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Undertow	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 11341 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own its characters, basic premise or settings.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/?
- 3-3/?
- 4-4/?
- 5-5/?
- 6-6/?
- 7-7/?
- 8-8/?
- 9-9/?
- 10-10/?
- 11-11/?
- 12-12/?
- 13-13/?
- 14-14/?
- 15-15/?
- 16-16/?
- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
- 19-19/?
- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
- 22-22/?
- 23-23/?
- 24-24/?
- 25-25/?
- 26-26/?
- 27-27/?
- 28-28/?
- 29-29/?
- 30-30/?
- 31-31/?
- 32-32/?
- 33-33/?
- 34-34/?
- 35-35/?
- 36-36/?
- 37-37/?
- 38-38/?
- 39-39/?
- 40-40/?
- 41-41/?
- 42-42/?
- 43-43/?
- 44-44/?
- 45-45/?
- 46-46/?
- 47-47/?
- 48-48/?
- 49-49/?
- 50-50/?
- 51-51/?
- 52-52/?
- 53-53/?
- 54-54/?
- 55-55/?
- 56-56/?
- 57-57/?
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- 59-59/?
- 60-60/?
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- 62-62/?
- 63-63/?
- 64-64/?
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- 67-67/?
- 68-68/?
- 69-69/?
- 70-70/?
- 71-71/?
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- 73-73/?
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- 86-86/?
- 87-87/?
- 88-88/?
- 89-89/?
- 90-90/?
- 91-91/?
- 92-92/?
- 93-93/?
- 94-94/?
- 95-95/?
- 96-96/?
- 97-97/?
- 98-97/?
- 99-99/?
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- 101-101/?
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- 103-103/?
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- 110-110/112
- 111-111/112
- 112-112/112
- 39
- 40
- 41
Kowalski debriefed Rico as the two lounged beside their pH-balanced pool with Faux Skipper and Plushie Private slung between them. Now and then, Rico waved Plushie Private's flipper. Kowalski settled for jiggling Faux Skipper to simulate life as they practiced being a foursome for when the crowds appeared later. The spring sunshine today braved the intermittent clouds for a psychedelic Sunday strobe.
"So I visited the chimps and Phil signed after he looked it up online that, get this, unlike Alex wherever he is now, the male spider monkeys in any troupe, well Alex would be in a pride, have closer bonds and are more likely to be related than the females, who direct the troupe where to forage on any given day. I asked about psychotic tendencies in the species, but Phil fell off his stool laughing and Mason couldn't get any more out of him. I wonder why he laughed." Kowalski shrugged. "It's infodump without helping me understand why they went nuts. We'll just have to stay sharp. Oh right, something kind of cute about the males is that they form lifelong bonds in their troupe."
"Yadoansay." Rico feared a gut upset when hearing mushy love stuff and wondered at himself when it didn't happen. He patted Kowalski's flipper. "Zatzsweet."
Kowalski reciprocated and went on. "Male bonding goes against elephant and lion group behavior, Rico, and supports my new theory that females are co-equal in leadership qualities, depending on the species. Oh, I suspected it, but it's nice to have the data verified, you know? Since that is the conclusion, maybe I will end my experiment to discover the female principle using Marlene's DNA. You've got to admit that the specimen's size is becoming a problem."
"Wubboutmale?"
Kowalski snorted. "Male? We are males, we don't need to experiment with us! We're the unmarked case! We're the control!"
Rico examined his chest, belly, both flippers and both legs. "Yahnomarks." He licked his scar as an afterthought. "'Ceptdis."
"Rico. Markedness means we predict or cause another mark but we are the base, baby. It's also known as Δp in simple two-choice cases in linguistics or social sciences. Think hard about it and you'll understand."
Rico made a swooshing motion over his head. "Datyourbag, baby."
With a whoop and a splash, Marlene shot up as if from an underwater railgun to join them on their island. "Hi, guys! Whatcha doing?"
