---    Kidnap.


Dro's attention was drawn away from his report by the sound of a data pad clattering to the floor.  Across from where he lay on Shannon's couch, the skunk lay sprawled out in a comfortable chair, her right hand dangling to one side, the fallen tablet on the floor below it.  Her head lay back at an uncomfortable angle, jaw hanging open, emitting a raspy snore.

Silently counting to himself, he returned to his report, as he awaited the inevitable.  It started with a gentle rocking of her head side to side, the snore sputtering out and becoming a moan, as Shannon forced her body back into consciousness.  Her right hand began grasping at the air, as though the tablet may have defied gravity, and might still be hovering within reach.  Finally her head snapped forward, eyes wide, staring across at the dragon to see if he had noticed.

Seeing him still engrossed in his own data pad, Shannon carefully leaned over the arm of the chair, groping for her lost tablet.

"That's the third time you have fallen asleep," said the dragon, not bothering to look up.

"I was not asleep.  This body keeps drifting off," the skunk complained.

Dro looked over the top edge of his tablet at her.  "Just because your brain can go without sleep for days at a time, does not mean your body can.  You need to sleep."

"But we have to get this done," she whined.

"Shannon, this report has remained unfinished for nearly 4 months.  I do not see any major advancement towards its completion in the next 30 hours," he replied, turning his tablet off and dropping it in his bag.  "Get some sleep."

"No, I will be fine," she said, as she rapidly thumbed through the report's pages, her eyes already starting to lose focus.

Suddenly the tablet was snatched from her hands and deactivated, before being tossed into his bag, joining his own. "You are going to get some rest," he insisted while sitting up, "And I am going to go check on a friend."

"So you are just leaving?" she asked.  "How do you know I wont keep working after you leave?"

"Because your body is going to collapse if you do, and without me here, you wont have any reason to deny it what it needs," he replied.  "Now go get ready for bed."

"Ha!  Thats what this is all about isn't it," she growled. "You just want to see me in that stupid nightshirt you bought."

"Shannon, I could not care less if.." he began.

"Fine.. fine.  I will put it on.  You can have your laugh," she said as she got up from the chair and stomped her way back to her bedroom.  "You and your childish pranks."

Once Shannon was in her bedroom, Dro snatched up his bag, fluffed the cushions on the couch, then silently made his way out the door of her apartment.  After making sure the latch on her door closed as quietly as possible, he stealthily made his way to the elevators, ducking from one doorway to another.  Anyone watching would have witnessed a hulking three meter tall, maroon clad, golden dragon trying not to be seen in the most obvious way possible.

He was just about to press the call button for the elevator with his tail, when the elevator car arrived and the chime sounded.  The doors opened and he had to step back quickly as two large umbrellas exited the car, their female owners whispering and giggling to each other as they passed.  "Excuse me," he said in draconian while tipping his hat.  More giggling erupted from under the umbrellas as the pair of them hurried down the hallway away from him.   Sweeping into the elevator as the doors began to close, he crossed his arms and struck a pose in the center of the elevator car, while pressing the ground-floor button with his tail.

---

Shannon strode back into the main room of her apartment wearing the nightshirt emblazoned with the cartoonish unicorn and throwing her arms out.  "There!  Are you happy now?"  Looking about, she found the couch and entire room completely devoid of Dro.  She shot a quick look to her kitchenette and even back down the hall toward the darkened door to her bathroom, as if she might have missed his presence there.

Dropping her arms to her sides, she let out an exasperated sigh and was just about to retire to her nest of pillows when a of very rapid series of knocks sounded on her door.  Shannon rolled her eyes and ran to the door, grabbed the knob.  "HA! I knew you couldn't resist!" she shouted with a growl, yanking the door open wide.

Standing in the hallway was a tall female mephitine wearing a gray coat, shaking water out of her umbrella.  Glancing up at Shannon, the skunk raised an eyebrow questioningly.  "Nice shirt," she said with a smirk.

Shannon barely had time to notice the gold stud pinned high in the woman's right ear when she felt something ice-cold bite into her neck.  Clasping her hand to her throat, she found the tiny feathered dart.  It was then she noticed the second mephitine, kneeling next to the first, the hollow end of her umbrella pointed at Shannon's face.  She was nearly identical to the first, except for the color of the ear stud she wore.

"Nightie night," said Silver.

Shannon could already feel the numbness spreading from her neck as she removed the dart and tossed it away.  She desperately tried to slam the door, but she stumbled backwards instead.  The two skunks followed, pushing their way into her apartment.

With her body rapidly succumbing to the drugs, Shannon turned toward her living room, her vision continuing to wobble even after she had stopped.  Trying to ignore the confusing signals her body was sending her brain, Shannon turned her mind inward, attempting to access the local network, just as Silver pulled a bag woven of metallic thread over her head.

