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It was the night before the biggest trial of Kevin Avery’s career, and he was certain he’d never felt more stressed out in his life. Worse still, the trial wasn’t even the heaviest thing on Kevin’s mind.
Before they’d even checked into their D.C. hotel, Kevin had received a call from back home in Albuquerque. According to Sal and his estimates, this last chapter in their ACME journey had taken the last of their available funds. Logically, Kevin knew taking ACME to Congress would be costly, but it was still hard to believe that the law firm he had been leading for a decade now was just… gone.
Even if they somehow pulled out a miracle during the coming trial, the team of Avery, Jones & Maltese was already history. There was always the chance they could rebuild or reopen eventually, if their reputation wasn’t completely trashed by the end of tomorrow - and that was a big if.
But for as much as Kevin wanted to take a page out of his niece’s book and at least TRY to believe in a miracle, believe that his skills and Wile E.’s story and whatever little bits of proof they had would end up being enough… There was still one big issue.
A loud bang! made Kevin flinch, his fists clenching the perfectly tucked-in beige colored blanket underneath him.
Looking across their hotel room, while he couldn’t see exactly what the coyote was doing thanks to the blanket wall he’d set up between their respective sides of the room, Kevin still knew what every bang and clang and whirl of a saw or drill was being put towards: a Roadrunner trap that would, ultimately, never be used.
Kevin brought his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew he had to say something, before it was too late. He couldn’t keep lying, and even if he wanted to, Wile E. would still find out eventually when Kevin failed to bring the Roadrunner to the stand. At least if he told the truth now, maybe Wile E. would still be willing to work with him.
Wile E. was a stubborn coyote, but even he wouldn’t be hard-headed and selfish enough to just walk back to Albuquerque out of spite, right?
…Oh, who was he kidding? That was definitely a possibility, if not a guarantee.
Feeling like he was going to puke, he tried desperately to think of a single excuse good enough to earn him some grace from his canine client, but every excuse he came up with was exactly that - an excuse.
Given that Wile E. was already the type of person who tried to defy logic on a daily basis, who pursued the impossible over and over again regardless of how many times it (literally) blew up in his face. There was absolutely NO way he would accept something like “I’m sorry, but he was just too fast for us” or “We tried our best, but we just couldn’t get ahold of him.”
But what other choice did he have?
“Wile E…” Kevin said, his voice barely breaking through the mechanical sounds that filled the room. “Wile E.!” he said louder, standing from his bed.
The noises stopped, and Wile E. peeked through his blanket wall, face curious. “WHAT IS IT?” he asked using one of his signs.
“I… I just had something I needed to tell you,” Kevin replied, swallowing.
Furrowing his brows, Wile E. stepped fully over to Kevin’s side of the room. His eyes briefly darted behind him towards his hidden project, no doubt worried that his lawyer would question all the noise or, worse, force him to stop building his trap completely.
“Look, I- I wanted- I mean, before we get to-to the trial tomorrow, there’s something you should know,” Kevin continued. “A-And I know this isn’t gonna be easy to hear but…” He trailed off, unable to get the words out.
In hindsight, he wished he were a faster speaker.
Before he could say anything else, Kevin’s phone dinged loudly. Then it dinged again, and again. Distracted (and still looking for a way out of his and Wile E.’s present conversation), Kevin took out his phone - and felt his heart sink.
“BREAKING NEWS,” the alert at the top of his notifications read, “Lead ACME Attorney Buddy Crane announces the capture of Roadrunner, questions the validity of lawsuit from wolf.”
“No…” Kevin gripped his phone. “Nonononono-!” This had to be a mistake. There was just no way!
Still standing in front of him, Wile E. held up a sign to ask him something, but Kevin didn’t bother reading it. He just walked past the coyote - past the blanket wall and the different tools and machine parts laying around, only stopping once he found the remote to the room’s flatscreen. It only took a few seconds of searching to find a news channel, and the moment he tuned in, Buddy Crane’s smug face filled the screen.
The ticker on the bottom of the screen was essentially repeating what the news alert had already told him, but Kevin still found himself reading it, as though doing so would change it. In that time, the camera angle changed, and both he and Wile E. were able to witness the full scope of what had apparently just happened.
In the center was Crane, standing behind a podium (ACME branded, of course) and half a dozen microphones. Beside him on his right was a bald Pelicanos, grinning happily at all the flashing cameras. On the other side was the ACME CEO himself, Foghorn Leghorn, looking perfectly content with all the attention he and his team were giving. Not a single feather on the rooster’s head was out of place.