Kowalski smiled. "Using the conduit between our habitats again, eh, lady? It's a good thing our battle nerves are used to sudden appearances and disappearances of personnel."
Rico made himself let go of Plushie Private from the toy's defensive position on his lap. "'Eenie, hi." He replaced Plushie Private at his side.
Marlene seemed full of herself in the early light. "Hi, Rico. Isn't it going to be a gorgeous day? Don't you feel filled with possibilities?"
"'Eeniehpay."
"Um, yeah, I just think the humans have a great idea for a Half Marathon, not as la dee dah serious as a full marathon and funner than a fun run, no funner is not a word. Today's the day and it makes me feel all, oh I don't know, bodacious? Is that a word, Kowalski?"
"It's one of my favorites, Marlene." He looked around surreptitiously out of habit. "It's a real word, too, unlike catastrotunity, whatever some skippers say."
Marlene made a big show of framing her eyes like binoculars to peer around the faux floe. "Where are Skipper and Private, no don't tell me if they're not up yet because they're tired out from a Saturday night full of, uh -"
"Deygone." Rico mimicked the motions of swimming, diving and what Marlene took to be hugging. He pointed to the substitute penguins.
The otter looked wise. "Secret mission long enough to need decoys?"
"Vacation." Kowalski considered Marlene's surprised face. "Yes, vacation. Even commandos need vacations."
"Oh! They took my advice!" Marlene skipped around the two birds in a happy little dance that ended in a cartwheel. "Wow, that's abfab!"
"Eh?"
"Wuzzatyouzay, 'Eenie?"
Marlene aborted her third cartwheel. "Just, um, that vacations are good for what ails you. I mean, them."
Rico relented as he adjusted Plushie Private again but Kowalski homed in on the mystery. "What does ail them? What do you know and when did you know it?"
"That's classified." Marlene had been aching to say those words to a penguin, any penguin, and w00t, this was the perfect occasion.
Kowalski narrowed his eyes as he lifted a flipper to make a point, but as he shifted his weight forward, the spring breeze heisted unsecured Faux Skipper into the air. Kowalski made an ungainly leap for the blow-up dolly, missed, and it took Rico's lightning fast deployment of a plunger to drag down the wayward bird. All three animals looked around quickly even though it was an hour before Alice came on duty.
It also took Rico to defuse the situation with a wise look of his own as he settled back onto his lounge chair. "Kwoskii, 'EeniezShattenkirk."
This didn't quite work the way Rico intended. "I am not! I did not! I would never do that in a place like, like that!" Marlene gasped.
Kowalski tented his flippers after laying his thigh as anchor on Faux Skipper's faux feet, which were permanently fused at their inner edges. "Of course you wouldn't. Never mind the question, I don't need to know everything."
At Marlene's and Rico's double take, Kowalski looked embarrassed. "What? I realize a few things can remain unsaid. Dr. Phil would say the same. That's what makes a team a team and Kevin Shattenkirk the perfect defenseman for the Rangers. You, Marlene, wish to defend Private's privacy and Skipper's skipperness. That's okay by my abacus calculations and sometime maybe you'll do it for me or Rico or we'll do it for you oh you know what I mean, Marlene."
"Marlene recognizes flattery when Marlene hears it," muttered Marlene but she plotzed on the cement to catch the in-and-out sun on her back as she faced them. She assumed a lotus position while peace resumed.
As opening time neared, Marlene stretched right and left to limber up for her morning play for the guests. She touched her toes and joined in with the penguins' situps, jumping jacks, and fifty-six uttanasanas.
Marlene glowed with confidence and a bit of sweat. "What's up with my little buddy? You know, the Mini Me? She's thirteen weeks old now. Is she doing anything new?" She elbowed Kowalski. "C'mon, 'Ski, dish."
