What was left of the Rescue Aid Society headquarters was about the size and shape of a circus sideshow tent when something’s gone very wrong.

You know how it goes. Things come unstrung, the lights go out, the ceiling ripples down in slow motion, and everybody pokes arms and legs around under the canvas, looking for a way out. People laugh and point from outside.

It was sort of like that, without the soft ceiling, and without the laughing and pointing.

There were not enough screams. Battered and ears ringing, crawling away at the edge of the madness, that’s what Bernard had thought to himself just after. The blast had actually done some damage to his eardrums, for one, but the sad fact was, no one screams when they’re dead.

He had dragged Bianca out of a jumble of splintered wood and battered masonry that had once been the central dais of the Assembly hall, and only later had found time to kick himself for it. One slip and he might have done her a fatal injury, but by the time the room had settled, it could have done her in anyway. The whole scrambled mess had settled lower and lower, plaster dust and scattered paper still raining down.

The Swiss delegate had been crushed by falling bank records from an office above, as it turned out. The irony might have earned a chuckle if Bernard hadn’t known that the delegate’s name was Adelaide, and if he and Bianca hadn’t gone skiing with her last season.

As the dead go, Adelaide had been lucky. She could at least be reached, if not helped. An hour of carting paper away had revealed her sad wreck, pressed like a leaf with too much juice left in it. Her compatriots from a far-flung world of bureaucrats, heroes and brave fools lay in the deeper rubble. Most would stay there.

In a few hours, the place would be sealed off by a ton of concrete, conveniently explained away on the human side as an error in paperwork. It was a trick Bernard and Bianca had laid the groundwork for years before, praying they’d never have to use it.

Someone asked Bianca, years later—how did they know that there wasn’t anyone left alive, trapped but unconscious deep in the rubble? She would shake her head, cross her pawpads for luck, and say (as though she were trying to convince herself), “We had a thousand sets of ears, low to the ground. Whiskers out and twitching, noses sniffing. How could we have missed anyone? How could we…”

The lower echelons, the paper-pushers and office runners of Rescue Aid—many of those had survived, as the Assembly hall was the main target. Some from the home office, others called in from assignments across the country, yet more smuggled through customs--most had been unceremoniously promoted. And a great contingent of them were swarming over the remains of the central hall, putting things into more or less orderly piles, bunching up in occasional clusters of fear and hope when an arm or a leg poked out of the rubble. A pawful of victims had come out of the wreckage alive, but that had been in the early hours. Good news was in short supply by now.

The noise, however, hadn’t let up one bit. A mélange of jackhammers, power saws, and shouted messages greeted the nervous visitors, on the worst day the place had ever seen.

The smell was unmentionable. To animals who lived by smell, it was obscene. A little Vicks on the snout overpowered most of it, but the serious searchers choked back the bile and suffered. Putting on the ointment was like putting on a blindfold, and this was no time for it.

Thumpily, bumpily, Dennis manhandled a creaky, oversized wooden wheelchair with Timothy in it, through a half-unhinged entrance door. A pocket of floor had been cleared, ringed with blaring lights mostly turned outward to the encroaching chaos.

Tina hefted a shoulder-bag full of papers Elizabeth and Justin had given them—agriculture reports, security briefings from Arthur and a still-furious Cynthia (Gadget and Devin had disappeared under the noses of her Guard, after all). It was a hefty packet of information, but Tina felt like she was bringing the proverbial coals to Newcastle.

Bianca noticed her discomfort and clicked her tongue. “You can tell my mind is other places today. Don’t carry that around—”

She put her paw to her mouth and whistled—a sweaty dark-furred squirrel, a rather large specimen, bounded over. Looks like Runner on steroids, Timothy thought to himself.

“Torsten, be a dear and take this back to Dennis’ limousine. It’s our office for now,” sighed Bianca.

Bernard tossed a keyring at him. “The big key is for the strongbox. Some of those papers are sensitive—no sense in them getting lost in all this mess.”

“Ja,” nodded the squirrel, “would be too easy problem,” and gently removed Tina’s burden, as easily as picking up an acorn. Just as quickly as he’d come, he bounded out of the hall. He looked relieved for an excuse to get out of the place, and Tina didn’t blame him one bit.

The teeth—the accent—Tina signed to Timothy. Arnold Squirrelschenegger, she spelled out. He had to snort in spite of himself.

“Don’t worry, Torsten will guard those reports with his life. Until he locks them up. And we have the limo under guard. You never know when we might need a quick getaway. Our upstairs neighbors at the U.N. have no idea how much damage there is down here,” Bianca waved about at the mess, and the visitors’ minds boggled at the thought that it might still be a secret to anybody.

