New Amsterdam Police Station, the 42nd precinct.

It's quiet in here; there's a sergeant staring at a piece of paper, trying to work something out. He thinks he's alone (the other two cops technically on duty have stepped nextdoor to Ma's Diner for some donuts).

He has not, however, looked up. Most humans, looking for mice, won't look up; they'll tend to look down. So he hasn't yet noticed that there are three rodents sitting on one of the blades of his ceiling fan, congratulating themselves on having got out of moving the heavy dolls-house furniture into their new headquarters.

A kangaroo rat; a squirrel with a whip in one paw; and a mouse with a jetpack and what appears to be a laser pointer. The laser pointer, however, has already proven able to cut through a piece of wire (with the result that no-one can turn the ceiling fan on now even if they want to).

A new crime-fighting group is ready to be born; so new that they haven't even decided on a name yet. But crime doesn't seem to have called them just yet, and it's a nice, lazy afternoon...

Which probably means something will happen in about ten minutes, just as someone begins to yawn.

"....and that's why you can never trust a robotic Duck! Just common sense really."

At just under six inches in length, Hex is on the tall side for a kangaroo rat. The fur on his head and back is a light brown fading to white on his belly. His light brown tail almost seems longer than the rest of him and flops about as if it had a mind of its own. A slightly worn, black, top hat rests on his head with a magician’s cape draped across his shoulders. Lastly, he carries a three inch walking stick which is tightly wrapped in black electrical tape.
He sidles up to the edge of the fan blade and looks down for a moment, memorizing the layout of the room below and taking mental note of the locations of file cabinets, food dispensers or other useful items. Once he’s confident nothing significant is occurring, he’ll scoot back from the edge and sit down, laying his walking stick across his lap, and begin lazily juggling a trio of brightly colored balls.

"Better a duck than a cat any day, robotic or otherwise," he states as Buck finishes his story. "So, either of you two come up with any names for this little company of ours? If not, was thinking maybe 'Solutions, Inc.', would be a decent start."

"I think that as long as it doesn't have an acronym that gives people the wrong idea, we'll be just fine."

Kip is absently coiling and shaking out the whip in his hand as he listens to the story, but is quick to answer Hex's question. He looks back at the mouse with a burning question.

"If he looked like a demonic robot duck, why did you ever trust him in the first place?"

Hex sees several filing cabinets along the wall of the room; a few shelves with books on, a coatrack near the door, and about half a dozen desks. The only occupied one is the one the mildly overweight police sergeant is sitting at, sucking on the end of his pencil. There are no food dispensers, but there is a water cooler and a coffee machine.

In a more sinister vein, there's also a baited mousetrap in one corner of the room. Though seriously, what sort of idiot would fall for that?

The door opens, and a couple of other police officers walk in; a tall, broad-shouldered black man, and a medium-sized man with red hair visible under his police hat. "Hey, Sarge! We got you some donuts." says the red-haired one.

"Any ideas on that lightning case?" asks the other

"Thanks." replies the sergeant, taking one. "No. How can someone claim credit for lightning strikes?" (munch, munch) "In advance?"

Back at headquarters, a pretty mouse with sleek, dark grey fur, wearing a pinstriped business suit and carrying a tiny clipboard, is leaning in the doorway and chatting with the furniture movers. "Where your cousin lives? That goes by the window, please. And so that would make Stevie your second nephew? Adorable!" She grins at Abe, inviting him to join in the conversation.

“Lightning strikes? Human’s are so gullible, probably just some cat playing with the light switch. Still…” Hex stops his juggling and peers down over the edge of the fan blade trying to get a better look at the paper the Sergeant was reading. “Anyone got any binoculars or a telescope?”

"If it's a report, it'll be entered into the police database, accessible through any old terminal, but if it's not, then we might have problems. Hey, I have an idea, anyone have a digital camera? And I didn't know it was robotic at the time, apparently it had just escaped from the taxidermist's, some kind of new product line."

Buck is a fairly nondescript brown, although it's hard to tell under the WW1 flying leathers, goggles, and jetpack. His Blu-raygun does indeed look like it started out life as a laser pointer, but now with the integration of a handle, looks more like a stormtrooper's blaster. In gleaming chrome.

"Why? What do you want to see? I'll just go on over there and look if you'd like."

Kip is a black squirrel with a red chest and forepaws, and white on the front from his waist down. He wears a wide leather hat, a vest and a belt with pouches attached to it. Leaning over, he looks towards wherever Hex is looking, trying to see if he can spot anything interesting.

"An' Stevie said his first word just three days ago." says the foremouse of the moving team at headquarters. "There's some disagreement among his parents whether that word was 'mama' or 'papa', though. Where should we put the phone?"

He points to where two mice and a rat are rodenthandling a cellphone in; a gift from Avery's parents. It's unlikely that she'll ever have anyone to phone on it, since almost no mice have phones at all, but since it also works as a TV, radio, and internet connection, there's plenty of ways to use it to find new cases.

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The paper that the sergeant is writing on is mostly blank; it contains a few words (not legible from up here with the naked eye) in a few circles. It looks like he's been writing down what he knows of this lightning case in the form of a mind map, and from the amount of blank space on the paper, he doesn't know much.

As they're all peering down, a fourth person enters the room below them; a little girl, who hurries to the desk. "Um, excuse me?"

"Yes, miss?" asks the sergeant, with a friendly smile.

"You look for missing people, right?"

"Yes, miss. Who's missing?"

"My cat, Spunky. He's always been at home when I got home from school, but today he's gone!"

"Are you sure he didn't just run away?" asks the red-haired cop.

"Spunky would never run away!" insists the girl. "He's been catnapped, I just know it!"

"Well, miss, I'm afraid missing cats aren't exactly in our jurisdiction." apologises the sergeant. "Why don't you go home, and see if he comes back after a day or two?"

"Whose jurisdiction are they in, then?" asks the little girl. "Spunky's probably lost, and scared, and all lonely. Who will find him?"

"Well," Hex replies, "I'm trying to see what the Sergeant's got written down. If it's enough to occupy the police it might make for a good case, but all I can make out are a few squiggles with circles around them."



"Poor girl, shoulda picked a better animal than a cat to get hooked up with," Hex says sadly. "Only trouble and sadness in that mix."

"or a bucket full of crazy, still, they're cute when they're young. Say Kip, how fast a reader are you?"

Kip has been following the conversation between the girl and the officer, not really paying much attention to the others.



"Huh? Why?"

He looks back at Hex and answers.

"Oh, sorry Hex, what was that? The paper? Well, I could jump on over there, swing down, grab the paper and run back outside. You really need it, huh?"

"No, not that badly. I know you like playing Tarzan," Hex replies teasingly, "but we should probably keep our presence low-key for now. I think Miss Avery and Abe would be rather displeased with us if we get the police calling the exterminators before we've even started our first case."

"Here's my plan: we wait until our friend down there puts the paper down, then I cut through the catch on that mouse trap over there, setting it off. When everyone goes to check it out, you drop down, and read it. I was hoping to take a picture of it for later but nothing seems to presenting itself. Even a cellphone would work, we could send it to that new phone Avery managed to wrangle up. The police are none the wiser, you get to play Tarzan, and there is one less mouse trap in the world to boot."