There was no more food. He was hungry and there was no more food. He knew where to find more, though. It was outside the universe. He rubbed the sharp thing on his bill against the walls of the universe until he broke through. With some difficulty, he crawled outside.

The outside was vast. He walked two steps and didn't run into anything. He walked another three steps and ran into something much harder than the walls of his universe.

Where was the food? It had to be somewhere.

He turned away from the hard thing and walked until he bumped into something soft. That wasn't food. Outside food oozed from something warm and soft, and this thing was cold.

Eventually, he came to a hole leading to another, even vaster space. Maybe the food was out there.

It was hot through the hole. It made him want to sleep. But he wanted food more.

Something hit him from behind and suddenly he was flying through the air. He landed hard, struggled to his feet, and kept walking. He had to keep walking until he found food.

.

Major Monogram walked down the street whistling to himself. For once, he felt great. He'd had his doubts when he'd first been put in charge of an agency full of animals, but they'd turned out to be extremely competent. In fact, he sometimes joked that they were going to steal his job, to hide his fear that an animal would steal his job.

He'd just got a raise, the agents were taking care of anything he threw at them - life was good.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something tiny and pink twitching on the sidewalk.

"What the-?" He ran over and bent down. It was some sort of animal. He thought it was probably a baby rat, but he wasn't sure. Most baby mammals looked more or less the same, but for some reason, they didn't like it when he got their species wrong. He was doing his best.

He poked the creature gently, and recoiled. "Ugh!" It was all wet and sticky! Like a... like a newborn.

A newborn! What a great find! If he was lucky, he'd get a recruit out of this. It was vital to get to them young.

Major Monogram carefully picked the creature up and held it flat on his palm. He wasn't so good with caring for baby animals, at least until they learned English and were toilet trained, but he'd been to a seminar once that had warned against putting them in pockets. Something about fragility and suffocation. Instead, he carried the animal back to his car and laid it on the passenger's seat.

He took the animal to Dr Gatti, the OWCA's vet, who immediately began poking and prodding at it.

"Is it gonna be okay?" said Major Monogram, when he couldn't stand the suspense anymore.

Dr Gatti ignored him and kept looking the animal over. Finally she said, "It's a he, and he's starving. He's lucky you came along when you did, Francis."

"N... Not in front of a patient," Major Monogram sputtered.

"He's just a hatchling," said Dr Gatti impatiently. "He can't hear us."

"Uh..." said Major Monogram, staring at the animal. "I think that's a mammal. It's got the... pink, and the... grossness."

Dr Gatti began searching through a row of cabinets. "He's a platypus. They're mammals that hatch from eggs, sweat milk, and have poisonous barbs on the back of their legs."

Even one of those things on its own would have been great in an agent, but all of them together? He was sold. "That settles it!" said Major Monogram. "He'll be our newest recruit!" Aware of Dr Gatti glaring at him, he added "Once he... Once he... recovers."

She was always acting like she disapproved of everything the agency did. She was such a joker sometimes.

.

The platypus woke up on something soft and comfortable. He wasn't hungry, so he went back to sleep.

.

He was a bit hungry the next time he woke up, so he went looking for food. He didn't get very far before running into something that was full of holes, which were too small to let him through. He went in another direction, and ran into the same thing. Confused, he followed the holey wall, but never found its end. He did find something warm and soft, so he sucked at it, and food came out.

He went to sleep again.

.

After many cycles of sleeping and eating, something different happened. He opened his eyes. Frightened, he shut them again. Then, slowly, he tried opening just one eye. It took a long time, but eventually he could keep his eyes wide open without cringing. Gradually, he began to understand what he was seeing.

He could see through the holes in the walls. They were more hole than wall. Inside, everything always looked the same, but outside, things were constantly changing. The outside was full of movement. He couldn't understand what it meant, so it didn't matter.

One day something moved right up close to him, swung the closest part of the wall away, and lifted him up. The platypus didn't mind. He'd already eaten.

The thing holding him was furry and brown, with dark brown stripes. There were splotches of pink and green and black and white, but most of the thing was organised into brown and dark brown. There was another different brown at the top of it.

The thing carried him a long way, then put him down with a lot of other things that moved around and smelled of life. The platypus poked one of them, and got a scratch on his bill. Whimpering, he backed away. He'd keep away from the moving things for now.

The room was big. There were a lot of moving things and stationary things. There was also a window on one side of the room that showed a lot of moving things. The room was noisy.

He found a few smooth, brightly coloured things that didn't move or smell. He poked them. They moved. They moved because he'd poked them. The realisation intrigued him. He poked them again, and again they moved.

Interesting.

.

Eventually, he was taken back to the small place with the food. After he'd slept, he was taken to the noisy place again. This repeated every day. Eventually, the platypus learned that the moving living things were other animals like him. They weren't platypuses, though. The noise was coming from the window. The window showed a lot of different things, and buzzed with electricity when the platypus got close to it.