“They grow them big over there in the Black Forest, don’t they? If we had half a year, and an army of helpers like Torsten and your brother,” Bernard coughed, hobbling toward one of the glaring temporary lights with Bianca’s help, “we might get somewhere. But this is an evacuation, not a restoration.”

“We didn’ mention aught?” Dennis whipped Timothy’s new old chair around and pointed through the gloom, down a ragged pathway plowed through the debris. “Martin got ‘ere yesterday. He’s o’er there with ‘is team.”

“Team?” frowned Tina, her paws fidgeting. She was glad not to be carrying or pushing anything, but Dennis was driving Timothy’s chair like he drove the limo. All right angles and snap turns.

“Aye, his team.” chimed in Bianca, her Hungarian accent colliding with a Scottish brogue. Dennis gave her a dirty look. “I mean, yes, darling. I was just saying how nice it was to see more Brisbys coming to help. I know Elizabeth would have, if she’d known.”

“But she’ll have her paws full getting us replacement offices ready at Thorn Valley,” grimaced Bernard. “At least, once the courier reaches her. If she’s not out tearing up the countryside looking for Devin and Gadget.”

Talk of future plans among this looming rubble was making Timothy feel rather small. “This isn’t what a merger is supposed to look like,” he groused. “And I’m no good here! What, can I hold a pencil? Direct traffic?”

“Our excellent driver Dennis is the only able-pawed member of our little clique, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” sighed Bernard as he and Bianca teetered against each other, trying to find grips on each other that did not involve bandages.

“My paws are able,” bristled Tina. “And currently unoccupied. Tell me what to do.”

“For now, be a witness, and stay out of the way when asked,” cautioned Bianca. She turned to Timothy. “You three go say hello to Martin, and try to get him to rest for a second. And Dennis?”

“Shake up Timothy any more in that thing and you’ll be holding pencils. A lot of them. In a cup on a street corner. Do you ken that well enough?”

Dennis wrung his tweed cap apologetically in his hands. “Aye. No further damage to tha invalid.”

Tina poked Dennis’ tweed cap halfway off his head. Timothy shuddered. “Remind me to be offended later. Just drive.”

“Will you two be all right?” Tina fretted. Bernard and Bianca looked like an optical illusion as they wobbled and tilted in place—taken separately, either one of them would have fallen over.

“Yes, dear, somewhere we can sit and bleed to ourselves,” Bianca finished for him. It didn’t sound very reassuring.

Bernard seemed to remember something. “Take this,” he said, rummaging in his coat. He tossed a small screw-cap bottle to Tina, who snagged it. Even with the lid closed, it slightly fuzzed out the world of smell around Tina, with a grey medicinal efficiency. “You’ll know what it’s for when you need it.”

Dennis whistled tunelessly to ward off a helpless sense of doom. It might have worked for him, but not for the others. Timothy wished he could trade ears with Tina for a little while.

Wonder if I’ll even recognize Martin, signed Timothy. The path had opened up wide enough for Tina to walk beside him, and luckily someone had slapped a few boards down for a very temporary walkway. The noise was growing steadily worse as they approached, as though all the activity in the shattered hall were coming from a point ahead.

Timothy shot a displeased glance over his shoulder. “Eavesdropping, eh?” he raised his voice over the din. “You can add that to your list of character flaws.”

“T’aint eavesdropping when you flap your paws in plain sight. Heh. And yore brother’s a sight! You jus’ wait.” He let go of the wheelchair for a second and made an odd set of signs with his paws, spelling some of it out. Loch Ness Monster, it came out. A bit stiff, but clear enough to make Tina’s eyes go wide.

Not well very, he mangled, and shrugged. “Helpful now and then, when I was in communications. Ain’t no communicating with that Martin feller less’n he feels like it, though.”

A rhythmic hiss and expulsion of air grew louder as the path rounded a corner ahead. Timothy winced, startled. He was sure it was a steam engine of some sort, but on one break in the noise he heard a low cursing. One wall of the path shifted a bit as a large chunk of something landed nearby. The boards beneath them jumped and chattered against each other.

“You’ll have someone’s head off if’n you’re not marr careful!” Dennis warbled, placing himself between the wall and Timothy. Tina took cover behind the wheelchair, Timothy reaching out a paw to reassure her.

The hissing stopped. “Someone help me with this damn thing!” rumbled a basso voice.

“That means you, Dennis,” shrugged Timothy. None too pleased, the Scot scuttled around the corner.

