by Lisa Fiedler
“Couldn’t be helped,” said Zucker with a shrug. “In war we call it collateral damage.”
“I call it poop,” said Hopper.
Sage, who had been waiting in the grand foyer, simply lifted the hem of his golden robe and followed Zucker to the Conflict Room.
Holding his nose, Hopper tiptoed gingerly behind them and tried to ignore the unpleasant squishing sensation beneath his feet.
When they reached the Conflict Room, where the sinister General Cassius had once presided with such arrogance, they each took a seat in a plush chair around the broad, dusty table.
“Tell us what’s going on,” Hopper said. “If I know my sister, I’ll bet it’s not good.”
“Not good,” said Sage, shaking his head. “Not good at all. She’s dismissed us, Temperance, Christoph, and me.”
“She dismissed the Tribunal?” said Zucker. “Why?”
“Because she wants complete authority over the Mūs. She’s parlaying her success in battle into a campaign to turn our peaceful village into a military state. Her first official act was to institute a conscription policy.”
Hopper’s courage may have increased tenfold in recent days, but he was still a relative novice when it came to issues of war. “What’s conscription?”
“It’s compulsory enlistment in the armed forces.”
Hopper frowned, still not understanding.
“It’s bullying, plain and simple,” Zucker clarified. “She’s forcing every capable and able-bodied Mūs to join her army.”
“Right,” said Sage. “Every last one of us. Whether we’re willing or not.”
“I take it you weren’t willing?” said Hopper.
The elder considered the question a moment before responding. “Although I value peace above all,” he said at last, “I would never object to fighting for what I believe in. But Pinkie has gone too far. She’s turning the village into a police state. We’re practically living under martial law.”
Two more terms with which Hopper was not familiar. He guessed what it all boiled down to was just Pinkie being Pinkie. Now that she’d put herself in charge, she was ruling with nothing less than an iron paw, and there would be only one law: hers.
“Pinkie’s always been the bossy sort,” Hopper observed.
“Oh, this is much, much worse than bossy,” moaned the beleaguered elder. “She has taken an if-you’re-not-with-Pinkie, you’re-against-Pinkie stance. Many Mūs citizens have been forced to go against their beliefs and principles just to keep from being turned out into the tunnels to fend for themselves.” He paused for a long moment, then placed his tiny paw on Hopper’s arm. “We were hoping you might be able to talk to her and convince her to just . . . to just—”
“To just get over herself?” Zucker finished.
“Precisely!” said Sage. “We followed her into battle, and she proved herself a strong leader. But now that the fight is over, we feel she needs to let us govern as we always have.”
“With all due respect,” said the prince, “the fight is not over. Not yet. As heinous as Titus’s agreement with Felina was, it did at least guarantee safety in the tunnels. Now it’s a free-for-all out there. Those cats are hunting day and night, even when they aren’t in need of nourishment. No rodent is safe to roam. My soldiers are doing all they can, but it’s a big job.” He leaned forward with a thoughtful expression, his paws splayed upon the tabletop. “Maybe, if we can get Pinkie to make military duty a matter of choice rather than obligation, having a powerful Mūs army standing at the ready wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We could all benefit from the presence of a highly visible peacekeeping force.”
Sage nodded. “On that point I agree with you, Your Highness. If Pinkie the Chosen, as she’s taken to calling herself, would allow our forces to patrol the tunnels in defense of all creatures, I would be wholeheartedly for it, as long as no one was pressed into service. But she’s got quite a different agenda.”
Hopper was almost afraid to ask. “What do you mean?”
“She’s created this new and improved army of hers for the benefit of Mūs citizens only. Her orders are such that Mūs soldiers may not, under any circumstances, defend, protect, or come to the aid of any creature who is not one of us.”
“That’s horrible,” said Hopper. “What about Pup? Surely he’s tried to talk her out of this.”
