Chapter 1-3

      Chapter One Marty



   
  The story begins in the humble dwelling of David Felidae the cat, who lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building which was set in the very heart of the booming metropolis, Geltempo City. He had a black and grey striped coat. His front side was white which ran up along his body until it ended in a splash between his eyes. Geltempo City was divided into two sections. These sections were not divided all on land but rather vertically, from top to bottom. There was Upper-Level Geltempo, which began about seven hundred  feet up and was mostly dominated by birds and other flying beast. Metal sidewalks with guardrails stretched out from building to building forming complex lattice throughout Upper-Level for those who were too tired, or couldn't fly. Other than those in the Sky Bus transportation system and emergency vehichles, hovercrafts were rarely seen here since they were so expensive. Under Upper-Level was Ground-Level Geltempo were all the land bound creatures, such as David, dwelled. 

In his opinion David had one of the worst, most disgusting jobs in the city. He work at an insect plant were bugs were processed, packaged up to be ship off to stores and sold to insectivorous creature. The worst, most disgusting job there was making the cockroach jam.  He had to operate a machine that smashed cockroaches until they were grounded into a thick paste, which some creatures actually liked to spread on their toast. He had to make sure that roach jam had been grounded smoothly.

Every day when he started up the machine and watched the pistons smash down on the roaches he felt like gagging. He never got used to it, but he tried his best not to because every time he did Mr. Flysnapper would croak at him; “Ya puke in dem roaches and your butt is fired Felidae!”

He hated that frog. Every day he came to work hoping a new supervisor would replace Mr. Flysnapper, but there was no such luck. Mr. Flysnapper stuck to his shift like a bad case of the fleas. The frog seemed to have a thing against cats and he never missed an opportunity to croak at David.

Today was not a good day for him. He had just found out that his mate was seeing another tom. After a very heated argument, instead of an apology, all he earned from his ex-mate was a slash across the face.

Therefore the day afterward when he came to work with a bandage on his face, he was already in a bad mood. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to deal with Mr. Flysnapper but there was no such luck. The frog strutted through the assembly line. “Come on people let’s get movin’, I expect five hundred bottles of dis stuff ready for shipin’ before lunch time.”

David groaned when the frog stopped at his line. He walked up to watch the cat work for a few second then he scooped up a webbed handful of crushed roaches and shoved it in his mouth. “Mmmph, Hey Felidae!” He croack when he finally finished eating.  “Dis is suppose ta be smooth not extra crunchy, taste like dere’s was a whole roach in dere. Ya doing a pretty crappy job of mashin’ dem up, as usual.”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m doing the best I can.” David murmured trying hard to restrain himself from knocking the frog across the room.

But Mr. Flysnapper seemed not to know when to quit. “Heh, heh dat’s a lie, if ya hadja way you’d being curled up on da floor dozing away, see dat’s da problem with you mammals, ya don’t want ta work. ‘specially you cats all you want ta do is lay around all day licking your selves. Ya’d hafta have a bucket of cold water splashed over ya just ta getcha ta shift ya lazy butts-“

David couldn’t hold it any longer, not today. “WILL YOU SHUT UP?!!”

Mr. Flysnapper took a few steps back, startled by Davids sudden outburst. For a moment, he seemed to remember that David was twice his size; then he regained his composer.

“Ya know I’m gonna report dat doncha?” He said.

“Oh yeah well while you’re at it you can report this too!”

He ripped off his roach spattered apron and flung it at the frog. It landed over the frogs head and he began to struggle with it trying to take it off.“I QUIT!” He shouted.

He tripped the struggling frog so that he fell face first on the floor and then stormed out.

    He soon began to regret his actions as he rode the bus home a considered going back and to apologize and grovel for his job back, but the damage was already done. He’d only make a fool of himself and possibly get arrested. Carefully avoiding his landlord, he went up into his apartment. After racking his claws across his tree-like scratching post several times, he crashed on the couch, which was circular in shape so that he could curl up easily on it. He turned on the TV, not really caring what was on, and begun to give himself a cat bath while he tried to stop thinking about how he would pay the rent.

“Let us fast backwards, billions and billions of years in the past, when the first intelligent beasts walked the earth. These beasts were known as humans. These creatures at first didn’t look like they would last long on the cold cruel planet. They had no fangs or claws to protect themselves if they were attacked, no fur, to shield them from the biting cold winds of the winter. It looked as if they would be snuffed out like a candle in the wind and become one of Mother Nature’s failures.