"Let's just take a look, hmmmm?" Kowalski led the way to his lab, towing Faux Skipper. "Rico, save me from it if it's broken out again from its crystal containment unit. It's more mobile since maturity."
"Save you? She's dangerous? Oh come on, the female principle isn't dangerous, really you guys." At the expressions on their faces, she placed her paws on her hips. "It's not. Different from you, yes, but not dangerous."
Kowalski and Rico exchanged looks before they both opened the lab door in exaggerated caution. "It didn't threaten us, but it wasn't where I put it when we came back from lunch. Rico fashioned a more secure, uh, home for it."
Inside the lab, the crystal containment unit once housing a single Petri dish sprouting a growth resembling a baobab had been exchanged for a larger crystal cage housing a green otter simulacrum. The being stood as tall as Marlene with delicate moss for fur and a right foot frosted with tiny white blooms. The resemblance to the source was uncanny.
Marlene walked slowly around the cage. With wide eyes, she stood face to face with herself, more or less. The simulacrum stood with closed eyes, chest softly sighing with inspirations. "Wh-What's that on her head?"
A raffia-like structure resembling a noose looped around a horizontal top bar ending with another noose around the green neck. Marlene trembled as she stood as close to her body double as she could, the chill of the crystal cage riffling her nipples as she pressed in.
"It grew that stem before I entered this morning. It must have manufactured it last night." Kowalski frowned. "It ate its spirulina while we were topside, see, Rico? There's none on the cage floor where I put it at first light."
"Shezstretchedyah." Rico scratched his neck. "Weeeeird."
"Is she offing herself? No, her feet are on the floor. She's still breathing!"
Rico hugged Marlene's waist and she leaned against his burly strength. "Sheznotyou'Eenie."
"Well, duh, Rico, I know, it's just that I feel, um, responsible for my own DNA." Marlene broke away to circle the cage once more. "Everything is like me, right down to my, I mean her, tail." She knocked knuckles on a clear bar without rousing the creature. "Wake up, lady."
Kowalski entered on his clipboard a drawing of Marlene facing off her doppelganger. He drew surprise lines coming from Marlene, a comic book technique from long ago that Rico had taught him. He thrust the clipboard in front of him as a barrier to Marlene's heated questions.
"Is she living? Why do you guys keep her in prison? You can't any longer. I'm taking over." Marlene jiggled the cage door. "Give me the key."
Dr. Phil had no precedent for this situation. Kowalski looked to his love, who looked right back, shrugging. The scientist forged a new path from his own wisdom. "I don't mind letting you open the cage, Marlene, although I caution you the specimen is like nothing you've ever met. As a man of science, I hesitate to use the word magical. Its abilities I could study for years, or maybe use a motion cam for when the little pixie scampers about when nobody sees. I've got other fish to fry, though, in the science department, some more personal fish. More important fish." He hugged Rico's neck and nodded permission.
Rico passed the key silently to the otter. With a disparaging sniff, Marlene unlocked the door and stunned both penguins by stepping inside, closing the door and passing the key back to Rico. "I'm not afraid of her. She's me or close enough."
Rico's alarmed gabble made Kowalski clamp his partner's beak shut. "Don't wake it, Rico."
Marlene was a whisper from the green body so like her own. Carefully, she undid the noose from the top bar. It came away from the crystal and the green neck although it had looked to be sprouting from the thing's collarbone. She dropped it to the cage floor. "Wakies, um - "
Kowalski's hushed voice said a name Marlene had never heard. "I've named it Makaliporn."
"You just made that up." Marlene did not touch the figure, but her lips almost brushed a green ear as she spoke quiet words of encouragement into it. The regular respirations continued.
