PENGUINS....

Prologue

"This is definitely not good," Edward muttered from behind the wheel of his
late model Mustang. He squinted through the windshield into the darkness and
shook his head in amazement for the second time in under an hour. Larry, who
had driven the last shift, had somehow managed to take a wrong turn. Now,
instead of making good time on the main highway, they were hopelessly lost
in the middle of nowhere, with the sun setting fast.

Nightfall was not a good time of the day to get lost in the country.
Outside, the landscape had become dark and foreboding with unidentifiable
objects looming in the distance. Soon enough, full dark had settled
completely onto the countryside like a heavy blanket so black and thick that
it seemed to absorb the twin beams of the car's halogen lights.

All was silent inside the car except for a light snore and the intermittent
turning of pages. Then an arrogant, whiny voice broke the calm.

"Are we there yet?"

"Aw no, not again," sighed Edward, glancing briefly into the rear view
mirror. The green glow of the dashboard was not enough to illuminate the
figure in the back seat.

"ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET? ARE
WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET...."

Larry, who'd been dozing in the passenger seat, awoke with a start and
blinked sleepy eyes. Sighing, he turned on the overhead light and looked
over his shoulder into the back seat. "Uh oh", He shouted at Edward over the
noise. "She's almost finished with that coloring book."

"That's not good," Edward yelled back, eyes locked on the road ahead, "we
have to keep her occupied. It's the only way."

"I know," Larry replied, "but can't we at least remove the handcuffs?
They're making it hard for her to color."

"No."

Larry sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"... ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET?  ARE WE THERE YET? ARE WE THERE YET....  HEY! JAMES BLONDE! BOY WONDER! I ASKED YOU TWO A QUESTION." ARE WE TH..."

Edward hit the brakes, locking the tires and sending the car to a swiveling,
screeching halt.  Popping his seat belt he turned and partially launched
himself over the back seat of the car, coming nose to nose with the occupant
of the back seat.

"RAINA, I KNOW THAT'S YOU IN THERE SO SHUT THE HELL UP!"

The young woman fell silent and leered at Edward seductively. Slowly she
raised her cuffed hands to his face. Larry watched in horror as her lips
moved towards the hitman's mouth. Edward himself seemed strangely
immobilized.

Suddenly, the woman's entire body jerked and her face twisted through a
series of amazing contortions. After a few tense moments, she quieted down,
breathing heavily.

"Edward," she panted, looking up to meet his eyes. "It's me now. Anita. I've
got the Munin under control again. Thanks. I couldn't have done it without
you."

Edward gave a curt nod and eased back into his seat, his expression
softening slightly.

"No prob. Good to have you back. I guess the yelling works. Damned Munin."

"Ah, no, not exactly," Anita said sheepishly. "It was more the shock of
realizing that I was about to kiss you. Not even Raina could make me do
that. Are we there...."

"NO!" Edward and Larry yelled in unison.

"Oh," Anita replied looking somewhat annoyed, "What's taking so damned long?
We should be in Santa Fe by now."

Edward looked out at the darkness. "We should, but instead we're good and
lost.  I told the Boy Wonder here not to take that exit when he pointed it
out on the map. Of course he took your advice, as usual, while I was taking
a nap. I think we've gone north."

"No way," Larry said confidently, "are you kidding? There's no way we could
get lost, not with Anita's lycanthrope-foo..."

"Will you stop it with the foo already!" Edward growled, "Who started that?
GAWD it's annoying."

"Um...some guy in Oklahoma I think," Larry replied as thunder rumbled in the
distance, somewhere to the south-west of them.

"It amazes me that she's still got a few of those powers left, especially
since...well, you know," Larry whispered in Edward's direction.

"I know," Edward replied, his brow furrowed. "It must have hurt her like
hell to kill that penguin, but it had to be done."

"Actually," Larry snorted, "I was talking about Jean-Claude and Richard.
Y'know, the Tri? That's why I said lycanthrope-foo in the first place."