The usual constellation of access points were gone, the network landscape before her was empty and void.  'Dammit!', she cursed to herself for not being faster.  She quickly set up an automated distress message and put it on repeat.  If an open network were to reappear, even for an instant, at least Dro would know she was in trouble.

Despite the bag and the drugs, Shannon found herself on Silver's back, with her head and neck encompassed by her arms, held tightly against her chest in a choke hold.  "Who are you, who sent you?" she tried to shout, but the words were slurring together and their sound was muffled from within the bag.

Silver's mouth hung open, unable to breathe, feeling herself growing dizzy in Shannon's grasp, but she maintained her hold on the drawstrings of the bag.  Turning about, Silver stepped backwards until she slammed Shannon into the wall, breaking her grip long enough to get a breath of air before Shannon could reassert her hold.

From inside the darkness of the bag, Shannon did not see or hear the second skunk approach.  Gold jabbed Shannon in the neck with her own umbrella, releasing a second dart.  Shannon's body went limp almost instantly.  Coughing and growling, Silver pulled herself free from the smaller skunk's grasp.  Regaining her feet, she rubbed her neck, glaring down at the unconscious body on the floor.  Cursing in Meph, she kicked Shannon in the ribs.

"Careful now, the good doctor will be angry if you damage his future toy," said Gold.

"Are we even sure this is her?  She doesn't match the description," said Silver.

"This is the address provided by the informant, and the dragon was just here," replied Gold.  "Also, remember who we are dealing with.  It wouldn't be the first time she has switched bodies."

"Strange choice," coughed Silver, looking down at the teenage body on the floor while massaging her own throat.  "If she had been any larger, she might have killed me."

As Silver set to work restraining and securing Shannon's body, Gold wandered around her meager apartment.  "This place is a dump.  You would think Internal Security would pay better than this."

Stepping into the bedroom, she noticed a large pile of enormous pillows in one corner of the room, and a small fold-out wardrobe standing against the opposite wall.  Using her umbrella, she prodded the latches and opened the case.  On one side of the wardrobe hung Shannon's uniform, and on the other was her side-arm and holster hanging on a hook over her boots.  But what caught Gold's attention the most was a tiny patch of black and white peeking out from behind the maroon uniform.  Lifting the jacket out of the way with the tip of her umbrella revealed a very familiar sight.  Something Gold had been hoping to have for herself one day.

"Look what I found," sing-songed Gold, as she sauntered back into the main room.  Draped over her shoulders like a stole, was a slightly singed mephitine tail, with a single wide stripe running its length.  "Still think we have the wrong person?"

"Weston," hissed Silver, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the trophy around her partner's neck. "I can't say that I'm sorry he is dead," she growled.

"You shouldn't speak of him so poorly," admonished Gold.  "He taught us so much."

"The only thing he taught me, was to sleep with one eye open while he was around," said Silver shuddering.

"Neither of us would be where we are today without him," said Gold.

"Do I need to remind you, that both of us are here doing this right now -because- of him?  If he hadn't insisted on going after his son personally, he wouldn't have gotten himself blown up and we.." began Silver.

"-We- would have been the ones to get blown to pieces, and scattered across that frozen waste instead of him," interrupted Gold.  Wrapping the tail around her face, Gold inhaled deeply and sighed, "I almost miss him."

Silver looked like she was going to vomit, then shook her head.  "I have her secured.  We need to find a way to get her out of here before she wakes up, or we'll have to call in a cleanup crew."

While Gold tapped a message onto her own tablet, Silver pulled out a knife and began slashing at the couch cushions, sending handfuls of stuffing around the room.

"What do you think you are doing?" asked Gold, somewhat bemused.

"Tearing the place up, making it look like a robbery," replied Silver.

"Do you typically keep valuables hidden in your furniture?" asked Gold.

Silver looked at the destroyed couch, then back at Gold with an expression that implied 'Don't you?'

Gold sighed.  "At least now I know where to look for that money you owe me.."

Silver returned to her enthusiastic trashing of the apartment.  If she couldn't seek revenge on Shannon herself, she would take it out on anything Shannon might have considered personal or of value.

Silver placed a hand on Gold's cheek.  "You need to blow off some steam, sister," she said with a slightly crazed look in her eyes.  "Break something, you'll feel better."

While Silver busied herself with going room to room in search of things to vandalize, Gold stayed in the main room next to Shannon's body.  After hearing a crash in the bedroom, which could only have been the wardrobe being upended, she noticed a vase standing in the window sill.

A small sickly looking plant was attempting to creep its way up the neck of the vase toward the artificial glow of the ceiling light.  Picking up the vase with her right hand, she held it up and examined it closely, before placing it back on the window sill.  Then she softly pushed at it with a finger until it tipped over onto its side.  Gold briefly grinned at her burst of rebelliousness, then resumed her usual stoic demeanor.

Just then Silver wheeled the now empty wardrobe into the main room.  "I think I know how to get her out of here," she said with a menacing grin.