Chapter Thirty-Two

Arthur lay in his hospital bed, loving and hating technology. Gadget would have understood his mixed feelings completely—all these tubes and flashing lights and whatnot, what a bother, but sometimes one couldn’t live without them.

Arthur could rightly take a little more pride in the workings of the room than the average patient of the Thorn Valley Institute—he had adapted several of the devices himself, when slightly younger (though by no stretch of the imagination ‘young’), and had occasionally been a willing test subject for a few. He smiled slightly—it was long enough ago that he could still smile—remembering the time an I.V. pump had nearly blown out a blood vessel. Mechanically, there was nothing wrong, he shook his head carefully. Hook a machine up to a smaller animal than it was designed for—then you get trouble. Right now, the corrected version of the pump was dripping something into his veins, and he hoped it helped. Medicines and chemical concoctions were not in his repertoire. That was Ages’ domain, though that separation of duties hadn’t kept him and Arthur from a healthy professional rivalry, usually over matters of space.

In some ways, Thorn Valley was like a ship in a bottle, with a limited space to work in. Arthur mused over the idea for a while. If Thorn Valley really were a ship, then Justin and Elizabeth would be the captains, Timothy the galley cook, Ages the ship’s surgeon, Cynthia the mistress-at-arms, and he himself would be the shipwright and carpenter, making sure the rest of the mob didn’t knock enough holes in the boat to sink it.

Arthur’s body was as scarred and patched as any warrior’s. The battle he had fought was not against an army of invaders, and he’d rarely touched a sword… that is, except for beating the metal flat, getting the balance right, and putting a razor edge on it. No, his paws were nearly bare of fur—pink with scars from welding torches, pieces of sheet metal, fumbled tools—and he had never healed quickly or completely, especially from that mishap with the underground steam vent…

He chuckled to himself. How delicious the irony that earning one of his greatest claims to fame in Thorn Valley—saving it from freezing solid that first cruel winter—had nearly cooked him to death. Rat fricasee. Rat stir-fry. Rat-in-a-bag. Must remember to suggest a few recipes for Timothy, just to watch him turn green…

The heart monitor screen jumped around a little. It would have frightened the medical personnel, but Arthur knew exactly where the tiny electrical fault was in the monitor. If he could only get out of bed and retrieve a soldering iron—Even at a time like this, playing handyman. One way or another, I hope I’m out of here soon.

Devin rapped a paw on the open door, and Arthur turned his head. He immediately put away his dark thoughts and motioned Devin over. "Devin! Glad you could come. Sorry we were—interrupted earlier, what with my ticker going out and all. Confounded thing won’t keep time."

"You’re not a machine, Arthur. I wish you were that easy to fix." Devin strolled over, set his doctor’s bag down, and lifted the medical chart off the hook at the foot of the bed. He’d shed the bloodied labcoat and equipped himself with some baggy green scrubs. "Don’t talk any more than you have to. Your body’s working overtime even when you’re quiet."

"Bah," Arthur grumped, batting a paw in Devin’s direction. "The heart—it’s a pump that drives everything else, bound to wear out one of these days. Speaking of defunct bodies and all, I hear you found the rest of…"

"Your son?" ventured Devin, praying that nothing he said would set the old rat off again, but biting his tongue as he thought of what Arthur’s son had done to Gadget, with the others.

"Yes, yes. You know, his fate was sealed at birth—Gwen joked that she wanted to call him Mordred, but I thought Percival was a more fortunate Arthurian-type name, and I won. We tried and we tried, but he never did live up to a knight’s name. Probably too many people calling him Percy. Do you have—it with you?"

Devin nodded, sitting on the foot of the bed and pulling the shriveled ear from his doctor’s bag. To his shock, Arthur took it from his outstretched paw and grinned toothily. "I never could get him to listen to me when he was alive. Now I’ve really got his ear!" With a chuckle, he strained over, propped the ear up against one of the get-well-soon cards on his bedside table, then flopped back into bed, panting.

Devin lifted Arthur’s limp arm from the bed, checking his pulse nervously. Pound, pound, pound, pound, winced Devin. Runner would say it sounded like an ‘eclectic jabhacker.’ "You’re going to have another coronary right here if you don’t settle down, Art. I didn’t come here to get you all riled up again."

"I’ll—be alright," Arthur’s breath came in a whistling gasp. "I’m only dying."

"I’ve seen your records. That heart won’t hold up much longer. Have they talked transplant yet?"

"They? You mean Ages. Yes, he’s been at me about that. They haven’t found a donor yet—he said something about my genetic whatsis, nobody in Thorn Valley would be a good match."