"Oh. Right. Those powers," Edward said absently, "I guess I wasn't paying
attention. Well, um, yeah, that was a damn shame too."

"Damned shame." Larry echoed, stifling a grin.

"Hello?" Anita said, her voice made unusually whiny by the residual effects
of the Munin. "Ignore much? Does anyone have any bright ideas or are we
gonna ride around on backroads for the rest of our unnatural lives."

"First, we're gonna get back on the highway." Edward decided. "Are you going
to behave yourself?"

The burning sensation at the back of his neck indicated that her response
was a highly effective death stare.

"Okay." Edward continued. "We're going to keep going until we hit
civilization, then we're gonna take the first exit we see and buy a map."

Anita snorted, but remained silent. An X-men comic, two Pokemon coloring
books and a copy of "Jane's Infantry Weapons" hit the floor of the car as
she shifted in her seat.

"I'll drive," Larry offered.

Edward did not look impressed. "You promise to stick to the plan?"

"Yep."  Larry nodded.

"No matter WHAT Anita says or does?"

"No matter what." Larry grinned in the darkness. "I've learned my lesson."

Edward sighed. "Okay."

The two men got out of the car to switch seats.

Larry started the engine and pulled back onto the road. "Here we go!" He
said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, yeah." Edward replied slouching low in the passenger seat and
shutting his eyes.

"By the way guys, THESE CRAYONS SUCK!" Anita shouted

"ANITA SHUT THE HELL UP!" both men yelled in unison.

The silence that followed was interrupted only by a quiet, yet sadistic
little giggle.

********************

PART I

Toronto, Canada

It was a dark and stormy night.

The Victoria Day long weekend was ending the way it began. Rain had pelted
the city for three days driven by 100 kph gusts of wind that blew in off
Lake Ontario. It had not been a day to be outside, whether on land or lake,
and as a result the usual fireworks were not lighting up the harbor sky.

Inside a renovated factory, located on Cherry Street in the old industrial
district off Toronto Harbor, a young woman named Valeria slouched before a
TV, idly flipping channels and sipping warm beer from a can.

The CNN logo faded as familiar theme music soared. Larry King's face filled
the screen. "Welcome back to Larry King Live," he said. "I'm Larry King.
Tonight's topic, the penguin: cute comedian or flightless menace? Our
expert, on the line from US National Science Institute Station 4 in
Antarctica, is researcher Byron Pisces who's been helping us shed some light
on the recent media frenzy concerning, of all things, penguins. Thank you
Byron."

On the right side of the screen a serious young man in a lab coat with a
Humans First pin nodded solemnly through crackling static.

"Thank you Larry. The threat is real," Byron said, somewhat nervously. "Make
no mistake. My studies indicate that something is causing the penguin
populations to migrate seemingly insurmountable distances towards human
populated areas. Autopsies have proven that these birds are changing,
mutating into..."

The image dissolved into static, only to reappear a moment later...

"...sentient thought processes and the capability to connect with the human
mind on a sub..." More static, and the signal was lost.

Larry tapped at his ear piece and frowned into the camera. "Looks like we're
experiencing technical difficulties. In the mean time we'll take this
opportunity for a commercial break."

Shrugging, Valeria lifted the remote and changed the channel.

On TNN, a group of line dancing humans stomped by the camera. The image cut
to a video of Lyle Lovett singing a song about penguins. Valeria gave a
light snort, aimed the remote at the TV in a textbook double handed grip and
mouthed the sound of a gunshot.

"Pow."

She changed the channel.

Another talk show, this time on local cable. Two men sat awkwardly in tiny
chairs, trying to look scholarly and serious. The camera focused on one man
in particular.

"Welcome," he said. "Today we focus on deconstructing the 1949 Warner Bros.
animated feature 'Frigid Hare'. Starring Bugs Bunny and an unknown named
Playboy Penguin, this classic has come under recent scrutiny due to its
underlying Penguin superiority theme..."

Valeria rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead. "Well D-uh!" She said and
took aim with the remote again.

