want me to become an agent?” Kodi asked again, clearly upset, “You said you’d always be honest with me, so tell me… Did you really, honestly want me to become an agent like you?” Balto’s heart seed to stop as he simply stared off into space. He went to go say that Kodi was wrong, but sighed instead.

“No Kodi… I honestly didn’t…” Balto answered softly, closing his brown and gold eyes, “But it’s not because I didn’t love you or because I didn’t want you to get what you wanted… It was because I was afraid for you, Kodi… I didn’t want you to get hurt- or worse! Please Kodi… I was just looking out for you…”

Kodi felt like his heart was in a vise. All this time he’d believed that his father had been thrilled by the idea of having his son in the same business as him, looking up to him, but apparently, he’d been wrong- dead wrong. Kodi quivered slightly as he choked back a sob, on the verge of tears from having his father lie to him for eight years.

“Kodi?”

“So I was wrong…” Kodi said softly, the sorrow and emotional pain now apart of his voice, “I thought you loved the thought of training me, that you loved having your son follow in your footsteps… But no, you didn’t… You didn’t want this from the start! You lied to me!”

“No, Kodi, I didn’t lie to you…”

“You lied to me Dad! You lied to me for eight years!” Kodi nearly shouted back, tears coursing down his magenta and cream colored muzzle, “I can’t believe you! All this time I looked up to you, I thought of you as a hero and I wanted to be just like you! You didn’t want me to even think of becoming an agent though!”

“Kodi, listen to me-” Balto said, nearly growling.

“No Dad, you listen to me!” Kodi shouted back, “I don’t want to hear about what you tried to do anymore! This is the way things are and this is the way they’ll be, whether you want it like this or not! It’s my life Dad, and I’ll do whatever I want!”

“Kodiak…” Balto pleaded softly, hoping his son would listen to him.

“Goodbye, Dad…” Kodi said bitterly, eyes narrowed furiously, “I don’t care if I never see you again…” And with that, Kodi turned off his radio and sobbed, burying his face in his arms.

Balto stared at the picture of his son on the wall monitor, seemingly frozen still from his son’s words. Balto had never felt such a deep pain before. Without a single word, Balto stood up and stared down at the table. Jenna stood up and placed a hand gently on Balto’s shoulder, her eyes red from crying.

“Balto, you know he didn’t mean that…” she said softly.

“Yes he did Jenna… He meant every single word of it…” Balto said coolly, turning and walking out of the Operations Room, hands clenched tightly into fists.

Kirby could see that Kodi was deeply upset from the recent conversation with his father. With a heavy sigh, he reloaded his handgun and slowly rose to his feet again. He walked over to his teammate and patted him on the shoulder.

“I’m gonna go look around, ok Kodi?” he said softly, “If you need me, just contact me… You should rest for a bit… You need it…” Without another word, Kirby walked out of the Storage Room and out of sight. Kodi continued to sit against the wall, sobbing softly to himself as all he thought and hoped came crashing down around him.

Chapter 4

            Kodi finally stopped his crying after half an hour of thinking to himself and making decisions. Now he decided that this was no longer to please his father. This was his duty now; to protect and serve his country with faith and honor. Kodi checked the ammo in his handgun before standing, gathering up his stuff and walking out into the hallway. He didn’t know where Kirby went, but he was determined to search this building first of all. Pressing the button on his headset, he opened communication between only him and Kirby.

“Kirby, it’s Kodi… where are you?” he asked, his voice now calmer again.

“I moved onto the Barracks Building… Are you still in the Weapons Building?” Kirby asked through the headset.

“Yeah, I’m still in the Weapons Building… I’m gonna finish searching here first before I regroup with you…” he explained, continuing down the hallway, “Contact one another if anything comes up, alright?”

“Sounds good to me, Kodi… Good luck…” Kirby said before Kodi released the button on his headset, gripping his handgun tighter as he walked onward down the halls, steel-like gaze waving back and forth down the plain, barren hallways as he slowly proceeded; the only sound being made was the clacking of his boots on the white-tiled floor.