Sage gave a mirthless chuckle. “Pup is a whole other story entirely. At first your little brother seemed to be brainwashed by Pinkie. She made him her right-hand rodent, and he reveled in it. He was so innocent he really didn’t know any better. I think his experience in the hunting ground frightened him so deeply that he was willing to do whatever it took to feel safe. So for the first few days he jumped to do her bidding and never questioned her politics.”
There was an ominous note to Zucker’s voice when he asked, “And now?”
“Now the little scamp is showing some real spunk. He’s talking back to Pinkie and speaking his mind, challenging her—but not on our behalf, on his own. He seems to have a rather large chip on his tiny shoulder.”
Sweet little Pup . . . first a sycophant, now a malcontent? It made Hopper’s heart hurt just to picture it.
“I’ll talk to them,” he said, popping up from his chair. “But if I know Pinkie, she won’t agree to anything unless there’s something in it for her.” He turned to Zucker. “Any ideas?”
“A solid alliance should be enough,” the prince grumbled. “If she helps us now, we can promise to do the same for her should she ever need us—that is, once the Atlantian army is up and running again. You know . . . kind of a quid pro quo.”
Hopper pondered this a moment. “And if the squid fro-yo doesn’t do it for her?”
Zucker laughed. “How about this? If the Rangers find any treasure hidden in the palace, it’s hers.”
Hopper nodded. “Good. I think Pinkie will like the idea of being rich. If that doesn’t work, maybe I can at least snap Pup out of this spell he’s under and bring him back here.”
Zucker gave him a dark look. “Back here to what? Certain death? Our plan was to ask Pinkie to let us all take refuge in the Mūs village, remember?”
Hopper deflated. “Oh, right.”
“But you will try to make Pinkie see that her ways are wicked?” Sage pleaded. “You will come and meet with her in an attempt to find a solution that will benefit the Mūs and the Atlantians alike?”
“I’ll give it my best shot,” said Hopper. But deep down he had his doubts.
What was it Titus had said in the square? For some, wickedness is effortless. That was certainly true for Pinkie. But for the first time Hopper found himself wondering why. What had caused this deep anger in his sister’s soul that made her so quick to turn against others? What had happened to her to fill her with such malice? Until the day they escaped from their cage in the pet shop, they’d led the exact same life. Well, except, of course, for the fact that Hopper had endured the agonizing experience of watching their mother being stolen away in the night. So shouldn’t he be the one with the ax to grind?
“All we ask is that you try to make Pinkie see that our only hope of survival is for us all to work together,” said Sage.
“Getting Pinkie to work on any creature’s behalf but her own?” Hopper sighed. “Good luck with that. Still, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Zucker. “The sooner we have a face-to-face with that maniacal little mouse master the better. With any luck, we’ll be making her see things our way by lunchtime.”
“Lunchtime?” Sage repeated. “It’s a three-day trek under ordinary circumstances, but now, with the ferals terrorizing the tunnels, it takes twice that, what with all the hiding and backtracking.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Hopper grinned, striding toward the Conflict Room door. “We’ll be there in no time.”
“But how?”
“Easy. We’ll take the subway.”
CHAPTER FOUR
IT TOOK SOME DOING to get the Mūs elder to even consider leaping onto the speeding metal monster, but at last Hopper and Zucker talked him into it.
“What if it takes us to the wrong place?” Sage asked, his whiskers twitching with trepidation. “Such a swift and evil thing! How do you know it won’t carry us to the dwelling place of some great demon?”
“Doesn’t going to see Pinkie fall under that category?” Hopper muttered.
“The Chosen One’s figured out the migration patterns,” Zucker informed Sage proudly.
“Actually, one of the pages of your Sacred Book was a subway map,” Hopper explained. “So it was only a matter of matching the numbers to the tracks and the platforms. According to my calculations, the next train should be along any moment.”
“You speak in a foreign tongue,” said Sage, shaking his head. “But as you are the Chosen One, I suppose I shall have to trust you. And if your miraculous understanding of these speeding things was indeed gleaned from the book of La Rocha’s prophecies, well, then surely I have nothing to fear. The mystic provides the answers to all life’s mysteries.”