A Bud Ice commercial. Valeria shook her head and pointedly ignored the
frolicking images of penguins. She chugged back half a can of warm 5.5%
Molson Canadian, allowed herself a soft burp and changed the channel.

Stock footage of Penguins in their natural habitat on the Learning Channel.
The image cut to a thin man in a well worn lab coat, sitting behind a desk.
"...are these amazing breakthroughs ever achieved except by years and years
of unremitting study?" He said in a thick english accent. "Of course not.
What I said earlier about accidental discoveries must have been wrong.
Nevertheless scientists believe that these penguins, these comic flightless
web-footed little bastards may finally unwittingly help man to fathom the
uncharted depths of the human mind."

Valeria slouched a little further into her worn chair, sighed and changed
the channel.

Back to the Larry King show and the now startlingly clear image of the
penguin researcher. To Valeria's trained eyes something seemed wrong about
the young man. She'd seen this kind of behavior before. She sat up and
carefully placed the can on the ground next to the worn recliner.  Pisces'
appearance was completely disheveled and he seemed to be having a difficult
time containing a fit of giggles.

"Glad to have you back, Byron," Larry said.

"Glad to be back Larry." Pisces seemed to find this hysterical and dissolved
into helpless giggling. Something off camera caught his attention. Still
giggling he leaned down towards it and a tiny black flipper smacked him
across his face. Straightening again, he faced the camera; sobered and
slightly cross-eyed.

Larry did a double take before turning back to face the camera. "Um...right.
Okay. Uh...we go now to the phones and few questions from the viewing
audience. Our caller, Mrs. Slokum all the way from London, England. Go ahead
please."

"Hello? Larry? My pussy has a word to say regarding the penguin issue."

"THAT DOES IT!!" Larry slammed his palms on the table in front of him,
causing his microphone to rock on its base. "Who let that call through? I've
said this three times tonight, NO MORE CATS! WHAT IS THIS? I WANT MY AGENT!
I DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THIS. I'M A PROFESSIONAL DAMMIT!!"

Jumping to her feet in a sudden similar fit of anger, Valeria hit the power
button on the remote and threw it across the room. It went bouncing off a
brick wall, separating in mid-air and sending a shower of black plastic
chips and circuitry onto the carpeted floor below. The TV now sat silent in
the semi-darkness. No more penguins.

Shaking her head, she began to pace restlessly before the TV.

Several years ago she'd labored towards a degree in preternatural biology at
the University of Toronto, in the hopes of becoming a consultant
specializing in Vampires. Unfortunately, after only a few jobs had come
through, she was forced to realize that it barely paid the bills.

Most Canadian vampires knew how to behave even though it hadn't done them
any good in the end. Across the border their US counterparts were walking
the streets as legal citizens while the official position of the Canadian
government, going oddly against its obsession with special interest groups,
was still that the only good vampire was a staked vampire. Consequently most
vamps, faced with a future of being forced to remain 'in the coffin', had
packed up their fancy wardrobes and headed for America.

Business had been dead after that, no pun intended. Cash was tight. She'd
found herself forced to take clerical temp jobs, just to make ends meet.

Then, three years ago, something happened that changed the course of
Valeria's life. One day e-mail messages had begun to flood her Hotmail
account from a mysterious organization. The messages contained proof that
the world was about to face a powerful new menace in the form of a creature
that had captured the hearts of humans for years: Penguins.

The messages insisted that the public was not to be alerted. The reasoning
was sound. If left to their own devices humanity would scoff at the warnings
instead of preparing for possible domination by small flightless waterfowl.
Convincing governments of the plans of the web-footed invaders was out of
the question since it would be slow, difficult work. The Penguin threat
would have to be systematically and quietly eradicated by teams of dedicated
professionals spread out across the world.

That's where Valeria had come into the picture. The head of the mysterious
group had chosen her to assemble the first Canadian team due to her well
known reputation for organizing and enthusiastically supporting strange and
unusual causes in her spare time.