Kowalski was in his expository element. "It's a real name, strange but true. Makaliporn are mythical Thai trees that sprout female forms - like pod people, right you are, Rico, er only this one is a pod otter - to guard a god's wife from dishonor by being her decoy. The pods have the same internal organs as humans and the higher animals, but no bones. These pod ladies also have magic powers and can dance and sing. If they are not picked from the tree, they wither and die after seven days, but - "
"I plucked her, and now she's going to be all right. That's logical." Marlene pursued the subject. "Remember how she aped my movements when I saw her last? I bet I can get her to do that again. Come on, Makali. I'm leaving off the last part of your name, girl. Come on, baby, wake up, sugar."
Wow, and Kowalski had thought Private safaried into LaLaLand with his lunacorns. "Logical doesn't apply in this stage of the case. I created it with your help and gave it a whimsical name. It's an experiment and frankly, I am considering terminating it. 'Eenie, it's not you and it's not your baby. Get a grip."
Marlene huffed. "What about the female principle, huh what about that? Giving up because you can't hack it or pin it down?" Now she was sitting at the still figure's feet, her toes almost touching her double's.
Rico growled.
"No, Rico, let me handle this. Marlene, you're right."
That snapped Marlene back onto the outskirts of reality. "I am? Um, of course I am! Amn't I?"
"I've concluded that the best definition of the female principle is a co-equal relationship with the male principle in order to create and sustain life." The universe held its breath at this revelation, or so it seemed to Kowalski and he beamed at the theory itself, for once quite independently of who had created it. "I can use this for a very important future experiment."
Rico made another swooshing motion over his head. He hopped up onto the lab table and sat because this was going to take awhile.
Marlene was deeply unimpressed. "Pblblblbl. Like you need to strut in front of me, 'Ski, you and your theories. I could have told you that you're headed in the right direction, even if I don't know the full and absolute truth of the female thingy. You have it halfway, my friend, because there is more to ladies than relationships." She braved touching the great toe of her double with her own, sneaking a look up into the face, but the eyes did not open nor did the body move. "You know what, maybe there isn't a full and absolute truth."
"Well, well, well. We agree." Kowalski allowed the germ of the idea to settle into Marlene's psyche. He noticed her space out again as she contemplated the thing's tail, patting it absently. "Shall we leave you two alone?"
"Yeahhhhhhh," Marlene breathed. A modicum of practicality filtered through. "Leave the lab door open."
"We'll come running at the first scream. Let's go, Rico."
IOIOIOIOIO
"Wakey wakey, Marlene. Uppies, my friend."
Marlene roused her cheek from its place against a tender green chest. "Hurgh. Mmmmmm. smack I taste like, like Clorets." She chomped her jaws and ran a digit over her tongue. "blep Not bad, actually." She blinked and sat rigidly after examining bits of moss that clung to her white bib of fur. "Whoa!"
"Yes, you and Makaliporn hit it off. You must have dozed."
"Ew, I got some of her on me. How did - what did she - huh?"
Rico giggled as Marlene rose swiftly and brushed her front. Kowalski's voice was stern. "Time to have breakfast and go to work because it's eight fifty-four."
Marlene kept both eyes on the green otter who sat on the cage floor with legs asprawl. She backed against the door to gesture through the bars at Rico. He unlocked the door and she stepped through. "I wasn't sleepy before getting next to her. I didn't see her move. I didn't hear her move. She never opened her eyes that I know of. She and I, um, what's the word - "
"Snuggld,'Eenie." Rico's face was prim as he relocked the cage.
Marlene continued staring at the somnolent body. "She was soft like my mom was or like my baby would be, well you said she doesn't have bones, Kowalski - "
" - according to the legend, but it's not Thai, Marlene, because I made it."
It must have taken a great deal for Marlene to admit her next words. "You're right. She's an experiment. Do what you want with her. She's too spooky to live, er, exist oh you know what I mean." Her eyes dilated until all Kowalski could see was a thin ring of amber. "Aw no, it's nearly nine?"
"Eight fifty-seven point two."
She drooped. "The Half Marathon is almost over. I wanted to sneak out and see part of it. Oh darn."
