Rain drowhe Sunrise Shopping Pza.

  Unending flow ed the parking lots. The light from the sign out front twinkled against the endless barrage of droplets from the dark sky. Someone came out of a door and had to run to their car, using a book as an umbrel. Even if the woman only had to walk fiftee most to get inside her coupe, that was all it took to have the woman’s jacket washed with rain.

  Kay arrived at the pza with Philly still hiding ihe buhat was a backpack. Kay went to the doors and leased to find out that were unlocked and that they could explore the building at their leisure. Kay opehe door slowly, looking around to see if anyone was around, and then stepped in.

  The hallways were dark, like the manager liked to cut down on the power bill so the hall lights went off at eight. Stores still had their lights on, but those were mostly oher side of the building– the other wing. In the part of the building where the to-be burgled store was, most businesses were closed and lights were off.

  The problem hilly couldn’t remember whiit was going to be robbed. All he had for reference was a couple criminals pointing at the back of a unit from outdoors. There wasn’t a sign or a marker that showed which store it the goons were pnning to rob.

  “So whie is it?” asked Kay, looking down the hall.

  “Uhhhh,” said Philly. “I don’t know.”

  “What?” said Kay, his voice crag down the hall. He g a store off in the distah its light glowing out into the dark floor– he had to be quiet. In a whisper, he spoke: “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I never checked which store it was,” said Philly.

  Kay sighed. “What now, then?”

  Philly shrugged. “Let’s go out to the parking lot. The back lot.”

  Kay put Philly ba the pad the two left the building, careful to see anyone else around as they left the gss doors. They turned around the er of the building ao the back lot where Philly saw the criminals. The back lot was swimming with water, sewer grates growling as they guzzled whatever the streets had to offer.

  Kay walked along the lot and looked up and down the back of the building, the walls stark, g iures. Only the bottom row of units had doors and only a few of the sed level ones had a window.

  “Whie was it?” said Kay, having to shout over the noise of the downpour.

  Philly poked his head out of the backpad looked up and down the building, squinting to see through the onsught from above. It only took a few seds of him having his head out of the pack to have his fur soaked. He sucked it up and gazed at the wall, pointing a f at one of the units.

  “That one!” he said.

  Kay looked at the part of the building that Philly ointing at. It wasn’t like there was any obvious markers to tell whiit was which. “ce is that?”

  “I don’t know!” said Philly. Tired of being rained upon, he dipped bato the bad tried closing the zipper with his paws.

  Kay sighed. He looked at the spot Philly poi and tried measuring the distance from it to the end of the building. Maybe he could have guesstimated which building it was by measuring out the length from the end of the building inside.

  Philly was under assault from the night sky so Kay zipped up the backpad hurried baside the building. The building was still quiet and still empty, at least in that wing of the pza. Kay let Philly back out.

  Philly, his fur wet with rain, dripped on the floor. Kay, a person made of literal water, did not.

  “Ugh,” said Philly, looking at his mangy fur, “now I’m all soaked!”

  Kay didn’t want to have a drippy fox walking around so he bit the bullet and took his liquid arms to Philly’s body. The mass of Kay’s liquid hands bed through Philly’s fur.

  “Hey, wait a– ack!”

  Kay ignored Philly’s protest and the boy wiped his watery form down the fox’s body, leaving behind a dry (and ) fur on Philly’s body, although the process left the fox’s fluff standing on end.

  Kay took the hand ahilly stood there, dry but puffy as a dandelion. “What did you do?” asked the fox, looking over his fur.

  “I dried you,” said Kay. “I absorbed the water off of you.” He looked at his hands, bits of fur floating inside, drifting up into his arms. “Among other things.”

  “Oh,” said Philly, caught off guard with surprise. “. I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “I don’t like to do that,” said Kay, waving his arms around. “It’s gross!”

  “Gee, sorry.”

  Kay spped his hands at the floor and some water ejected out of him, leaving a small puddle on the ground with stray fox fur inside. Kay checked his body. It seemed .

  “Okay,” said Kay. “Let’s go find that store.”

  There was a staircase up to the sed floor but there was also a ramp for handicap access, which Philly preferred to climbing steps even if the top of the ramp nded him pretty close to one of the remaining active stores. The two were thankful that part of the building didn’t have anyone around except for a busiowards the fold in the building’s shape. Kay found the end of the building he used as referend walked down the hall to see if he could guess which pce the thugs were going to break into.

  Most of the pces were office stuff, like insurance venues or doctors. In fact, they got down most of the hall and they hadn’t e across any store that screamed robbable. Kay circled bad went over the stores again.

  “Whie is it?” he asked.

  Philly sank his expression. “I... I don’t know!”

  “Oh f out loud!” said Kay, being a little too loud for someorying to remain ued. He could hear a store on the floor below still active, chatter and et’s g lively.