And finally, on the far edge of the screen, was the Roadrunner, standing in a tall and firmly locked gold-painted birdcage, completely captured and making no effort to escape. Beside him, Kevin heard the shallow clunk of Wile E.’s sign hitting the floor.
“It was just the darndest thing,” Crane started to explain. “Although Mr. Coyote has claimed Mr. Runner as his nemesis, we actually found that he was much more interested in playing rather than fighting. And he put up quite a challenge, I can tell you that!”
The audience chuckled alongside Crane, who then looked over at the Roadrunner, an affectionate smirk on his face. “But we gave him our best, and with a little bit of strategy, plus some of our best ACME products, we were able to catch him fair and square.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin saw Wile E. slowly shake his head, his eyes wide as he stepped forward towards the screen. As if to add salt into his wounds specifically, the angle of the press conference changed once more, getting a zoom-in on his smiling Roadrunner as Foghorn wrapped a wing around his cage, like they were old buddies. Like there was nowhere else the Roadrunner wanted to be.
“Once our little game of tag was over, we asked Mr. Runner to testify on our behalf, which he happily obliged to! In fact, he’s already given us a written statement, which we plan to deliver at the trial tomorrow.”
“Mr. Crane, how long has the Roadrunner agreed to remain in ACME’s custody?” A reporter asked.
“Great question, thank you! Yes, we are very respectful of Mr. Runner’s time, and have agreed to escort him back to his desert home as soon as the trial has concluded,” Crane answered. “We also plan to compensate him handsomely for his cooperation, as is our policy. After all, ACME is 100% against animal cruelty.”
Kevin couldn’t stand to hear anymore, muting the TV. “This can’t be real, right?” he asked. “And yeah, I know what it looks like, but- but there’s just no way! We KNOW how hard that bird is to catch! So how the hell was ACME able to-?”
Turning his attention back to Wile E., Kevin could now see that the coyote was facing towards the room’s door, his face hidden. “Wait, no, Wile E.! You can’t just leave! You should know better than anyone that ACME has to be lying!”
Wile E. didn’t react. He was completely still, as if he’d been frozen to the carpet. It was a stark (and frankly frightening) contrast from the coyote Kevin knew, who could take something as extreme as getting chased down by a train or falling off a cliff in stride, so long as there was still a single path left towards his goals.
As far as Kevin knew, Wile E. Coyote had never even thought the word ‘surrender’, let alone consider doing it. But now…
“You call yourself a genius, right?” Kevin continued. “Then just think logically for a second! Maybe the Roadrunner they have in their cage is a robot, or- or another bird that they painted to look like him! Maybe he has an identical twin, or a cousin who looks really, really similar to him! Come on, Wile E.! Surely there’s some explanation that makes more sense than-”
Wile E. hunched his shoulders, and although Kevin’s words died in his throat yet again, they both knew how that sentence was going to end: “than ACME somehow being able to do the one thing that you’ve spent over seven decades trying to do.”
Except that was exactly what happened. Until they could prove without a shadow of a doubt that what they were seeing couldn’t be believed, ACME had proved that an insanely-fast roadrunner could indeed be caught using ACME products, so long as they were used competently. And, in turn, they had proved to the public that all of Wile E.’s failures had indeed been his own fault - his own foolishness.
“There’s just no way,” Kevin repeated, truly pleading now. “Please, Wile E., you can’t just give up! Maybe- Maybe you can still catch the Roadrunner after you’re both back in the desert! Just because you weren’t the first person to catch him doesn’t mean you can’t still be the next one! You could even call yourself the first to catch him without any back-up or extra tools! Can’t that still be good enough?”
Wile E. still refused to say (sign) anything, or even give a proper reaction, as though all life had been sucked out of him, and for as bad as Kevin felt for him, he also felt his frustration rise.
“So… What? W-Was all that talk about learning from failure just talk after all?” Still no response, and Kevin let out an exasperated groan, unable to take it anymore. “God damn it, Wile E., just answer me-!”
He reached out to grab Wile E.’s shoulder, and was immediately shoved back hard. Hard enough that he ended up stumbling over an abandoned hammer, causing him to crash to the floor - and it was only then that he was able to see Wile E.’s face.
Devastation was the only word for it. Complete and utter devastation. Through gritted teeth and streaming tears, the coyote choked back a silent sob, fully shaking now with heartbreak.
Kevin felt his mouth open, but no words dared to come out. What else could even be said? He could see now that Wile E. hadn’t just lost out on a long-legged drumstick or an obsession or an achievement he could brag about, or even just a personal life-long goal. As far as the canine was concerned, he had just lost everything.
