POM - Black Wings - Chapter fourteen

Chapter fourteen: Don’t lose your loose ends!

[Private]

"Wow!" I breathed out, overwhelmed by such a long story. Many questions concerned me. Why didn't Skipper tell us this all before? Did he think he couldn’t trust us? But mostly, was he telling the truth? I couldn't be sure.

Kowalski wasn't so impressed. "So we just fulfilled the purpose of a coverage for you?"

He didn't need to raise his voice. The question was what made Skipper flinch. He opened his beak without the words coming, slumped lower on his chair and placed his wings over his head, letting it rest on the table. "I shouldn't have told you. Now you hate me… And I deserve it. But you must know you are by no means a coverage. You are my team, after all.”

Our scientist stood up and headed towards the ladder on the wall.

My first impulse was to run after him, but I forced myself to keep sitting. He wouldn’t just leave, would he?

Skipper carried on talking, regardless of what was happening around him. “At first I thought so. That I'll just hide in this zoo and be able to leave if things go wrong again… Enough time had passed since then for me to realize I couldn't do that. You accomplished becoming the team I'm not capable of leaving.”

With a thud, Kowalski jumped down the ladder. I let out a sigh of relief.

“It wasn’t fair to you,” Skipper continued. “I even broke the penguins’ credo to be able to continue with my mission! I can’t say much for my defense, but…” For the first time he searched for our eyes before he spoke. “How could I make you believe when I was still hardly realizing what’s going on myself?” He couldn’t bear to look at us any longer. “I should have left right that day and hide beyond anybody’s reach. It would be better for all of us… Now all my enemies will seek you if I leave. It didn’t stop with Manfredi and Johnson. You don’t deserve to meet the same fate."

Skipper’s despair was slowly crawling at me. I shivered. This wasn’t the best time to bring up my remaining doubts. I tapped our commander’s wing, but he didn’t bother to react. "It was our choice,” I said. Nothing more reassuring came to my mind when we all needed it. “To protect the zoo and the city was the best mission we could agree with. Manfredi and Johnson knew what they were going into, didn’t they?"

Skipper lifted his head and shook it. "Nobody of you knew. If I told you my true story in the beginning, you wouldn’t take that role."

"Of course we would," I objected.

Rico nodded but our scientist just frowned. "I definitely wouldn’t.” He tapped Skipper’s wing to get his attention, with no higher success than I had. “Your ability to lead feels questionable after hearing about the grandiose failure you described. I can’t say I regret my choice, though. You’ve proved your accomplishment. If you told us the truth, you’d never get the chance to do so. Still, I beg to differ to take this as an excuse."

“I think I understand it now,” I said to put on a different topic. “You tried to hurt your wing with the wire to get rid of the mark from the previous injury, am I right?”

Skipper gritted his beak. “Hans was right. Some clues remain present for good. Take a look yourself.” He reached and placed his right wing flat on the table.

Fixing a careful gaze, I could finally spot where the sword left its almost non-visible mark. One had to know to see it.

“At least your involvement in the story seems true from what I see,” said Kowalski when he brought a magnifying glass and started gazing through it. "A blast would make far more extensive damage." He finally smiled, only to look serious the next moment. "The thing I must apologize for were my suspicions towards you... commander."

Skipper gasped. "Commander? So you don’t want to send me to Copenhagen anymore? Or to leave this team?"

Our scientist looked aside, fiddling with the magnifying glass. "I admit I was thinking this subject through and found out my action would be, well, inane."

"I’m sorry, Skipper," I said. "I shouldn’t have immediately thought the worst. But Hans’ words sounded so suspiciously. A clue and the conviction...”

Suddenly furious, Skipper slammed the table. “I wouldn’t give a rotten cod for what he’s saying!”

“Me neither,” I objected, jerking back. “He turned out to be somewhat right. Only not as we thought..."

Our commander nodded. “Just as the guards. Now you know how it is to have only a half of the truth present. But I was talking about something else.”

I wriggled on my chair. “About what?”

He clenched his wing into a fist. “The time he robbed the lab in New York in an attempt to frame me right here!”

Nearly falling out of the chair, I was glad for the wall behind my back. “That’s despicable! How come we didn’t know about it?”

Skipper replied with a smirk. “People have never connected those two crimes together. It seems a bit strange, considering he had done it the exactly same way as for the first time, with a rope and the window bars and so. It was even on the evening news.” He looked up to the corner of the ceiling. “I think you weren’t here back then. Yes, it must have been when I’ve recorded the last entry in my log.”

I bethought his surprise when we had come back in, the shock in his face. Now I knew it wasn’t just our arrival what startled him. "That was when you’ve started acting, well, strange," I remarked.

He crossed his wings. “If you think so...”

“No,” I blurted out, “I mean, if you haven’t, we wouldn’t know anything by now. You’d be alone to deal with it once again.”

He smiled sourly. “Well, I doubt you would let me hide the truth from your beaks for much longer.”

I waved it off with a sweep of my wing. “It was mostly Kowalski’s credit.”

Speaking of whom, I noticed he was somewhat quiet for the last couple of minutes. I turned and found him staring at a spot of light summoned by the magnifying glass.

“Kowalski!”

No response.

“Hey, I’m flattering you right now!”

He jolted up. "Um... What?"

Skipper sighed. "Back in your land of nuts and bolts, aren't you?"

Kowalski glanced at the table, then at our commander. "Had Hans left the scene unscathed?"

Now was Skipper's turn to blurt out a 'what'.

"Had he?"

Our commander's laughter filled the room. It made me smile too – I wasn't expecting to hear him laugh so soon after this day.

"Oh, no, not at all! Not only he'd destroyed what he'd come to steal; his wings must've been covered in cuts and burns from the blast." His smirk widened. "I've seen the scars."

The smile on my beak froze. I thanked to the fate for Skipper wasn't at the side of our enemies. "I've never noticed it."

"That comes as no surprise. You'd have to be as close as I was due to the body-swapping machine."

Kowalski smacked the table, making everybody jump. "Perfect!"

I was about to ask why the joy in a thought of someone's pain - even someone as Hans - when he said, "Well, everybody, now listen to my plan."