        “But, they displayed one trait that no other species in the world possessed, intelligence. They fashioned weapons for themselves to replaced fangs and claws, and as for fur, they took the fur off the other beast they killed and wore it on themselves, but there progress didn’t stop there. They went on to build cities then civilization. With intelligence, they became the rulers of the world. The advances the humans made seemed to have no end. They fashioned guns and cars. Even the boundaries of outer space could not stop thier expanding empire.

“But then suddenly, exactly two million years ago, they disappeared without a trace. To this day, homosapologist cannot explain their mysterious disappearance. All we have left of them now is the traces of their civilization, the ruins of their cities and roads.

"They seemed to have past their mighty gift of intelligence down to the other beast of the Earth before they vanished. Most of the beast on Earth underwent a unexplained rapid evolution and turned into what we are today. When we continue after the break, homosapologist, Dr. Fernando Flinch, will discuss how the humans have greatly affected our culture today.”

A knock sounded at his door. David flicked the TV off to answer it.

    A raccoon was standing in the doorway when he answered it. Though he was of an average build, he cut a very tough figure. His left ear stood taller than his right which looked like half of it had been hacked off. He wore a long trench coat, which almost extended over his whole body. A strong smelling cigar hung limply from his mouth sending a lazy trail of smoke into the air.

    "I heard you were looking for a roommate," he said.

    If he could some howget behind himself, David would have kicked himself hard for not cleaning up the place. Realizing that he couldn't afford to be just scraping by on the every month, he put an ad in the newspaper for a roommate. He tried to keep the place clean, but it had been two weeks and no one had contacted him about it, and gradually he began to let the place slip back to its usual messiness.

    "Okay then, um.. Come in." He said

    The raccoon strolled in and stuck out his paw.

    "Marty Mask."

    "David Felidea", David answered accepting it. He winced a little when he felt Marty's viselike grip.

    "Gee, I wish you had called before you came here. I would have tried to get the place ready."

    "So what? This is what it'll be looking like if I start living here." Marty said kicking aside a pizza box. Then sensing David's agitation he smiled and said. "Don't worry, when you see how messy I am you'll be ready to kick me out. So are you going to show me around?"

    David gave him a quick tour of the apartment. Marty decided to accept the offer and move in. The next week he began to move is stuff in. He had a box full of miscellaneous objects and a large oak desk. He didn't strike David as exactly a fashion fanatic, but the bulk of his possessions were clothes. He brought in at least five boxes full of clothes.

    He helped Marty cram the last of it in his closet and got a glimpse of the type of clothes they were. He had clothing for every type of occasion you could think of. He had everything from very expensive tailor-made suits to dirty looking holey clothes that looked like something only a street bum would be caught wearing. David commented on his enormous wardrobe. Marty's only responded by saying that he needed a wide variety of clothes to choose from in his line of work.

    David didn't know exactly what Marty's occupation was but after a week or two he began to grow very curious. Very often beasts of various species knocked on his door asking to talk with Marty Mask. He tried asking Marty about it but he was again elusive in his answer by only saying that they were his clients.

    No matter how late he arrived at the apartment at night, Marty would always be up at the crack of dawn to take his morning walk. Then he would fix a pot of coffee and some breakfast while he turned on the morning news. That was about around the time David woke up. About around ten o'clock after this morning ritual, he began working.

    He would then often disappear off somewhere in the city, wearing one of his
various outfits. Sometimes he came back as late as after midnight. When he came back, he would shut himself up in his room/office and demand total quiet. After an hour or two, if it wasn't too late and he didn't get any more clients, he would come out and watch TV for the rest of the day.

    David's curiosity turned into alarm when one day, about a month after Marty moved in, he spied him getting ready to leave the house dressed in a waiter uniform and loading a revolver and slipping it in a holster concealed in his coat.
 
    Now the crime rate all throughout Geltempo City was very high especially around the area David lived in. It was something that Geraldo Spike, Geltempo's Ground-Level porcupine mayor, spent countless hours trying to think of a solution for, or at least something that would at least temporarily stop the seemingly endless barrage of complaints that poured in every day. There were plenty of gangs ravaging the streets at night and there were even a few organized crime groups headed by much older and sinister beasts then the juvenile delinquents that only dealt in petty crimes. David knew there was no place in Geltempo that was completely safe from crime but David definitely wasn't going to share his apartment with a criminal.