“Yeah,” Zucker snorted. “That La Rocha really knows his stuff.”
The sarcastic tone in the prince’s voice caused Sage to blink with surprise. “You are not a believer, I take it?”
The prince turned up his palms. “I mean, c’mon. A cockroach? No one’s ever actually gotten an up-close-and-personal look at this magic bug, have they? He only communicates with you Mūs through written documents, right?”
“That is correct.”
“So . . . doesn’t that seem just a little bit weird to you? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to just have a conversation? Even for a cockroach.”
Sage stiffened. “One so great as La Rocha would never deign to allow mere mortals to hear the melodic majesty of his voice!”
“Okay.” Zucker shook his head “Whatever.”
Hopper frowned. He hadn’t realized how skeptical Zucker was when it came to La Rocha’s prophecies. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You believed the prophecy about me. You believed I was the Chosen One.”
“I believed you were my old friend’s kid,” Zucker corrected. “And that was all I needed to know in order to put my faith in you.”
This made Hopper smile. Then something else occurred to him. “Did Dodger believe in La Rocha?”
Zucker thought for a moment. “Well, he believed there was someone or something down here bringing hope to the masses, and that was okay with him. La Rocha was helpful in spreading the rebel message to the believers.”
“That is exactly why La Rocha imparts his wisdom through cryptic messages,” Sage went on, indignant. “So that those who are not worthy of his wisdom do not receive it. Puzzles, poetry, ciphers, codes. In this way he confuses the skeptics and reserves the gift of his knowledge for the true believers.” The golden-caped elder turned to Hopper. “You’ve seen the book. Tell him how wondrous and complex it is.”
“Well, um . . .” Hopper didn’t want to insult Sage, but now that he thought about it, to him the Sacred Book had looked more like a collection of discarded human wastepaper than an old mystical tome. “It was definitely complex.”
“What are you saying?” gasped Sage.
“I’m saying I don’t know what to think,” Hopper admitted. “The pages I saw were all different shapes and sizes, and of varying degrees of quality. Some of the messages did appear to be written in La Rocha’s own script, but I noticed that others—like the subway map, for example—featured very different presentation styles. Intricate, flowing script; clear, bold print; and so many colors! I don’t see how such a wide range of effects could possibly have been produced by one tiny creature.”
Sage huffed. “You doubt his existence based on variations in his font choices? He is a mystic, not a scribe!”
“I’m sorry,” said Hopper. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I do believe in La Rocha. Honest! After all, he said I’d be here. . . .” He flashed his most glowing smile at the elder. “And here I am! See?”
Sage gave a curt nod, signifying the end of the discussion. That was fine with Hopper. Still, he wondered about the true origins of the Sacred Book. He remembered some of the pages he’d spied when the Tribunal had been poring over it in search of an answer to the question of two Chosen Ones. He’d spied a few “messages” that had been too baffling to even try to interpret:
One had the words “Jamba Juice Smoothie—Buy One, Get One Free” scrawled whimsically across a bright red rectangle.
Another read, “The New York Times—August 9, 1974—Nixon Resigns,” all smudged in a banner of boldface black on a brittle yellowed page.
And then there was the one that announced “Madison Square Garden—Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band—July 1, 2000, 7:30” in squared-off print on a small cardboard stub.
What in the world could any of that possibly mean? And how could it ever be useful to a mouse? But Hopper had no intention of pondering these particular mysteries at the moment. He had much bigger things on his mind. His confrontation with Pinkie was just a short train ride away, and for that he was going to need more than wondrous, mystical wisdom.
For that, he was going to need guts.
Sage had loved every minute of his subway ride, racing through the darkness, clinging to the metal knob on the back of the train. He’d delighted in the sound, the speed, the motion, turning his pert brown face into the wind and letting it pummel him until his fur was slicked back flat against his head and his little black eyes watered.