"We're not going because Rico and I had our excitement yesterday. Barring emergencies, we plan to enjoy a usual Sunday entertaining the guests, who, by the by, will troop through at ten. I'll bet today's sparse attendance equals yesterday's because of the event, right, Rico?"
Rico's mind was on other things. "Feeeeeeesh!"
Two stomachs growled. "Yeah, I could nosh, too. Join us, Marlene? Oh wait, you'll need to put in an appearance at your own habitat."
Marlene thought fast. "I'll skip breakfast and let Alice think I'm sleeping in. Since the race stops in Central Park, I can see the ending! Go, me!" She bolted out the lab door and up the ladder, dropping a "Bye!" from the hatch cover before she secured it.
Makaliporn's eyes opened.
Rico backed away from the cage as he double checked the lock. The blank gaze from mossy eyeballs unnerved him. "Hooboy. Kwoskii?"
Kowalski turned from straightening the contents on the lab shelves. Makaliporn stood and walked straight through the cage bars in two halves, gathering speed as she exited the lab. Somehow being rent vertically stem to stern did not halt motor communication between neurons or dendrons or dentrites or chloroplasts or whatever the George Washington Carver she had.
"It's alive or near enough! Come on, Rico, let's go, big fella!"
Rico ran first in the chase as Kowalski pawed through the lab shelves frantically.
Kowalski heard him screech in the main room. He seized the freeze ray and joined in pursuit.
Rico stood immobile by the foot of the ladder, transfixed by the boggling sight.
"It's reblending its halves!" cried Kowalski. He aimed his weapon at the figure who halted with one foot on the bottom rung and then froze in place himself.
Makaliporn faced the two commandos as she slid one green paw from the stem on her crown and ran it down her bifurcated forehead to her torso. The mosses meshed together once more to end at her split crotch. She sealed that gap with a firm rub that mesmerized Kowalski and Rico. Before the two could break out of their stupor, she placed both paws on her head and rubbed up there, too. The stem disappeared into her head and she looked enough like Marlene to render them speechless. Kowalski recovered first.
"Huh. Howboutdat," he slurred.
"Yah."
Mental sludge slowed their reactions as Makaliporn oozed up the ladder, moved the food dish cover and disappeared for parts unknown. They observed that the broken back was now grown together, too. The freeze ray clattered to the floor from Kowalski's numb grip.
"After - it!"
"Yah."
"Come - on!"
"Yah."
"I'll - go - first - you - fol - low."
"Yah."
Step by straining step, Kowalski forced his feet to waddle and then sprint after the fleeing faux otter. He caught sight of it running on all fours in the direction Marlene had taken, or so he surmised because the Half Marathon was set to conclude at Central Park West someplace around The Lake. Was it Strawberry Fields? Was it the Ladies Pavilion? Was it 72nd Street? Gah, he hadn't paid attention after their energy-draining excursion yesterday! Skipper would fish slap him when he returned and he'd deserve it!
He soldiered on, power sliding taking the place of a sprint. All his senses rushed back to normal as he heard Alice's boots clomp someplace in the zoo, he smelled fresh timothy hay she'd dumped into Roy's habitat, he felt the brick path debriding one sixteenth of an inch off his belly feathers as he slid, he tasted possible defeat in his beak, and he beheld his love out of the corner of his eye in ever faithful support.
It wasn't fair that their calm peace was no more. "Why couldn't it dance or sing like a real Makaliporn? What does it want with Marlene? Why did it muddle our minds with her whatever-it-was? Our minds are where we live!"
"Kwoskii, shaddapnslide."
"You always know the right thing to say, Rico."
On and on they slid, chasing Marlene and Marlene's spectre through their main zoo exit of Tunnel Number Two and into the park proper, where the dew from the lawn wetted their fronts. Only a few humans jogged at this hour or planted themselves in prime picnic tables to claim them with a warm body for a later family picnic. It was a weird beginning to their relaxing Sunday.