And it just wasn’t fair, Kevin thought to himself. ACME had already held nearly all the cards, and they still chose to steal away the only thing Wile E. had ever wanted like it was nothing.
“Wile E… I- I’m sorry,” Kevin finally managed to get out.
The coyote sniffled, finally turning his watery gaze towards his lawyer. Pulling a new sign out alongside a marker, he slowly wrote one last message before tossing the sign to the floor and heading towards the door. Despite everything, Wile E. did spare his attorney one last glance over his shoulder, watching as he read his departing words:
“THIS WAS A MISTAKE. FOR BOTH OF US.” Feeling tears in his own eyes now, Kevin slowly turned the sign in his hand, leading to him discovering an additional message on the back. “I’M SORRY TOO…” He heard the door click shut, and Kevin was left in the silence.
Swallowing, he glanced back up at the muted screen, where footage of the ACME conference was still rolling. By now, Crane and his cronies had broken out the champagne, all while the ticker informed viewers that neither the team at Avery, Jones & Maltese nor their infamous coyote client could be reached for comment.
It was ironic, really. Weeks ago, Kevin would have prayed for something like this - something that would have allowed him to settle this case and still get to keep at least SOME of his dignity. But now… Now the thought of settling with ACME just made his blood boil.
This couldn’t be it. This wasn’t how their story - Wile E.’s story, and the story of all the toons impacted by Project: Sisyphus - ended! He didn’t care what ACME was saying or what they showed the cameras, Kevin knew in his gut that they were lying!
For being such an active bird, Kevin hadn’t seen the caged roadrunner move even once during the press conference. Had it even blinked? Regardless of whatever kind of fake it was, if Kevin could just prove that it was actually a fake, then maybe they would still have a shot.
Maybe Wile E. would be okay.
Picking himself off the floor, Kevin threw open the door and rushed out into the hotel hallway - but it was already too late. Wile E. was long gone. The lawyer cursed under his breath. Luckily, he had the next best thing right next door.
Sprinting down to the next room, he was just about to knock when he had to jump back, just barely avoiding getting hit by the door’s edge. “Did you see this?” Paige asked, holding up her phone.
“Yes,” Kevin answered.
“Did Wile E.-?”
“Yes,” he repeated, feeling another twist of heartache for the poor coyote, which Paige seemed to share in, judging by the expression now on her face. “Look, I don’t care how many of ACME’s goons we have to get through, there’s no way they caught the Roadrunner and we’re going to prove it! Okay? We’re not gonna let them get away with this. For Wile E.’s sake.”
At that last statement, Kevin saw his niece’s eyes widen with surprise, though it only lasted for a moment before it shifted fully into pride. “For Wile E.,” she repeated with a nod. “Let’s go!”
Down on the ground floor, Wile E. stepped onto the busy streets of D.C., his tears slowly drying as the rest of him grew numb. He had no idea where he was going, he just kept walking, only stopping briefly to drop a crumpled up blueprint into a street-side trashcan.
For the first time in his over 75 years of existence, Wile E. had no plan and no idea what to do (what he COULD do) next. What was waiting for him back in the New Mexico desert? An empty, lonely cave still half-filled with failed traps and broken materials? Wile E. wasn’t sure he could face it.
He briefly thought about seeking out ACME, because for as much as he had tried to focus on his own grand scheme (nothing but stupid dreams, he thought to himself), Wile E. had still taken note of the firm’s financial troubles. Maybe if he offered to finally settle with the company, he could get Kevin and his team enough to keep their doors open, at least for a little while.
Unfortunately, the idea of potentially coming face-to-face with the caged Roadrunner, no longer just his Roadrunner (would never be his roadrunner), was more than the coyote could bear. To this, Wile E. silently scolded himself. The lawyers had done so much and wasted so many resources just for him, and he couldn’t even do this one little thing for them in return?
He really was a total failure.
With no goals left to guide him and no home to return to, Wile E. just kept walking, too lost in his own grief to notice the dark, tinted car that was following him. Because even after humiliating him in front of the entire world, Crane and his ACME cronies were still greedy enough to want to guarantee a win.
Several thousands miles and at least two state lines away, the REAL Roadrunner was running as fast as his cartoon legs could carry him, refusing to stop even for a moment. He had no clue regarding the instance of stolen identity that had just taken place, nor did he have any idea what his coyote was going through.
All he knew was that his coyote was in Washington D.C., and regardless of whether this was just a quick visit or Wile E. was saying goodbye for good, Roadrunner was going to be there for his rival (his closest friend) either way - and nothing was going to stop him.
THE END