There were many things on the floor. The one that interested the platypus the most was something that looked like a window, except it was moveable. When he looked into it from above, he saw something yellow and teal. The yellow looked like the yellow of his bill and the teal looked like the teal of his fur. Was there another him in the window? He didn't know what he looked like, but he'd never seen anything that looked like him.

When he wasn't puzzling over the window, he liked to play with the brightly coloured blocks. He discovered if he put them on top of each other, curled his front paw around the bottom block, and pulled, all the blocks would fall down. They only stayed up if there was something beneath them.

He discovered more things every day.

.

One night, the platypus couldn't sleep. He lay in his cage, staring at the darkened room and wondering what it was like out there. He was never allowed out unescorted. He pushed against the door a few times, but it didn't budge. There was something on the other side keeping it from opening. The platypus reached a paw through the mesh on the cage door and felt around until he found something that moved. He just had to move it this way, and...

The cage swung open. The platypus jumped out and looked over at the door at one end of the room. That was the way to the big room with the toys and the television. At the other end of the room was another door, which he'd never been near. Light shone from the crack underneath.

The familiar door was opened by pushing, but this one wouldn't budge. It had a round thing on the front. It looked like one of the toys he played with that only moved when he twisted the round thing, but bigger. So he jumped up and grabbed the round thing in his front paws, twisting it around.

It slowly swung inwards, and the platypus walked through into a flickering light as bright as day. Once his eyes had adjusted, he could see that he was in a long corridor, with a lot more doors at the sides. There were so many doors that he didn't know where to explore first.

There were windows on the doors, and the platypus could see that many of the rooms beyond were dark. He knew that were was a way to light the darkened areas, but he didn't know what it was.

One of the rooms was bright.

Cautiously, the platypus crept up to the lit door and nudged it. It didn't move. Obviously it was one of the doors he needed to jump up on. So he grabbed the round thing, and the door opened inward with what felt like a painfully loud creak.

"What was that?"

That was human speech. He didn't understand it, but he knew what it was. There were humans in there. Aware that he probably shouldn't be where he was, the platypus let go of the round thing and hid behind the door.

"I thought I closed that door," said the voice that had spoken before.

"Maybe you didn't close it all the way," said another voice, higher than the first.

The platypus stayed in his hiding spot. He couldn't hear any footsteps. That meant that the humans weren't interested in him. He wondered whether he should explore this room, or one of the darkened ones.

"You do realise this is a top-secret government facility?" said the deeper voice.

"But I passed all the background checks!" said the higher voice.

The platypus decided to get a closer look, and carefully made his way inside.

"I... I don't know if we're allowed to have minors in here..." said the deeper voice. "Other than the trainees, of course."

"You said yourself you were short-staffed," said the higher voice. "I can help."

Now the platypus could see the speakers. They were sitting at a table. One of them was wearing green and was facing away from him. One of them was wearing white and facing towards him.

"Look," said the human dressed in green, who was the one with the deeper voice. "You're just too young, our... insurance won't cover you. Should you even be out so late?"

"Aw, don't worry about that," said the human dressed in white. "My mom's picking me up."

The platypus crept closer. He didn't think the humans had seen him. They were looking at each other.

"Hmm..." said the green-clothed human, rubbing his chin. "We do need more people... Professional people..."

"I can be professional!" said the white-clothed human. "Just give me a chance."

The platypus crept closer towards the table, and accidentally brushed against the white-clothed human's leg.

The human yelled and fell off his chair.

The other human leaned over. "What the- You shouldn't be out here!" he said, picking up up the platypus.

The platypus went limp, trying his best to seem innocent.

The human who'd fallen picked himself up and said "What is that thing?" His voice sounded frightened or upset. The platypus wasn't good at telling the difference.

"Well, obviously he's a... platypus," said the human who was holding him. "I don't know how he got out. He's... practically younger than you are."

The white clothed human gasped and said "It's one of your agents!"

"He will be, if he passes his training," said the green-clothed human. He held the platypus up to his face. "I think someone needs to go to bed."

"But I'm not tired!" said the white-clothed human.

"Not you!" said the green-clothed human. He pointed at the platypus. "Him! You wait here."

"Can't I go too?" said the white-clothed human.

"Stay where you are," said the green-clothed human, and carried the platypus out the door and back into the room with the cages. He put the platypus inside his cage and said "Hm, someone must have forgotten to lock it." He manipulated the door so that it wouldn't open again.

Annoyed, the platypus changed it back. He wanted to explore.

"Hey!" said the human, making it closed again.

The platypus made it open.

This went on for a while, until the human jabbed at the platypus with something sharp that stung him. A few seconds later, the platypus began to feel drowsy. Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up, the thing keeping the door closed had changed, and he couldn't open it anymore.