IOIOIOIO
With the Goodyear blimp circling above, the finish line was easy to spot. Marlene scurried behind a dawn redwood tree at Strawberry Fields. Its needles barely sprouted but the craggy buttresses covered with bark at the base offered plenty of cover for an otter of dainty size. A baby in a stroller was being shuttled back and forth a few inches at a time by a chatting mom as she indulged in a rare moment of adult conversation during the day. At least, Marlene remembered her mom glorying in adult conversation with the Aquarium folks when Marlene was a youngster. The recollections dimmed as Marlene discovered a bulging root hiding a nook in the tree's trunk just her size.
Having humans all around didn't bother the baby, of course, and Marlene waved at him or her. A unisex green knit hat matching its onesie gave no clue to sex and the round face showed little bone structure to judge, either. Marlene grinned and the baby grinned back with two pearly teeth showing.
"Hey cutiepie, keep me on the down low, okay sweety?"
A tumult of racers approached as the mother joined her friend in cheering at the finish line. "Come on, Ben!" hollered the mom, pushing the baby back and forth vigorously. The baby squealed in joy.
Marlene forgot her cover since all the adults faced the finish line. She perched atop the buttress before deciding to scurry like a squirrel above the crowd. People bustled below her, chanting. "Ben True! Ben True! Ben True!" Ben was the name she had chosen in girlish daydreams for her firstborn, and she became excited. She must see what she came to see!
The pounding of many human feet approached and the crowd screamed. Marlene hooked her short claws into the rough bark, which allowed traction as she climbed. Not being graced with either Fred's sharper claws or his hind feet that rotated so he could descend head first, getting back down might prove a problem.
Marlene scampered upwards anyway, because what was life without a challenge? She'd jump down, she'd try a flying otter pose like a flying squirrel pose, or she would backflip. She'd do it however she could and dismissed thoughts of any future beyond the next minute.
There was the front runner! His otter-colored hair drenched with sweat, his blue eyes showing only determination, he was an attractive human who gave this effort his all. He'd likely never known a moment of boredom in his life.
She fell a little bit in love.
As she watched, he burst through the banner and was declared winner. "Ben! Ben! You're a ten!" she cheered. Others clustered seconds behind him, clomp stride push, and soon all the main runners ended their race. A crowd surrounded the buttresses of her tree and sixteen children treated it as a maypole in their leaping dance.
Uh oh.
Wouldn't you know it, she'd picked a solitary standing tree, magnificent in itself as it reached sunward without belonging to a grove containing other trees to which she might jump. She whispered in automatic reflex. "Skipper, help."
Skipper couldn't help this time.
The crowd bustled together, congratulating the runners. Some members were friends or relatives of the runners and offered them drinks or towels for their comfort. A few spread robes over the shoulders of heaving, gasping men and women who grinned in triumph as they walked off the burn to take care of their muscles properly.
"Marlene, what next?" she squeaked to herself.
Ten minutes later, many humans dispersed into the park as mounted officers made their rounds. It might be safe to scramble down now. She assayed a trial move off the branch twenty feet up. Her claws dug in as much as they could, but she still slipped. With a gasp, she made it back to the branch where she shaded her eyes against the angle of the morning sun to plan her next foray. Movement caught her gaze.
"Rico? Kowalski? Me?"
Makali. It was Makali who struggled in the two commandos' grip twelve feet from the base of her tree. As Marlene watched, they handled the experiment with great care, switching from a grip to making themselves into a strait jacket. They hustled Makali into cover consisting of a rose bush tipped with buds presaging a June blossoming. Marlene saw before they disappeared into the greenery that they hugged Makali between them by hugging each other, moving their flippers up and down to - to - contain - the female - principle -
Marlene gasped.
Parts of Makali tore off in the kerfluffle, the tail here, a toe there. Right before the mossy head vanished into the rose bush, Marlene spied Makali's eyes, green and expressionless. Why did she imagine a purpose in the blank stare?