Devin whistled, shaking a head in regret. That’s right—he comes from the other group, the ones that are our enemies now. I wish the rest of them had seen Thorn Valley grow, and come to love it—more of them might have turned out like Arthur.

"Besides," Arthur went on, "even if they found a matching heart, I’d be stuck in bed for months and I couldn’t do my work. I’d go mad."

"Your work," Devin chided gently, "is what got you this run-down. All the lifting and cutting and welding, when any other rat half your age would have had the good sense to rest."

"Once you stop," shrugged Arthur, "it takes too long to get back up to speed. I never stopped." He put out a pawpad and flicked Percival’s shriveled ear, out of place among the flowers and cards. "If it could have made a difference with Percy, that’s the only reason I would have ever slowed down. I’m sorry he turned out bad. I’m even sorrier for Gadget." Arthur raised a paw suddenly, clutching for Devin and breaking out in tears. "Tell her I’m sorry, Devin. All my life, I never wanted to do anything but help people, and my son, my own son, he hurt her—"

Devin nodded but grabbed Arthur’s paw. "You didn’t hurt her, Arthur. She wouldn’t think like that."

Arthur smiled gratefully. "I hope not. I still feel awful for her. And then you and she had to drag me out of the lake, in full diving gear—you’ve got a strong one, Dev. You keep her." He wiped his eyes with a corner of the bedsheet.

Not a tear for himself, thought Devin. "That’s the plan. You know, if this means you’re going to retire—"

"Permanently," Arthur murmured, "I should think."

"Don’t plan too far ahead. We’ll pull you out of this. But you’ll need a rest, and I think Gadget might be stepping in."

Arthur’s eyes widened. "Justin and Elizabeth off on a recruiting spree? Old-timers around here should all be nervous. Have they turned you into a replacement for Dr. Ages yet?"

"No, no," chuckled Devin. "I doubt one exists. They broke the mold when they made Dr. Ages. By the way, how did he end up with a doctorate? He’s good, I mean, but he’s older than any school of medicine I know of, at least any school that admits animals…"

Arthur grinned and his slightly bloodshot eyes glittered. A mean streak it wasn’t, but a propensity for mischief ran deep in Arthur’s soul. "It’s an honorary degree. You don’t think I went to engineering school, do you?"

Arthur and Devin shared a chuckle. "Self-taught is the best way to go," called a pleasant voice from the hallway.

Arthur winked at Devin. "That must be your Gadget."

Devin scratched his head and thought about it. "Mine? In a matter of speaking."

"He means, we’re each other’s," Gadget explained, sitting beside Devin and resting her paws on his shoulders. True to her word, Tina’s mother Rosie had outfitted her in a pair of blue scrubs, and Gadget’s entire being seemed to exude relief at no longer being squeezed into a tight worksuit.

Devin very much wanted to find out exactly how much extra room she had in the scrubs, but this wasn’t the time or place.

"So! At last we get a chance to talk shop," Arthur ventured.

"My shop burned down," Gadget kept a straight face as she said it. "How’s yours?"

"Ready for you to move in," he replied, a bit grimly.

"Don’t talk like that," she pleaded, letting go of Devin’s shoulders and grabbing Arthur’s paws. "You don’t need to be replaced, just repaired."

Arthur gently extricated himself from her grip. "Watch yourself, madam, you’ll raise my oil pressure."

Devin rolled his eyes. "What’s it with you inventor and tinkerer types, anyway? Always with the mechanical metaphors."

Undaunted, Gadget tossed off another one. "We’ll get you running on all six again, Arthur, don’t you worry."

Devin scratched his head again. "All six what, exactly?"

"Cylinders!" Gadget and Arthur growled in unison, narrowing their eyes at him.

Devin shielded himself with the medical chart. "Okay! Okay. That’s part of an engine, right?"

To Arthur’s surprise, Gadget made a curious gesture with her paws. Devin couldn’t have been expected to catch it, but clear as day to Arthur, it said, "he’s all right, but he is not among the initiated". Arthur made the acknowledging countersign quickly—the exchange had taken place in a couple of seconds, and Devin hadn’t seen a thing. My God, thought Arthur, careful not to let his shock show. As if the day weren’t weird enough already…

"Devin?" Gadget tapped on the medical chart and he lowered it to look at her. "I need to talk with Arthur for a moment, alone."

"That’s weird—why don’t you want me to stick around?" Devin trusted Gadget completely, but he had never felt more like pouting.