“Aye, that’s marr than enough for even you,” Dennis grunted, out of sight. Tina managed to get the wheelchair moving again, and nearly pushed Timothy over in her astonishment when she saw what was around the corner.

It looked like Atlas holding up the earth. A battered, lopsided earth, but still--

Timothy looked hard at the mouse straining—but not much—under the remains of Rescue Aid’s suspended globe. It was three times his height, but the problem with the piece of globe was not just weight—there was simply nowhere appropriate to put it down.

With a mighty shove, the mouse impaled the piece of globe on a jutting metal beam as Dennis helped guide the rocking, teetering thing. “Stay there, damn yer!” Dennis barked.

“Whew,” breathed the world-lifter. “You’re a bitter pill sometimes, Dennis, but you’re useful.” He was a broad-shouldered, thick-necked fellow, his short but powerful body and the set of his jaw instantly reminding Timothy of his sister Cynthia. A moment later, he figured out why.

“—underneath all this plaster and plywood? I always said I’d take on the world.”

“Actually, I meant, underneath all that mouse muscle,” Timothy got in edgewise.

“Obtaining it wasn’t much fun,” Martin grinned, picking up a wobbly, hang-glider-sized piece of sheet metal and turning his badly bloodshot eyes their way. “But using it is. When I’m not digging bodies out of a trash heap. New chair?”

“New fur?” seconded Tina, for she had just realized another striking change in Martin. His fur had turned a pure and uniform white, as white as Dr. Ages’ fur, his scrapes and cuts leaping out all the worse for it. “Did someone give you a fright?” It was the only thing she could think to ask.

Martin winced good-naturedly. “Just the world in general. Lots of changes, most bad.”

This time, Martin’s wince was less amused. His paws wrenched and twisted at the sheet metal. “That was uncalled for, Timothy. We covered that ground a long time ago.”

“And you’re still plowing it,” Timothy nodded cheerily. Dennis grunted in distaste, which just made Timothy feel better.

Martin growled, but sighed and tossed the sheet metal away like a discus, with both bulging arms and a chuckle. “You never were afraid to speak your mind. I always did wish you could turn it off now and then, though.”

“D-do you still expect to—” Tina gulped, “—find anyone under there?” Martin had dug deep into one of the bristling, jumbled walls of debris, bracing the edges with broken timbers and anything else he could find.

“I’m looking for the rest of someone,” Martin growled, a dark anger rippling suddenly in him. “Don’t ask,” he commanded. Tina didn’t push it.

With a flurry of wings, a lady bat swooped in and batted a wing at Dennis in greetings (not to mention a set of long eyelashes). Dennis looked surprised but not unhappy, whisking his hat off and half-bowing. “Foxglove? Found me again, eh? You must have radar.”

“Eh, I forgot. You c’n hear me a mile away. What did you break this time, Foxy-lady?” A light and boyish grin belied his usual suspicious squint. Timothy almost liked him for it.

Foxy retrieved a squawking walkie-talkie from her belt, and twiddled at the dials awkwardly. “Need some help here, Den—getting some awful feedback, and I’m all
claws—” Dennis took it gently from her and turned it over in his paws, scratching his head.

Dennis growled, just for show. “Jus’ when I thought I could get away fro’ the communications bizness.”

Martin stretched and it looked like continental plates rubbing against each other. “I’ve got them from here. Good luck tweaking your transistors.”

“Sure, fine,” Dennis waved Tina and the Brisby brothers on, over one distracted shoulder. He retreated toward the hall’s entrance, waving the radio at the bat. “’s all scratched. Did ya try biting it, or what?”

“Well, tha’s the first thing you should have tried…” Dennis faded out as they rounded a corner.

“AHEM”, coughed Tina, kicking Timothy’s chair and making Martin jump. I’ll deal with you later, she signed. “Excuse me, Martin? Bernard and Bianca mentioned you were here with your team. Who did they mean?”

Martin crouched beside Timothy’s wheelchair and patted one of his own bulging shoulders. “You’ll never get there in that thing. Climb on.”

Martin had always been strong, but never the powerhouse he was now. And somewhere along the way he had lost a certain brutish quality, along with the lumbering swagger Timothy remembered. It had been replaced with a frightening grace for a mouse of his size—even with Timothy’s added weight, Martin bounded to the top of the ridge of refuse.

Tina, forced to struggle behind, nearly crawling, got a much different view of the trip up than Timothy. Skewed stacks of paper, broken file cabinets, a letter opener that nearly pierced her paw—it was something like an office supply store turned on its side and shaken by a giant.