    The next morning he woke up with the resolve to confront Marty and demand to know just exactly what his job was but he had already left on his morning walk. So he began to make breakfast as he waited for him to return. It was then when a furious pounding sounded at the door. When he went to open it, he almost fainted as a blast of fowl breath and flecks of spit assailed him.

    "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO KEEP YOUR SNOUT OUT OF MY BUSINESS YOU ROTTEN RACCOON!!!"

    It was then that the huge horned lizard realized that David wasn't a raccoon.
    "Dang, you mammals all smell alike. Where's the raccoon?"

    "Look buddy, Marty said he doesn't talk to any clients before 10 o'clock and I'll tell you another thing, I don't appreciate you banging on my door like that and spraying your slobber all over me especially this early in the morn-"

    "Now you listen to me fleabag, when that raccoon gets here, you tell him that Ernie said that when we catch up with him, me and my whole gang is gonna make a cap out of him!"

    David was beginning not to like this lizard. "Now you listen to me reptile, I don't know who you are or what your problem with Marty is but if you come here banging on my door and calling me a fleabag again, I will give you a good slashing! Now get lost and buy yourself a mint while you're at it." He growled at him fully displaying his claws. He hissed at him and was about to slam the door in his face when they both heard a voice from the hallway.

    "Ernie, what a pleasant surprise. You came you see me I understand?"

    Ernie whirled around to see Marty strolling leisurely up to the door.

    "You!" He shouted after he recovered from his surprise. "I told you to stay out of my business and I still find out that you've been snooping around my house again, probably got it infested with fleas, and I know you were spying on me at the restaurant."

    "Well if that's what you're so worked up about then I have some good news and no so good news for you, The good news is I found out all I needed to know and I will not be anywhere near your filthy house again. So you can rest easy, But the not so good news is you'll only be able to rest easy for a few hours because pretty soon you'll probably be arrested for the murder of Gregory Slithers."

    When Marty said that last part Ernie stepped back in surprise. Which David would have preferred he didn't because it brought the lizard over the threshold and into his apartment.

    "Well I suppose that means you found out." Ernie snarled. He suddenly shoved past Marty. At first David thought he was trying to run away. But he stopped behind Marty and reached in his coat and pulled out a gun. He pointed in Marty's face who had just whirled around.

    "Alright both of you get your paws up and get in the apartment now!"

    Marty's face betrayed no emotion as he slowly raised his paws in the air and stepped in the apartment.

    "I was just going to beat you up but I see I'm going to have to do more than that now! Hey cat!" He said pointing the gun at David. "Get those paws up."

    "Look I-I don't know w-what this is a-all about." David stammered quickly. "B-but I'm j-just his roommate. I don't have any t-thing to do with-"

    "I SAID 'SHUT UP AND GET THOSE PAWS UP!!'"

    Suddenly Marty lunged forward and grabbed the claw that was clutching the gun.

    "Get your flea-ridden paws off me you mammal scum!" Ernie grunted as they struggled for control of the gun. The gun went with off a loud bang but Marty was able to push Ernie's arm so that the bullet flew harmlessly to the right breaking a lamp.

    The shot seemed to galvanize David into action. Popping his claws out, he slashed at Ernie across the face. Crying out in pain, Ernie dropped his gun and clutched at his wound. With almost blurring speed, Marty picked the gun up and before he knew it Ernie was staring down the barrel of his own gun.

    "Make one move and I put a bullet right through your head." Marty said.

    Suddenly the door busted and a doberman cop in plain clothes and three other dogs in uniforms burst through the door with guns in their paws.

    "Alright everyone freeze! GPD!!." The doberman shouted.

    , "Well Anya, You took your time getting here, as usual." Marty said to the doberman.

    "Maybe I was hoping scale-face over here might plug you." Anya said motioning for a golden retriever to put Ernie in cuffs. The lizard knew that the game was up so he initiated his body's most primitive defense mechanism; he hit the dog squarely in the face with a steam of blood he shot from the corner of his eye. As the dog let go of him to frantically wipe his face, he made one last desperate dash for the door, but he never made it past Anya who bought the butt of her gun down hard on Ernie's head. With a grunt, Ernie fell over and crashed into David's glass coffee table shattering it into a million tiny pieces.