Being a true geek at heart she had no problem opening her mind to the
bizarre. However, she had wisely opted to pull a Scully until the first
surprisingly substantial check for expenses had cleared. Soon after, the
first Canadian rebel stronghold of the Anti-penguin Resistance movement came
into being.

With the money, Valeria had managed to assemble a crack team of hard edged
professional mercenaries. They'd made the factory on Cherry Street their
base of operations, and with the seemingly endless flow of cash from the
organization's home office in Whitewright, Texas, they armed themselves with
the latest in anti-penguin weaponry. The deal was simple. Team Toronto's job
was to go out and kick penguin butt any way they could without drawing the
attention of the authorities or the media. Unfortunately, that particular
goal was fast becoming an impossibility.

The penguin had become the most recognized symbol of the last days of the
millennium, managing to infiltrate almost every aspect of human society
using what the experts at the Oklahoma office called Media-foo. The
web-footed hooligans loved attention and knew that the best way to get it
was through the mass media. They used it to lull humans into a dopey, gentle
acceptance of their slow domination schemes. Their knowledge of human
psychology was vast. Images of penguins were landing in human hands through
everything from sunglasses and beer cans to oddly unexplainable impulse
purchases of novelty items from the local Target Superstore.

"Boss? You okay?" asked a baritone voice.

Roused from her musings Valeria halted in mid stride and turned to face the
tall, well dressed black man who filled the doorway.

"I'm fine George," she sighed. "Really."

"Well you don't sound fine," he said, walking across the room with all the
grace that a muscular, six foot five, 300 lb mercenary could muster. He
adjusted his wire rim glasses and tsked at the sight of the remote's innards
strewn across the floor. "You call this fine?"

Valeria shook her head and smiled grimly. "I guess I'm letting it get to
me."

"That's exactly what I'm here to talk about," George replied. "Among other
things." He walked to the window and glanced out across Toronto harbor where
the city glowed in the darkness. "You do realize that none of us have been
paid in over a month?"

"I realize that," Valeria said carefully.

"Then perhaps you also realize that we've lost half our people in the past
week? The team thinks it's time to move on. The whole penguin thing is over.
We won."

"It's not over."

"Maybe not for you, girlfriend, but from where we're standing it looks like
the Home Office has packed it in."

"They would have sent a message George," Valeria replied. "They wouldn't
just leave us hanging like this. Something's wrong."

George sighed. He slowly lowered himself onto his haunches and began to pick
up the pieces of the remote. "Anything interesting on the news?"

Valeria threw herself into the chair in front of the TV like an annoyed
teenager. "No. Just the usual penguin crap. I'm giving them another week."

"And then what?"

"Maybe I'll send a couple of you guys down to Whitewright to check things
out."

"Sure," George snorted. "And what do we do when we get there? Stop a
stranger and say 'sorry to bother you but can you kindly point us in the
direction of the Rebel Stronghold, Home Office of the Anti-Penguin league?'
Hell, we don't know nuthin' about the people we've been takin' orders from.
If I hadn't seen this penguin stuff with my own eyes I would of thought they
all a bunch of freaks."

"Well...there is one thing we do know." Valeria smiled.

George scrunched his face in disgust and shook one finger in her direction.
"I don't want to hear nuthin' more 'bout that Highlander stuff, you hear me?
It's unnatural. Already got enough of that from the new guy."

Valeria sat up, interested. "The new guy? What about him?"

"Hey! You're the one who's supposed to be in charge here. Why don't you go
down and see for yourself, Boss," George said. "The team is tough. They can
wait as long as they're told to, they can even go without pay for awhile
longer but mark my words, that new guy's a little weird, even for them."

"Okay," Valeria sighed, pushing herself out of the chair. "I'll check it
out."