They didn't know she was up here. A smaller group of humans remained after the excitement of the half marathon, dwindling slowly into twos and threes as they strolled. She chanced tossing a redwood cone into the bush, two inches of message that they must understand.
Nothing.
She tried again with a three incher.
Two heads emerged from the rose's sprouting leaves, tracking the vector of the missile. She waved.
Rico made to wave back until Kowalski pecked his love's flipper and it vanished back into the leaves. "Rico, I love you, dude, but keep her confined, please," Marlene muttered. Now this was a pickle.
Why was Makali in the park? Did she sense that Kowalski intended to terminate her and rebel? Marlene herself would rebel, if even a spark of spirit lived in such an outrageous body. Were the penguins trying to keep their experiment covert? How in the world did the action wind up at the base of this very dawn redwood tree out of all the trees in the park?
Two heads once again peered upward at her, Kowalski gesturing with his noggin for her to join them. She shrugged a no, pantomiming a swan dive and then smacking her paws together to indicate a splat when she would hit the ground.
Two heads conferred.
Three more minutes passed and the humans within view thinned to one and then none. A solitary mounted patrol clipclopped on pavement before stepping delicately and quietly onto the park's muffling sod.
Marlene spoke in a strained whisper that she knew they would hear. "Guys? What's with Makali?"
Kowalski's baritone was muffled. "We don't know. It ran after you and split itself in two and then healed itself - it's a long story."
"'Eeniekay?"
Dear bird friend, such a dependable friend, well they both were. "Fine, yeah, I always wanted a split level townhouse with twenty feet between the floors, cones to throw, branches to swing from, birds' nests to paint. I'm good, how are you?"
"Supadeedoopah!" arose from the bush.
"That was sarcasm, Rico."
"Oh."
Makali remained mute as the penguins awkwardly hug-waddled out from cover with her between them, snug as a fuzzy green rug between two black and white bugs. The rose's thorns had ripped off her left ear.
Marlene thought a spell. "If I fall, can you catch me? I'll try not to."
"Let's see. Twenty feet up, maximum acceleration of - Marlene, how much do you weigh?"
"Gentlemen don't ask ladies that question."
"I'll calculate with fifteen pounds - "
"Hey!"
"Gotcha, twelve pounds."
"Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, I'm not saying."
"Twelve it is!" Without or with his abacus, Kowalski's brain was a wonder. "You'll reach 26 miles per hour in falling approximately one point two seconds. We'll catch you easily, end of story."
Marlene pondered. Now and then, the penguins had failed her, such as when Skipper suspected her of being a space squid in disguise. She stepped out in faith anyway. "Here I come!"
One hind foot bit into the bark, the other one scrabbled. One front paw caught, the other one caught as she set forth. She slid eighteen inches in tenuous control and then a slick part of the trunk left her flailing before falling backwards. "Aaaaahhhh! Lost it!"
She would forever remember the chaotic parts of the next split seconds: the dawn redwoods spire reaching eternally towards the sun, the wind sloughing through her fur, the sense that she ought to spreadeagle to slow her progress, the sickening knowledge that she would land on her back for crippling or death.
Then a cradle comforted all her bones and she was safe, with two relieved penguin faces above her. "Th-Thanks, you two. Thanks."
Rico and Kowalski looked at each other, unspeaking as they blinked slowly. They still held her.
"Guys?"
Kowalski's mouth moved like a fish's trying to separate oxygen from air.
Rico appeared as he did when he blanked his mind.
"Guys? You can put me down."
They remained as before, so Marlene turned onto her stomach in order to edge her feet downwards and support her own weight. She was all right, thank you very much. Life was never boring when penguins entered her day, and this sort of thing happened all the -
Their flippers held her, it was true, but they held her on a flaking green cushion as if she were the wedding ring on a delicate ringbearer's pillow in a royal wedding. As Marlene watched, the moss head of Makaliporn fell to the ground and the simulacrum crumbled to patches of green. "Aaaah! What's going on?"