    "Let's see if you can cuff him right this time." She growled at the retriever. She turned to Marty. "As for you, you got a lot of explaining to do."

    David was staring in horror at his coffee table, which now lay in ruins. It was a birthday present from his mom. She would not be happy to see it gone the next time she visited.

    "See," Marty said. "Told you I was messier than you are."


Chapter 2 Roscoes    

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you to stay out of police business." Anya said glaring daggers at Marty. Marty and David were sitting in Anya's small office at the Geltempo City Police department after a short questioning. The fan spun lazily on the ceilings in a feeble attempt to cool down the hot room. On her door in large black letters read, "Anya Jenkins Geltempo Police Detective."

          Her desk was very neat and clean. The only item on it was a stack of paperwork which she had in front of her, two pencils, a day by day calendar which offered various famous quotes each day, and a thermos half full of now lukewarm coffee.

         "Working with the police slows you down. Your skills are hampered by all these stupid police procedures. I am not, that's why I'm always one step ahead of you." Marty said.

         "You still don't understand Marty. This is not a contest about who figures it out first. This is about you and your involvement in various criminal cases that we are supposed to handle. You mess a lot of things up for us. Take that Cedric Garson case, you killed him before we had a chance to take him in for questioning!"

         "What the heck was I supposed to do? Just stand there and let that trigger happy possum fill me up with bullets? Self defense; the judge said it himself. Besides it was pretty obvious he was guilty anyway."

         "If you wasn't snooping around in his dressing room at the nightclub, you wouldn't have put yourself in that situation and no matter how guilty he appears, every creature is supposed to get a fair trial!"
 
         "I'm just doing what I'm getting paid for. A guy has a right to earn a living don't he?"

         Anya sighed. "One of these days Marty you're going to cross the line and when that day comes, I will be there to arrest you personally."

         
            "You killed someone?!!" David asked flabbergasted as they left the police station.

         "Well yes sometimes I find myself in a situation where I have to kill someone every once in a while."

         "Every once and awhile???!!"

         "Yes, I know what you're thinking but it's better to have a creature dead sometimes than back on the street murdering."

         "Alright, that's it. This morning I was almost shot, now I find out that you kill creatures and last but not least I lost a perfectly good coffee table. I want to know exactly what you do for a living. Are you some kind of hit-beast or something?"

         Marty chuckled. "I don't think Anya would have let me walk out of the station if I was a hit-beast. I guess I do owe you an explanation for all of this but I haven't had breakfast yet and can't do all this explaining on an empty stomach. Let's go to Roscoe's Donuts. Roscoe makes the best donuts in Geltempo. It's just down the block from here and it'll be on me. I'll explain everything there."

         Roscoe's Donuts was a small place, wedged between a bookstore and a fur salon, the little donut shop was easy to miss. There was a window that had the name of the shop printed on it and a logo depicting a raccoon reclining inside a giant donut and smiling lazily while dunking a large piece of donut which he had broken off from above him into a steaming cup of coffee. The tingling of bells sounded, announcing their entry.

         There was a couple of tables in front of a large glass counter that displayed a large variety of tantalizing donuts and other baked goods. The only other patrons there, was a harried squirrel mom trying to settle a dispute over the last scone between her two kits. In a booth along the wall, two off duty police dogs sat sharing a box of donuts while sipping on coffee.

         "What's up Morris?" Greeted a fat raccoon from behind the counter.

         "Come on Roscoe. When are you ever going to learn to get my name right? It's Marty." Marty complained.

         "Yeah, whatever. The usual again?"

         "Yeah the usual. David, what do you want?"

         "Three frosted donuts and a coffee" David decided after looking over the menu

         Later they were sitting in a booth enjoying their food.  Marty meticulously dunked each of his donuts in his coffee making sure that almost every inch of the donut was covered in coffee; no one really understood why raccoons felt the strange need to dunk their food. They always dunked their food in anything liquid that was available, water, soup, sauce, juice, anything. If they couldn't dunk it, they wouldn't eat it.

         "Alright, I'll tell you what I do. I'm a private detective. People come to me with problems that they can't go to the police with." Marty said."It gets pretty boring at times, I often find myself investigating con-beasts, following female's mates to see if their being unfaithful, and things like that. But every once in a while I get more interesting cases dealing with theft, missing beasts, and in my most recent case dealing with Gregory Slithers, murder."