"It’s mechanic and builder talk. You’d be bored to tears," Gadget reassured him. "Get Arthur something to drink, something light. I’m sure he’s tired of sucking everything through a tube in his arm."

"God, yes," Arthur piped up, glad she had come up with a mission for Devin. "Something bubbly—"

"But not too sweet," Gadget tacked on.

Devin stood up, nodded, and quietly tried to work it out. He took slow steps toward the door and waved goodbye uncertainly.

"And keep it simple!" Arthur called after Devin, who turned the corner and was gone before they could tack on another requirement. "Well," Arthur turned his attention to Gadget. "How long do you think it’ll take him to come back with a club soda?"

"Long enough," grunted Gadget. "Go ahead and ask."

Arthur thought about stalling for time, but asked. "How in blazes did you ever learn that paw signal? You’re a Mason, or the daughter of one."

"Daughter. My father didn’t talk much about it. But he told me once, ‘If you ever need to ask for help, ask a Mason. If a Mason ever asks for help, help him.’"

"So," Arthur thought out loud, "which is it this time? Offering help or needing it?"

"Both. I had nearly forgotten about the signal, but you seemed like the sort, and I needed your trust quickly. You don’t know me too well yet. No offense, Arthur, but you and I both know that this place is riddled with spies, and there are far too many ways for them to come and go freely from this place. You’ve done a wonderful job keeping the place secret from humans—as a Mason, you know the value of secrecy, like my father did. But animals our size are closer to the ground, quiet and sneaky. Quick to hear, quick to see."

Arthur snorted. "To make this place spy-proof, you’d have to turn it into a fortress. I’ve tried that route—Justin and Elizabeth have always been against closing our borders--they're convinced it would be permanent, so they won't even do it for an emergency."

Gadget nodded. "Up until now. Enemy rats coming in and nearly burning Brisbys and their guests to a crisp—Liz and Justin are already giving orders to start locking the place down. Justin’s on the warpath, I hear from Ages, grumbling about having too many healers on his paws and not enough fighters. Cynthia can work on that part of the problem, but you and I have our own fronts to fight on."

Arthur nodded wearily. "We have to physically seal Thorn Valley up. I was just thinking about the place like a ship in a bottle—it looks like we’ve got to put a cork in the bottle now, doesn’t it?"

"Right. Or one of these days, when Thorn Valley’s enemies have got their heads screwed on right, they’ll overrun and destroy it, or change it into something evil. I've seen their work first-paw." She shuddered. "Hell, Arthur—I’ve been their work."

Arthur slumped further into his bed. "Dear God. We have so much work to do, and we’re only now waking up to it. It’s late in the game, and I’m on the disabled list."

"Let’s stick to mechanical metaphors," Gadget grinned, "or we’ll confuse poor Devin even worse."

"Why didn’t you want Devin to listen in on us? He seems like a smart fellow, and you obviously love him to pieces."

"He is smart, and I do love him," nodded Gadget. "He’s pieced together most of the situation himself. He knows the danger we’re in, and can help fight it. Devin keeps me strong and heals my hurts. But he’s not a schemer and a planner. He deals with things as they happen, and lets them go."

Arthur chuckled. "He hasn’t seen as much of the world as you have. You’re trying to keep him out of politics aren’t you? Keep him honest and innocent? I do believe you find that—cute."

"I find that adorable in Devin, thank you very much," she growled. "Whether I like it or not, he’s going to be in this fight, up to his whiskers. He’ll just have a few battles to fight that are different than mine."

Devin suddenly flung himself through the door and brought himself to a stop so quickly that his black patent-leather shoes screeched and made marks on the hospital linoleum. His arms were soaked to the elbows in crimson bright blood, which also was splashed here and there across his scrubs. He carried a small ice-chest that rattled as he clutched it to his chest. Gadget stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

"You didn’t have to rush back," Arthur broke the sudden silence. "I wasn’t that thirsty."

"Not—(wheeze)—here to give you—(gasp)—drink", sputtered Devin. He thrust the ice-chest out with both paws. He took a couple of ragged breaths and got his voice under control again. "Figured you’d—like this better."

Gadget leaped up from the foot of the bed and took the ice-chest from him. She tilted the lid up and actually squeaked in surprise (Devin had never heard her make that particular noise before, but liked it), putting one paw to her mouth.

"N.P.O., Arthur—nothing by mouth, not food, not water," Devin ordered. "We’re putting a new heart in you."

"Stat?" Gadget trembled with anticipation.

"Stat," Devin grinned.

Button images by Keith Elder