A month ago, messages from the Home Office had simply stopped coming. The
last one to arrive had reported that Sigmund, the leader of the Penguin
armies, was rumored to have been shot to death in his limousine outside a
stadium in St.Louis, Missouri. The body had gone missing, leaving no proof
other than an eye-witness account by a local supporter of the rebel cause.
Stranger still, was that the incident had coincided suspiciously with the
nearby assassination-style killing of the Master Vampire of the City,
Jean-Claude, and a local high school teacher named Richard Zeeman.

That had seemed to signal the end of any further infiltration activity. It
was all quiet on the Penguin front, and Valeria had found herself the
coordinator of a group of Penguin hunters with no penguins to hunt.

At the far end of the room, she pressed a button and waited for the
antiquated elevator to creak to the top. When it arrived, she stepped
inside, praying, as usual, that she wouldn't get stuck between floors and
berating herself for not having gone to the bathroom first, just in case.

Back in the '50s, the original owner of the factory had built a bomb shelter
into the sub basement of the building. Years later, when Valeria had found
the abandoned factory, she'd realized that it was the perfect location for
Team Toronto's Center of Operations. Thanks to the previous owner's
paranoia, only minor renovations were required to suit their purposes.

Stepping off the elevator into the blinding fluorescent glare of the Wreck
Room, Valeria ducked in time to avoid a Nerf missile. The room itself was an
experiment in sensory overload. Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl", cranked to
just below the threshold of pain, competed with the soundtrack to James
Cameron's "Aliens", blaring from the wide screen TV.

To her left, four mercenary types were locked in a fierce, noisy game of
ping pong.  To her right, a freckle-faced young man in carrot colored
dreadlocks sat before a computer, idly molding a clever re-creation of
Botticelli's Venus on the Half Shell from stale, soggy ramen noodles and
ketchup. A Nerf launcher lay beside the mouse pad.

Over at the bar, a short muscular woman with spiky purple hair and an
abundance of tattoos and piercings sat beside an even shorter man, eating
homemade brownies, drinking rum punch and arguing about the season finale of
Buffy. As they argued they were carefully cleaning and oiling a multitude of
intricate parts spread out on the bar before them. The parts, when
connected, would form two high powered automatic hand weapons.

Valeria looked around her and decided that the team seemed to be taking the
lull in activity and the delay in pay well, though several sidelong glances
in her direction hinted at another story.

Fred, the team's unofficial den mother put down his knitting and, with a
last guilty glance at the TV, hurried towards her.

"Hey boss, what can we do ya for?" He asked in his thick east coast accent.
He blinked through thick lenses set in heavy black frames.

"The new guy. Where is he?" Valeria asked.

Fred shoved his glasses up his nose with a beefy middle finger. "I've been
meanin' to talk to you about him boss," he said, "he's in the trainin' room,
but I wouldn't go in there."

Valeria raised her eyebrows but kept her voice neutral. "And the reason is?"

Fred blushed and scratched the back of his crewcut. "There's just somethin'
about him...it's...well... boss, he creeps the team out. If it weren't for
the dress and..."

"I'm sorry, the...the dress?" Valeria repeated weakly, then sighed and held
out a hand. "Okay Fred, stop right there. This I gotta see for myself."

"And it's no kilt neither. I know how you feel 'bout them," Fred said,
leering comically as he watched her stride off.

There were three people in the training room. Two men and one woman.  One
was wearing a dress, and it wasn't the woman. Valeria stopped short in the
door way and stared at the small group.

Christi Morgret, communications expert, on loan from the South Florida
office due to her detailed knowledge of the Penguin menace, was leaning up
against a 'Know Your Foe' poster with her arms crossed, looking bemused,
saying nothing.

Peter Kwan, scientist, doctor and fellow geek, was maintaining minimum safe
distance near the white board. He looked confused, and angry.

The center of all this attention sat in one of the training room's orange
plastic chairs, exuding stoic superiority.

Winston Forrester hadn't turned around when Valeria had entered the room,
but it didn't take an eye for detail to notice a few glaring inconsistencies
between his manner and his apparel, which could only be accurately described
as Hooker Barbie meets Dirty Harry.