Just as she was feeling relieved (and a bit guilty, for no reason) that she hadn’t seen a dead body yet, she was confronted with a spiky pile of rebar, with a tattered sheet draped over it. The coppery smell of blood assaulted her nose, a delicate note of decay creeping in underneath—like a diver scrambling for a lost air-hose, Tina fumbled Bernard’s little bottle of Vicks ointment out of a pocket and smeared some under her nose. The menthol thundered into her nostrils and made her eyes water, but then again they hadn’t been too dry to start with.

The edge of a paw hung limply out, from one edge of the sheet—Tina shuddered, forced herself to reach out and pull the sheet down over it. A tag dangling from the paw still peeked out: “S. Dellafreccia, Italy”, as though the unfortunate fellow were a museum piece. A short and terrible question was also scrawled there: “Move?”

Only then did she notice the small flag, its wooden pole strapped neatly to one of the metal bars with duct tape. The green, white, and red Italian Tricolor cut a swath through its steel-and-gray, dusty surroundings. She crouched, gaping at it, until a rhythmic thumping vibration shook her sensible.

Martin was up above, pointing beyond the rise and stamping the ground with one foot. Timothy held on to his brother’s massive neck for dear life.

With a heartfelt if inadequate “Spiacente, signore,” to the late Mr. D., Tina left the sad scene and joined the others at their higher perch. The effect was lost on Tina, but a trick of acoustics cut off nearly all sound from the search and salvage behind them.

Cresting the rise, all Tina could do was stare. Martin closed his eyes and muttered—he’d seen too much of it already.

Sweeping arcs of seats and tables had once stairstepped down toward the now-ruined dais in the center of the tumult. Now, something like the lines of sand a rake leaves in a Zen garden, there were still furrows and hills tracing their ghostly outlines. Almost as if someone had expected the departed delegates to come reclaim their places, the jumble was dotted with the flags of every nation represented at the Rescue Aid Society.

A colder than expected draft was wheezing from the gaping holes above, where whole floors had dropped their contents onto the uncomprehending faces gathered below. That chill wind now fluttered across the flags, standing out in die-cut colors against the grays, whites, browns and beiges of the ruins. It defied narration.

“They call it the ‘salad bowl’,” Martin said mirthlessly. “They weren’t calling it anything until Sophie started putting up the flags.”

“Salad bowl? That’s awful!” Tina held her stomach with one paw and her nose with the other. The Vicks was no match for the miasma of fear and death that hung over the place.

Timothy hung loosely over his brother’s shoulders. “Why do we always do that? Why do we give these places silly names when something awful happens?”

Martin was quiet for a long while. “I think we’re built that way,” he finally decided. “I can’t put it into words, quite, but it helps us bend instead of break.”

Their reverie was broken as Tina pointed down into the depression (That’s just what I would have called it, too—“the depression”, she thought queasily). “What’s that down there?”

Martin got a bead on the fluttering, rustling dot of color climbing toward them, and brightened considerably. “Sweetness and light, Tina. Not even this place can damp it down.” With Timothy still teetering on board, Martin hopped down to close the distance with the odd little figure waving her paws frantically at Martin—it was a very young mouse with a jumble, a riot of color tucked into every pocket, of which she had many. They were leftover flags, the visitors realized, as she threw her arms around one of Martin’s legs, still breathing hard.

Martin held Timothy steady with one paw as he crouched to put the other on Sophie’s shoulder. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“Daddy, quick, you have to--” she started, but let go and took a step back to size up Timothy and Tina with a piercing crystal-blue stare. “What are you two doing here? You’re pictures in a book.”

Timothy furrowed his brow and cast an uncertain glance at Tina. No signs were needed; Tina felt the same. What the—

“’course you’re not, ‘course you’re not,” bubbled the pipsqueak. “You’re my uncle Timmy whose legs don’t work and you’re Tina-who-isn’t-my-aunt-yet.”

“You must be Sophie, then. You’ve done such a pretty job with the flags,” Tina gestured.

Sophie screwed up her face in indecision. “Wasn’t going for pretty, but it happened. Flags aren’t just for pretty, they tell you where you’re at.” Her sky-blue eyes teared over a bit and she wiped at them with one of the flags. “Or were.”

As quickly as her somber mood had come, it was gone again. She tugged at Martin’s arm, nearly dislodging Timothy. “Come on! Mama said she’d wring my tail if I didn’t bring Daddy back quick!”

“You know she didn’t mean that,” Martin rumbled, patting her gently on the head as to not drive her into the floor like a railroad spike.

“Oh, she means it,” shuddered Sophie. “She needs you! She found somebody alive!”

Collective jaws dropped. “After this long?! That’s great news!” gasped Tina.