“I wish you would tell us what’s eating you,” Ferret persisted.
“Why don’t you drop the subject?” Lynx suggested.
“Because if we don’t get you to spill the beans now, we’ll have to put up with your crabby puss until you do.”
“I ain’t about to waste my breath tryin’ to explain to you two morons,” Lynx snapped.
“You shouldn’t call us names, no,” Gremlin said, his tone conveying his hurt feelings at being insulted.
“Now don’t go gettin’ misty-eyed on me,” Lynx stated. “The three of us are best buddies. I call you a moron because I like you.”
“I’d hate to think of what he’d call us if he didn’t like us,” Ferret quipped.
“You know what I mean,” Lynx said.
“No, as usual, we don’t,” Ferret disputed. “You’re talking in circles again.”
“Do you want me to give it to you straight?”
“I don’t know if we could take the shock,” Ferret replied.
Gremlin snickered.
“Okay, you turkeys. I’ll lay it on the line,” Lynx said, stopping and facing them. “The three of us have been through thick and thin together, right?
We were all created in a laboratory by a wacko scientist. Each of us is the product of the ultimate in genetic engineering.”
“Uh-oh. I feel one of his spiels coming on,” Ferret observed.
“Deja vu, yes?” Gremlin agreed.
“Make fun all you want, but you’re hearin’ me out,” Lynx told them.
“We all got our start in a rotten test tube. We’re all the result of takin’ ordinary human embryos and splicing them somehow with animal genes. Each of us is a hybrid.”
Ferret yawned loudly. “Yep. Definitely a spiel.”
“All three of us rebelled against the Doktor and joined the Family,” Lynx said, ignoring the barb. “All three of us have been livin’ at the Home for years.”
“We should be searching for clues, no?” Gremlin asked.
“We were bored, remember?” Lynx said. “The Family is the nicest bunch of sicky-sweet do-gooders you’d ever want to meet, but we were going stir-crazy.”
“Correction. You were going stir-crazy,” Ferret said, then thought better of his comment. “Correction again. You’re crazy anyway, so who could tell the difference?”
“I mean, we were bred to be fighters. We were genetically engineered to be assassins for the lousy Doktor. So it was only natural that we got tired of playin’ with the kiddies and huntin’ game for the Family to eat. It was only natural we decided to become Warriors so we could add a little excitement to our lives,” Lynx stated.
“There you go again,” Ferret said. “Where do you dig up these fairy tales? We didn’t want to become Warriors. You were the one with the brainstorm. You were the one who wanted to be a Warrior, and you were the one who nagged us for months until we finally agreed to go along with your insane scheme.”
Lynx frowned. “Some brainstorm I had. We’ve been Warriors for how long now?”
“Oh, about two years,” Ferret answered.
“Exactly. And how much action have we seen in the past two years?”
Ferret and Gremlin exchanged glances.
“Double uh-oh. I suddenly have this sinking feeling that Lynx is about to propose another of his bright ideas,” Ferret said.
“Should we run now or later, yes?” Gremlin asked.
“Go ahead. Make fun of me all you want. Get it out of your systems,” Lynx commented. “I want your undivided attention when I reveal my next stroke of genius.”
“Did he say genius, no?” Gremlin responded, addressing Ferret.
“I can never get over the fact that his ego and the solar system are both the same size, yes?” Ferret replied, and immediately regretted imitating Gremlin’s unique pattern of speech. When Gremlin had been quite young, the genetic engineer who’d created them, the vile Doktor, had performed an exploratory operation on Gremlin’s brain. The Doktor had continually striven to improve his medical knowledge and expertise, and as part of one of his experiments he’d removed a portion of Gremlin’s brain and preserved the piece in a jar. As a result. Gremlin always spoke in a bizarre manner.
“My ego has nothing to do with this,” Lynx declared. “Fairness is the issue here.”
“Fairness?” Ferret repeated skeptically.
“Yeah. What have we been doing for the past two years?” Lynx asked, and expounded in the next breath. “I’ll tell you. We’ve spent most of our time on guard duty, walkin’ the ramparts of the walls enclosing the Home.
Every now and then we get to waste a wild animal, like that wolverine we ripped to shreds last month, or we get to tangle with one of those feral mutations, like the black bear with six legs that tried to eat a Tiller. But for the most part we twiddle our thumbs while the other Warriors get to hog all the action.” He paused and looked at his companions. “Why should they have all the fun?”
“What are you babbling about?” Ferret responded. “The other Warriors spend as much time on wall duty as we do. Every Triad pulls equal eight-hour shifts, and we all get the same number of days off. So how do they hog all the action?”
Lynx beamed, about to disclose the cornerstone of his argument. “It’s simple, Vacuum Head. They get to go on all the runs.”
Ferret and Gremlin looked at one another again.
“This isn’t leading up to what I think it’s leading up to, is it?” Ferret asked.
“I think so, yes,” Gremlin confirmed.
“I was afraid of that,” Ferret said.
“I’m right and both of you know it,” Lynx declared. “Who got to go to California? Blade and Hickok. Who went to Seattle? Blade, Hickok, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and Yama. Who took the run to Nevada? Blade, Hickok, Geronimo, and Helen. Who went to Florida? Blade, Hickok, and Rikki.
Sundance and Bertha have been to Philadelphia. I could go on and on, but you got my point. The other Warriors are allowed to go on extended missions away from the Home, but not us. The other Warriors get to take all the runs, to have all the fun.”
“Fun!” Ferret said, and snorted. “Where’s the fun in accepting an assignment that could well get you killed? Where’s the fun in traveling hundreds of miles from those you love, never knowing if you’ll see them again? Where’s the fun in finding yourself in a life-threatening situation time and again? Where’s the fun in going up against mutations, raiders, scavengers, cannibals, and run-of-the-mill psychopaths?”
“It beats wall duty,” Lynx remarked.
“You want us to go on one of the runs, yes?” Gremlin inquired, sounding astounded by the very notion.
Lynx grinned and nodded vigorously. “Bingo. What a great idea, huh?”
“You’re pulling our legs, no?” Gremlin wanted to know.
“I’m serious. Just think of how terrific it would be to get away from the Home for a while. What better way to put a little spice into our life?”
“What better way to wind up dead?” Ferret rejoined.
“A trip away from the Home would break the monotony, alleviate our boredom,” Lynx maintained.
“But you’re the only who who is bored,” Ferret stated.
“Does this mean you don’t like my idea?”
“Like it? I think it’s the craziest, stupidest, most feeble-witted, insipid, blockheaded idea you’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.”
“Does that mean no?”
“ No!” Ferret shouted, practically exploding.
Lynx studied his irate friend for several seconds. “I expected you to act this way.”
“You did?”
“Sure. You’re a pessimist.”