His rangy muscular body was stuffed into a long-sleeved baby blue spandex
dress, cut low enough to display a magnificent set of hairy pectoral
muscles. He wore fishnet stockings over hairy legs that ended in scuffed Doc
Martens. His platinum blonde hair, though shaved on both sides of his head,
was long and gathered on the top. It fountained upwards, eventually
cascading off to the side and ending at his shoulder.  Dangly cherry
earrings completed the outfit. On the chair beside him rested a well worn
leather jacket.

He turned his head in her direction; a smooth, almost robotic movement. The
cherry earrings swayed gently.

Well hell, thought Valeria, letting out a breath, grateful that he wasn't
wearing makeup.

"Mr. Forrester," she said, holding out a hand and forcing a smile, "I'm
Valeria Orbus, Team Coordinator. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to
introduce myself sooner. I understand that you come highly recommended from
the San Francisco office."

Forrester stood and shook her hand solemnly. His face was angular and lean,
toughened by the elements and covered in a days growth of platinum stubble.
His hard, ice-blue eyes were those of a predator.

"Looks like I got here just in time," he said in a voice that was baritone
yet sociopathically soft. "I don't know what the hell all *that* is about."
He waved his hand in the direction of the diagrams that lined the walls and
the notes on the overhead projector. "Your people have some strange ideas."

"We have some strange ideas?!" Peter yelled, frustration raising his voice
an octave. "He won't listen to a thing we say."

"I only need to know one thing," Forrester said with calm menace.
"Where...they...are."

"I suppose that would be true if napalm were involved," Christi said mildly,
pushing herself away from the wall, "but we're minutes from a highly
populated area."

"What exactly is your experience with Penguins, Mr. Forrester?" Valeria
asked.

"I've got all the experience I need," he replied.

"Perhaps, you'd care to enlighten us."

Forrester stared silently at the three, as if weighing his options. He
walked over to a particularly gory diagram of a dissected penguin and ran
his index finger, tipped with sparkle polish, over it.

"I once made my living as an assassin. It runs in the family. Dad, Mom, my
little sister and my twin brother, Grandma. Goes way back."

"I'd love to see those family reunions,"  Peter muttered.

"I'll bet no one messed with him at recess," Christi added quietly.

Forrester ignored them and continued. "Recently, I'd found myself restless;
unchallenged. Of course, I consulted my astrologer. She told me a change of
lifestyle was just the thing I needed."

"So you decided to join the rebel cause?" Valeria asked.

"No, that came later."

Valeria cleared her throat and managed to choke out: "The dress?"

Forrester's hawk-like eyes narrowed on her; challenging her. "Yes. I decided
to get in touch with my feminine side." He leaned forward. "I liked it," he
added with a wealth of meaning.

Valeria shuddered.

"Of course, it all makes perfect sense," Christi snorted. "I can see it now:
Tonight on Springer, from killer to cross-dresser. "

"What the hell does all that have to do with penguins?" Peter demanded.

"Nothing," Forrester smiled, revealing white, even teeth. "Humans bore me. I
needed a new line of work. You've got a reputation for being a kick-ass
organization. You've hired some of the best in the business. It sounded like
a challenge. You're lucky I'm here."

"So you've never killed a penguin in your life." Peter slapped his forehead.
"But you came highly recommended!!!"

"Well, there was that time in Pittsburgh...," Forrester began.

"Never mind." Valeria stood and ran a hand through her dark blonde wavy
hair. "I'm beginning to suspect that the San Francisco office had ulterior
motives. Mr. Forrester, I suggest you pay close attention to your trainers.
You're right. Penguins aren't like humans. They're smarter. They're harder
to kill. It takes some pretty detailed knowledge to beat them at their own
game."

"I've got all the knowledge I need right in that bag." Forrester pointed to
a long green military issue bag which rested on the floor next to his chair,
"Never leave home without it."

The usually calm, collected and very redheaded Ms. Morgret chose that moment
to lose her cool.

Continued in  Issue 2  of PENGUIN$...

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