I’ll get the humans off the tracks.”

  “Focused on me?” Jarvis whispered.

  “Yeah. While hundreds of eyes are looking at you, I’ll grab the purple sprayer and put all the rats to sleep. Maybe I can take down their leader, too, and demand he tell us what happened to the LA agents. After that, we’ll make them take us to Dr. Thornpaw.”

  Jarvis looked at her with a mix of awe and doubt. “Bernie, you’re a really brave mouse. But you have no training! How are you going to do all that?”

  Bernie set her face in a determined expression. “I have to try, don’t I?”

  The train horn bellowed again, getting closer.