Halfway down the next hallway, Kodi heard boots approaching him from the opposite direction. Looking around for a place to hide, he quickly kicked off of one of the white walls until he was hanging above the hallway, back pressed against the ceiling and staring down at the floor beneath him. A few moments later, a guard dressed in gray urban camouflage walked beneath him, an AK-47 clutched tightly in his hands. Kodi dropped down behind him and grabbed the soldier’s neck, slamming him into one wall and then the other.

Kodi then kicked the dog’s leg out from underneath him and jammed his handgun into the soldier’s head. The guard yelped slightly as he fell down to his knees and dropped his rifle, frozen with shock and fear.

“Now, if you want to keep your life, answer my question and answer it truthfully… Because if I find out you’re lying, I’ll come back and finish what I started…” Kodi whispered viciously, the depth of his anger apparent, “Where is Niju?”

“I-I don’t know! Honestly, I don’t know! He keeps to himself somewhere… Only the top-ranking soldiers know where he is!” he answered with a soft whimper, yelping again as Kodi tightened his grip on the dog’s neck and began to squeeze the trigger, “Wait! I do know where the Lieutenant is though!” Kodi stopped, eyebrows raised in interest. Another commanding officer? Perhaps he knew where Niju was stashed…

“A Lieutenant?” Kodi asked, his hostage nodding furiously in his grip, “Alright, I’ll  go see this guy… Where is he located? Here?”

“Y-yeah… He’s on the top floor in Weapons Research and Development!” the guard said, his voice shaking slightly, “I told you what you want, please don’t kill me!” Kodi ejected his current clip and checked the bullets. A full 15 shots. He replaced the clip with a different one, and then shot the guard, watching him fall to the floor. Kodi then ejected his sedative bullets and replaced them with the full clip again, dragging the guard out of sight and hiding him in the Storage Room and taking his AK-47.

“Alright… Top floor it is…” Kodi said to himself, looking up at the ceiling as he walked back down the hallways to the elevators, pressing the button on his headset as he walked on, “Kirby, I’ve found the location of one of their commanding officers… He’s very close to me… I’m gonna interrogate him and see if he knows anything about where Niju is…”

“Way to go Kodi! Do you need any help with him?” Kirby asked, his voice coming from the earpiece on Kodi’s headset. Even though Kodi knew Kirby couldn’t see him, he nodded as he said,

“Negative… I can deal with him… After all, he’s just one dog…” Kodi said, grinning slightly, “How hard could one dog be?”

            Jenna slowly unlocked the door to the shooting range, stepping inside and locking the door behind her. Everything was silent and still. Cautiously walking down the halls, Jenna looked around for her husband. His car was out in the parking lot, so he had to be here somewhere…

“Balto?” Jenna called out, her soft voice echoing down the quiet halls, “Balto? Where are you? It’s me, Jenna…”

As Jenna walked into the Reception Area, she could hear muffled gunshots somewhere in the building. She walked through the glass doors into the shooting range area and found Balto standing at the very end of the row of counters, pistol in hand as he fired at one of the targets at the end of his range. Jenna sighed heavily and approached him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Balto… Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asked softly, guessing what it was that was eating away at Balto.

“It’s…” Balto started, going to say it was nothing, but knew Jenna would see right through that lie, “It’s Kodi… He hates me, Jenna… and it’s all because I was afraid for him… Maybe it would’ve been best if I had never trained him to become an agent at all…”

“Balto! Don’t say that!” Jenna said in a sharp voice before softening her tone again, “I know you’re feeling bad, and I’m sure Kodi feels terrible right now as well… But no matter what he says, he is still grateful for what you did for him… He’s your son, Balto… He loves you…”

“No, no he doesn’t… He said he didn’t care if he never came back at all…” Balto remarked in a low, sorrowful tone, his eyes darkened with grief, “He looked up to me as a hero, Jenna… and now I let him down… How am I supposed to face Kodi when he comes back home? He’ll know me as the dog who didn’t want this for him, not the hero he always saw me as…”

“Kodi will never stop looking up to you, Balto… All he ever wanted was to be like you, and now he still does, whether you want him to or not… That’s probably what he’s thinking right now…” Jenna said reassuringly, wrapping her arms around Balto’s torso and embracing him lovingly, “Even if