She launched herself from their grip. They seemed far, far away, pupils dilated to the size of quarters, still silent, still frozen.
A warning neigh broke the quietude. "Coming your way, Marlene," Penny whickered. "Go covert because my partner may be the sharpest tool in the NYPD, but even he can't smell you and the penguins like I can. Fair warning." Penny's hooves scuffed through the park's leaf litter as she moved deliberately in their direction. "I'll amble as slow as I can."
"Guys! Wake up!"
"Hmm - yawn - Rico, love, time to get up - "
"Fihiveminmore - "
"Kowalski! Rico! Move out, march, double time! Left, hiyah left, hiyah left right left - " Marlene pushed the two birds who were still hugging. They stumbled towards her original nock at the tree's base where they overflowed the space. She jumped onto their heads to cram them in and then spread herself over their black and white heads, hoping to blend in her brown fur with the brown of the trunk. Their stark hues would certainly stand out to a human amidst the earth tones - ack! Her white foot!
She jammed the offending limb behind Rico's back, shut her eyes and folded her head onto her paws.
Penny mumbled, "Good job, girlfriend," as she walked sedately past. Her passenger was a picture postcard of a mounted officer, scanning vigilantly for human safety issues as he rode upright in the saddle.
Marlene waited five minutes before rolling off her two friends. "I never want to go through anything like the last ten minutes of my life. What the heck got into you two?"
Rico's eyes were back in focus. "Maklidid."
Kowalski could speak beyond the basics now. "Marlene, Makaliporn followed you here. Did it know you needed her, I mean it, to fall on? What happened in the lab between you and it?"
Marlene thought back as she brushed bits of Makali off Rico's belly. "N-Nothing bad. I remember feeling relaxed and then it seemed the most natural thing on earth to rest with her." She gasped. "Did she put a spell on me?"
Kowalski picked up Makali's head, the only recognizable bit among the blobs of green. The eyes hinted at nothing now to Marlene. She put her paws on her hips and glared at the head. "Well, did you mess with me, lady?"
"Makali's gone, Marlene. It is no more." Respect infused Kowalski's words. "It made it easy for us to catch you."
"Well, yeah, I can see that - whoa. I really can see." Marlene took the head from Kowalski. Gently, she braced the face as she held it up to hers. "Female principle is only a theory, 'Ski, and this is reality. She was smart without saying a word." She turned to her friends. "She guided you to the perfect spot to catch me?"
"Yah, nourhedz. Wedunces."
This was too extreme for Kowalski to agree to. "Oh we were not, Rico. We would have caught Marlene anyhow - "
"Maklibedderaddit."
Marlene placed Makali's head inside the niche of her hiding space. "I think she got inside my wants and knew that I needed to see a race, a, a, success for someone. I saw two today, hers and Ben's. She lost her freedom when she bonded with me but he's free to run another day." She dropped last year's dry brown leaves one by one to cover the face. "She ought to have never reached out to me, or or I ought to never have touched her oh I'm confused."
Rico was solemn. "Maklided." His beak drooped. "LiekXochi."
Kowalski put his flipper around Rico's waist and made an impatient face. "Rico, it was never alive like Xochi, it wasn't even a houseplant -"
"Stop." Rico and Marlene spoke at once.
Kowalski slapped himself. "Dratted excitement these past two days! I forgot! I told Skipper and Private I'd videocam the blimp for them and" - he sneaked a look around and then stepped boldly out onto Strawberry Fields, looking upward - "and it's departed for its next destination now that the half marathon is done. I had chances and I muffed them. Drat drat drat."
Rico and Marlene joined Kowalski as he frowned at the sky. They each took a flipper and dragged him down to the good solid earth between them where they sat tailor fashion. "Nothing to get hung about," Marlene said. "Strawberry Fields forever, 'Ski."
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