  “Maybe if we wait,” said Philly, “we could wait for them to arrive and pick the store for us.”

  Kay groaned and looked around. The hallway was as bnk at a fresh sheet of paper. There were no trash s, radiators, or ers to hide behind. There was a grille on the ceiling that Kay could hide inside. He stepped to the tre of the room and got ready t-jump.

  Philly looked up at the vent. “Okay, you hide there, but what about me?”

  He looked at the windows. The way the light shone in the window created a dark cut beh the sill that Philly could have camoufged into.

  Kay poi the bottom of the wall. “Lay up against the wall. You hide in the shadow.”

  Philly looked up, his muzzle unvinced. “If someone walks by, they are going to see me.”

  Kay pondered. He looked down the hallway. “What if you were further down the hallway?”

  “Uhhh...” Philly ked a cheek but looked down the hallway at the shadows. If the crooks didn’t get too close, and the fox was very still, the crooks wouldn’t notice him. “Okay...”

  Kay walked with Philly over to the shadow and looked at Philly as the fox id against the wall. Philly’s dark fur helped him blend into the shadow. Kay took multiple perspectives.

  “How do I look?” asked Philly.

  Kay rubbed a . “I think it’ll do.”

  Philly moahat didn’t sound reassuring.

  Kay found anrille to enter and jumped up inside. For how mobile he was in his water form, jumping up in through a grill was a tough manoeuver. He squeezed inside and reformed on top of the grill, standing his liquid feet on the grill.

  But then something hit the floor. It was Kay’s backpack! He fot he had it around his shoulders so when he dissolved himself to creep through the grate, the backpack fell off behind him and smacked to the floor.

  “Hey!” whispered Philly, “Watch it!”

  “Ooops,” said Kay, slithering back out and hitting the floor.

  He picked up the backpad looked around. Could he hide the thing in the hallways, too? It was a bck backpack so it would have faded into the shadows. He went over to the spot where Philly was going to hide and put the backpack down with him. Then he went back to the dud jumped on in.

  Now it was time to wait.

  As they waited, they couldn’t help but talk to each other, passing ghostly whispers through the vent and hall.

  “Hey Philly,” Kay’s voice was tinny, “are you the only one of your kind around town?”

  Philly rested his head on his paws and turo the wall. “No. There’s a few others. They don’t bother with me, though.”

  “Oh?” Kay’s voice perked up. “Like other foxes?”

  “No other foxes,” said Philly. The sadness was heavy in his voice. “I know there’s a shrew around town that’s like me... intelligent. She keeps to herself. She’s paranoid, I think. It’s tough being a rodent.”

  “I’d guess,” said Kay.

  “The only one I see often is Night,” said Philly. “He’s a starling– a bird. We talk often but–“ Philly let out a small growl– “he’s a pain!”

  Kay chuckled.

  The rumble of a vehicle pulled in outside, breaking the versation. Below, there was chatter. Then... the doors opened. Was it the crooks?

  Their footfalls were quiet but in the silence of the sleepy hallway, both Kay and Philly could still hear them. There was also a squeaking. Kay took his head to the grate and peeked out into the hallway to see a man ing up the stairs: Daytona, a grizzled man with patchy facial hair and a sno. Then there was the squeaking. Behind Daytona there another man walking up the ramp with a hand lift. Philly reized the man was Jung-han– and he firmed that those two were the criminals.

  He didn’t know how to signal to Kay without giving himself away. He hoped Kay figured they were the ones.

  The oved into the sed floor and moved to a loans agency. They were quiet but kept their eyes up and down the hall. Even with the watchful gaze, they didn’t see Philly lurking in the shadows by the window sill. Daytona took out a key, its steel shimmering white, aook it to the door, unlog it.

  He stepped in and there was a beeping. He went to the arm panel and flipped open the sole to tap in the code. The beeping stopped. It surprised him: the code was legit.

  Jung-han walked in with the lift, carefully lining it up with the door so that it carted right through without bumping the sides. “Alright. Let’s get that safe.”

  Daytona looked over at a windowed door to another room. That was the boss’ office. He walked up and looked inside. Maybe that dark figure in the er was the safe they were after. He checked the door handle. Locked. They couldn’t fe a key for that ohough, so Daytona brought out a key-breaking device from his coat pocket. It looked like a cmp but with a few extra levers.

  He slid it into the key hole and started turning some nobs as he puzzled out the shape of log meism and what shape was necessary to fake the absent key.

  Philly and Kay were still outside. Philly was w what was taking so long but then Kay gooped out of the dud nded on the floor. He was quiet as he snuck close to the door. He peeked and saw the criminals huddled by the door. They looked tough and even if there was only two of them, Kay worried. Anht was about to begin.

  He turned his back against the wall and exhaled hard before tightening his face. Philly walked out of the shadows and gave Kay a nod. Kay returhe gesture.

  It was time for battle.