         "Was that what this morning was all about?"

         "Yes. I'm sorry you had to get involved. Please accept my apologies. I will buy you another coffee table. I try my best to keep my cases away from the home. As a part of my apology, I'll tell you about the case. About four years ago there was an assassination attempt was made on Geraldo Spike."

         "What? No there wasn't!"

         "Yes there was."

         "That's impossible! It would have been all over the news!"

         "Yes, it would have, except the police decided it best that it would be kept a secret. You remember Craig Bolder, Geraldo's opponent when he was running for reelection? Well it has been a long time since Ground-Level has had a reptile mayor and when the snapping turtle lost the election, reptiles all over Geltempo were pretty pissed, especially when it was rumored that Geraldo didn't win fairly."

         David did remember the rumors and investigation that went on when Geraldo Spike was reelected for his second term. After a very long and drawn out court hearing the verdict was not guilty but Craig Bolder and many other reptiles were not satisfied claiming that it wasn't a fair trial since most of the jury was mammals.

         "Well a certain group of reptile supremacists led by Ernie Morgan, you met him this morning, were particularly pissed. So pissed that they began to make plans to assassinate Geraldo." Marty continued. "But soon after they had made the plan and was about to carry it out one of the conspirators, Gregory Slithers, began to have cold feet, that is, he would have if rattlesnakes had feet. So he announced to the other conspirators that he was backing out.

         "This did not go over well with the rest of the conspirators, especially since he played a key role in their plot. You see, the plan was to sneak Gregory into his office sometime during the dead of night. There Gregory would hide under the desk and wait in hiding until sometime late in the morning when Geraldo arrived. The moment he was alone Gregory would strike, biting him in the leg. Being bit by a rattle snake, Geraldo would die within minutes."

         "But how was he going to get out?"

         "They weren't very clear about that. They said if he slithered away fast enough, Geraldo wouldn't even know what happen to him, but Gregory was not assured, which was why he backed out, not to mention he'd have a mouthful of quills. Now you understand how hard it is to find a venomous snake that would be willing to participate in such a scheme."

          "Yeah. The snakes that aren't milked would probably not even consider participating in such a plan."

         According to Geltempo's Zero Tolerance Venom Law, if any venomous beast had any kind of criminal charges on their record, they must lose their venom. They would be required to report to a government milking station periodically. Just about all the low life snakes have been milked. It would be pretty hard to find one with venom that would participate in such a plot.

         "Correct. So without him the plan was useless. The tried to talk him back into it but he had made his decision and wouldn't budge on the matter. Ernie and his gang began to get less and less nice in their efforts to change Gregory's mind. Very soon, they began making death threats. Soon, there was only one thing left for Gregory to do; he went to the police.

         "Ernie and his gang were arrested and went to jail. Ernie must have been really itching to get his scaly claws on Gregory because he maintained almost perfect behavior and had sworn to have reformed his ways. He even bribed a mammal into pretending to be his best friend for a cigarette every week. He did all this to convince the judge to put him on parole which happened just two months ago. Immediately after he got out, he tracked Gregory down, broke in his house and crushed his head with a sledgehammer.

         "Gregory's mother didn't trust the police and hired me to be sure that her son's murderer was caught. It wasn't exactly one of my hardest cases. I had to do a little snooping around, but in less than a week I found enough evidence to have Ernie put away for good this time.
"
         They ate in silence a few minutes as David digested this information. Then he spoke.

         "So you're a Private Eye huh? Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? I thought you might be on the other side of the law or something."

         "Maybe I should have told you up front what I was, but I thought it be best not to tell you, I didn't know how you'd react."

         Marty began to talk about other cases he had. He told about the time when he tracked down a famous mass murderer and about the time he helped recover a valuable painting stolen from the Geltempo Art Museum. Marty kept saying that most of the cases he had were boring but as far as David could tell, he had a pretty exiting life. David asked about everything he thought a private eye might do. Marty told him about car chases, gunfights, and stakeouts he was involved in, but he suddenly became quite when David asked him if he ever had any mates.

         "I don't want to talk about it." Marty mumbled.

         "Aw come on. I know you had to meet some pretty racoon during one of your cases."

         "I said I don't-want-to talk about it!" Marty said more angrily this time. His face had now hardened. David finally thought it might be a good idea to shut up.

