The rain over Duckberg was thick and heavy, but inside the hidden fort at Point State Park, the air smelled of river water, grease, and triumph.

Fishy Man stood over the massive, steel-toothed drill, his eyes reflecting the glow of the control panel. This was it. The ultimate strike against the authority squares. For too long, the County Duck Jail had held his finest colleagues captive: Kitty Man, Kitty Woman, the Twin Octaves, Question Man, and the King of Space. But tomorrow, the city would learn a new name. Fishyberg.

"Listen up, Scoop," Fishy Man barked, turning his sharp gaze toward his newest henchman, a reporter embedded deep within the Three Rivers Duck News.

Scoop nodded eagerly, clutching his notepad. "I'm listening, Boss. What’s the play?"

"Tomorrow, Mayor Ford is making an official visit to the jail," Fishy Man explained, a scheming grin spreading across his face. "The square coppers are going to be completely distracted trying to roll out the red carpet for the big chief. The warden is taking the Mayor and all the senior guards into the main conference room for a big meeting, leaving the floors guarded by nothing but young buckies—greenhorn recruits trying to earn their way up."

Fishy Man reached out, snatched Scoop’s ordinary-looking reporter's pen, and tinkered with the top clicker with expert precision.

"You're going to be part of the main quacks in the press entourage tomorrow," Fishy Man said, handing the pen back. "They won't expect an ordinary pen. But inside this? A tracking device. It’s going to beam your exact location straight to my drill's guidance system. When you're in position, I'll know exactly where the squares are."

Scoop stared at the pen, utterly blown away. "Genius, Boss! But what about the noise? A drill that size makes a racket."

Fishy Man let out a dark, mocking laugh. "That's why I have the brains and you just write! Those young bucky recruits won't pay attention to a drill sound. They're going to think it's just city workers outside putting in a new sewer drain. They'll stand there at attention while we undermine the whole foundation right under their webbed feet!"

The timing was perfect. The drill was locked onto the target coordinates, set to breach the floorboards at the exact moment the square coppers changed their shifts. With Mayor Ford trapped in the conference room, Scoop holding the tracking pen, and the recruits fooled by the rumble of the "sewer work," the County Duck Jail was completely defenseless.

Fishy Man fired up the engines. The massive drill began to hum, vibrating through the stone floors of the fort, ready to tunnel deep beneath the river basin.

The liberation of the century was about to begin.

***

                                                              To be continued in Chapter 8...