Once, he’d lost his grip and nearly fell off, but Zucker had reached out just in the nick of time and caught him by the hem of his golden cape.
“One of these days we’re gonna have to figure out a way to get inside that thing,” Zucker had muttered when they finally hopped off. “I think a couple of my whiskers blew off that time.”
“Whiskers don’t blow off,” Hopper had said, and laughed.
As they traveled the rest of the way to the Mūs village on foot, they kept to the shadows. Twice they saw ferals hunting and had to hide behind stones or deep inside the slender cracks of the tunnel wall. The exodus from the city had left the tunnels teeming with rodents, and the felines were taking full advantage. The distant sounds of scampering paws and hissing cats made Hopper sick to his stomach.
He was relieved when they arrived at the door in the enormous gray wall that shielded the Mūs village from the open tunnels. It was the same door he’d gone through with Firren, to meet the Tribunal and beg for their help in the battle to liberate Titus’s refugee camps. He’d had to keep his face averted that time because Firren knew the villagers would instantly recognize him as the Chosen One. That was a revelation she’d wanted to save until he was standing directly before the three most powerful figures in the entire Mūs tribe.
What a very different life he’d been living then, he reflected. He hadn’t known he was the son of the great Dodger, the brave and valiant Mūs leader who’d gone to his death fighting against the devilish Atlantian general Cassius.
My father died a hero, Hopper reminded himself now. And here I am, shaking in my boots, dreading a conversation with my own sister.
Summoning his courage, he knocked. The door opened and a sentry mouse poked his face out. Hopper’s eyes were instantly drawn to the uniform the sentry wore.
The guard’s military-style jacket was obviously brand new. It was clean and crisp, trimmed with heavy silver braid and accented with decorative buttons. And it was pink!
Pink. For Pinkie.
Hopper turned to Sage with an incredulous look. “Seriously?”
Sage replied with a grim sigh. “She works quickly.”
“Welcome,” said the guard, although his voice was anything but welcoming. “Do you have business behind this wall?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Hopper, jerking a paw toward Sage. “He lives here, and I’m Pinkie’s brother.”
&n
bsp; “I thought Pup was her brother.”
“I’m her other brother,” Hopper snapped. “Now please let me in so I can have a word with my sister!”
The guard scowled. “Gonna need some identification.”
At this, Zucker shot forward, bending down so he was nose to nose with the diminutive soldier. “Look, buddy, I know you’re probably feeling terribly official in that brand-spankin’-new uniform of yours, but I gotta tell ya, your attitude is getting on my last nerve. So I suggest you take a good look at my friends.” He pointed first to the white fur around Hopper’s eye, then to Sage’s shimmering gold cloak. “Check the circle, check the cape. And look close, because that’s all the identification you’re gonna get!”
The sentry took in Zucker’s imposing size and the sword at his hip. He swept his eyes quickly over Hopper and Sage, then wisely stepped aside.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” grumbled Zucker, giving Hopper a nudge through the door.
“I’ll summon a foot soldier to escort—”
“No need,” said Sage. “I will see us to Pinkie the Chosen myself.”
The guard looked as if he might argue, but one glare from Zucker took care of that.
“You may proceed,” he squeaked.
“Thanks.” Zucker grinned. “And by the way, pink is definitely not your color.”
As they made their way toward the locomotive, Hopper took note of the troubling changes to the village. Last time he was here, the neat little yards and tidy huts had looked cozy and inviting. Now most of them had been commandeered by Pinkie’s army to be used as barracks, training stations, or storehouses for military equipment. Through an open door in one of these houses Hopper saw a Mūs blacksmith laboring frantically, forging all manner of weaponry. The sparks from his fire had singed the pretty checked curtains that hung at the window, and instead of bread and fruit, the dining table was piled high with swords, cutlasses, and rapiers. It took Hopper a moment to realize this was the very same house where the sweet elderly couple had provided a meal for him and Firren and the Rangers. A cold feeling settled in his belly as he wondered where that kindly old couple was now.