         Marty sighed. "Sorry didn't mean to snap at you like that. I just uh- I just can't talk about. . . her."

         David though he saw a tear forming in Marty's eye but he wasn't sure because Marty quickly swiped a paw across it before he could get a longer look.

         "I got a bit of paperwork to do so I'm going back to the apartment. You can finish the rest of my donuts, I'm not hungry anymore." Marty said quickly. He got up and left the shop. As he went through the door, David realized that there was still much about Marty Mask that he didn't know.


Chapter 3 Cats and Dogs    



    Later in the afternoon Anya was eating lunch with her partner Grover Bristlefur, a
rottweiler, in their squad car parked just inside Br'er Rabbit Memorial Park.

        "You'll never guess what I got." Grover said.

        Anya sighed. "I hope it's not another CD you made. Your band sounds like a bunch of drunk squirrels."

        "Nope" Grover said unabashed. "I'm done trying to get you to appreciate music."

        "Alright, you're not going to shut up unless I ask. What is it?"

        "Well, I happen to know some dogs that know some dogs that know dogs, and to make a long story short I've got us two tickets to the Frisbee Toss Championship Friday night!"

        It was the fifth time he had asked her out this month.

        "Grover, I'm not ready to start dating yet and besides, you know I not into sports"

        "Come on, give it a chance. I'll explain everything to you.  It'll be fun. You need to do something else besides work every weekend."

        "I'm trying to put dangerous beasts behind bars, which is much more important then watching dogs chase frisbees around."

        Grover looked like he was about to say something else but the police radio crackled to life.

        "Caw! This is Chief Grobeak of ULGAP (Upper-Level Geltempo Air patrol) we have reports of land-bound beasts sabotaging a large money delivery to Geltempo National Bank. All units to the rooftop of Geltmpo National Bank."

        The Geltempo National Bank was the main bank of Geltempo city. Large deposits of money were delivered by helicopter to its rooftop in Upper-Level Geltempo. The bank knew that criminals might try to intercept these large amounts of money so they had the rooftop guarded with heavily armed gun-beasts. The only creatures who would dare try to sabotage it had to be either professionals or idiots.

        "Wow!" Grover said. "The last time something like that happened was when- Hey! Where are we going?!"

        Anya had thrown the gears into drive. Turning the sirens on she said, "Geltempo Bank, that's only about a mile away. If we step on it, we might be able to catch them."

        "Are you nuts? Do you know how well protected Geltempo keeps those things? Whoever's up there must have a lot of guns, and a lot of guns means a lot of bullets flying around and a lot of bullets mean that we would need a whole lot more backup before we just go charging up there!"

        "I'm not forcing you to go with me."

          Anya stepped on the gas petal. Her half-eaten sandwich, now forgotten slid off the dashboard as the car gained speed.
     
        "You're not even supposed to be up there anyway! That's in Upper-Level, ULGAP's supposed to take care of that!"

        "Geltempo Bank is very tall and they said land-bound creatures, so I might be wrong but I have a hunch it is the Fishheads."

        The Fisheads were a very notorious cat gang. They were a small gang with only nine official members, but they were all skilled thieves and assassins and had made their name known and feared all throughout Geltempo. Anya was doing all that was in her power to take them down. They had countless charges of burglary, murder, assaultted robbery and much more. But all that mattered to Anya was that they were filthy murdering scum polluting Gedltempo. They had to taken off the streets.
Years ago after witnessing a horrific murder, she made a vow to change Geltempo for the better. That was what fueled her as she relentlessly hunted down all the Law breakers in Geltempo City.

        "At least radio for backup!" Grover pleaded.

        "If you'll quit whining, but I'm not waiting for them." She picked up her radio and spoke into it. "This is detective Anya Jenkins, picked up reports of a robbery in progress atop Geltempo Bank. I'm going in, requesting backup."

        By that time, they had exited the park and pulled up in front of the bank. After a long elevator ride and a short flight of stairs, they found themselves at the door that led to the roof. It was oddly silent. They couldn't hear any of the gunshots they expected to hear. The lock on the door looked as if it was broken open.

Anya nodded to Grover and he nodded back. They knew the drill. They would count to three and then charge through the door.
One . . . 
        They readied their guns and approached the door.
Two . . . 
        Before they could get to three, the door swung open on its own. A jet-black cat carrying a large suitcase with a five hundred amina bill sticking out (aminas were currencies used as money in Geltempo) bursted through and skidded to a stop when he saw the police dogs. Anya tried to sniff the cat but couldn't get a distinctive scent because he was wearing Rovellog, a strong smelling perfume that's specifically designed to disguise a beast's scent.

        The cat was the first beast to get over the initial shock. He quickly ran back though the door and slammed it behind him.

        "Hey, stop!" Anya pushed the door open. Clenching the suitcase between his teeth the cat had dropped to all fours, most creatures did this when they wanted to achieve their maximum speed. Anya and Grover slipped their guns in their holsters, dropped to fours and chased after him. The cat had reached the edge of the rooftop and stop and looked back. There was no place for him to run now. Confidence gave Anya an extra boost of speed.

        The cat looked down the building, hesitated for a moment and then with a quick jump, vanished over the edge.

        Anya got back up on twos and peered down at the area where the cat jumped. The cat had landed on a metal sidewalk about thirty-five feet down and continued to run away from the building. Anya gave a yip of frustration. Only a cat would be able to survive such a daring leap.

        "Where'd he go?" Grover said arriving beside her. BLAM!!! A bullet slammed into the ground just inches away from them before she could answer.

        "We're being shot at!!" Grover exclaimed.

        "No, that was just someone's balloon popping, now give me some useful information like where the shooter's at for instance!!" Anya barked. As they scanned the rooftop, she quickly assessed the scene before her. The smoldering bodies of four guards were splayed all around a charred area or the rooftop. Anya guessed that either a small bomb or a grenade had taken them out. She saw a armored hover-truck lying on it's side. The driver had slumped over the controls, also dead. He must have been shot by the same creature that shot at them just now. Anya deduced that shooter's job was to provide cover for the black cat as he took the money.

        "He's over there," Grover shouted pointing behind her. He let off a few shots in that direction. "I can't see him, the sun's in the way!!"

        Anya turned around and aimed her gun in the direction Grover pointed. She could see the outline of another cat at the rail on a sidewalk about twenty feet above them reloading a rifle. She let loose a few shots at him but Grover was right. He was standing almost directly behind the sun and the glare made him almost impossible to see, let alone get a proper aim at him.

        The police dogs began to zigzag across the rooftops to make them selves a harder target. They shot in the cat's direction hoping that a lucky bullet might catch him. Except for the helicopter, which was too far away, there was no place to hide. They couldn't get back to the door they came through without getting closer to the gunbeast and making a better target. They were sitting ducks.

        The cat calmly lowered his gun again and took aim.
   
        "Stay right where you are landwalker!" a loud voice cawed out from behind him. The cat jerked his gun upward and spun around. Before he could shoot, a hawk in a police uniform swooped down upon him and racked the cat's face. The cat yowled in pain. A falcon and an eagle following the hawk and swooped in at him but the cat was ready for them this time. Swinging his rifle, he caught the falcon aside the heads. With a squawk, the falcon crashed on the sidewalk. Then the cat nimbly dodged the eagle but he leaned too far back over the rail in the process and toppled off it. Being a cat, he was able to instinctively right himself before he hit the rooftop below him so that he landed on his feet. As soon as he recovered from his fall he darted through the door which led back into the bank

        The eagle started after him but the hawk stopped him "Don't worry about him right now, let those land walker officers take care of him. Go after the other. The money must be recovered." The eagle nodded and flew off in the direction of the black cat. The hawk quickly followed.

        Anya quickly got on fours again and ran after the cat who was already far away. She charged though the door. When she entered the building, the cat was already gone. Grover came puffing up behind her.

        "REEEEOOOW!!!!" A cat shriek shattered the silence. It sounded as if the cat was in a lot of pain. Then the silence returned.

        "What the heck was that?" Grover asked

        "I don't know but it sounds like it came from that hallway to the left!"

        They ran down the hall on twos this time so they could hold their guns ready. Anya knew she was on the right track because the smell of rovellog got stronger.

        They finally found him in front of the elevator. The display above it indicated that someone was already in it and had just started their descent. The tattoo of a severed fish head on the cat's neck would have confirmed Anya's suspicions that this was a Fishhead operation, but Anya hardly noticed that. For the cat was sprawled out on the floor in front of the elevator, dead, with four long deep gashes that ran along his back.