4.1 A long Way

It took a few minutes for Private and Kowalski to understand, in which danger Skipper was now. "What will do to him?" Private asked anxiously. "I assume that they will give him newly developed drugs to test their effect. The worst thing is that these medications could have terrible side effects, or that they are poisonous at all. There is also the possibility of an allergic reaction. Whatever, we have to save him. No animal survived such a thing a long time. The will torture him until he dies. " Kowalski said soberly. Private shuddered with fear. So there was no time to lose now. Rico had Alice driven to madness now, so she furiously pounded against the offices door. Quickly penguins escaped through the window and ran quickly back to the HQ. They had to prepare the rescue mission very quickly.

"So, we gotta get to New Jersey somehow. Fortunately, our daily fish supplier moves randomly every day to this place. So we just have to sneak into the van and can get along. Let's go, men." Kowalski called and gathered together all the things that he might need. He gave them to Rico so that he could carry them in his stomach. Private took his last peanut butter winky which he also gave Rico to swallow. "Private, we won´t have time for lunch." Kowalski said with an admonishing tone. "This is not for me. This is for Skipper. He will definitely be hungry when we´ll find him. I don´t think these nasty doctors give him something to eat." Private replied, as if that wasn´t ovious. The scientist rolled his eyes and climbed up the ladder.

The other two followed him. Quiet and fast they crept to the entrance of the zoo without anybody noticing them. "There it is." Kowalski whispered to the others. The driver got a few boxes into the van.. As fast as the wind they whisked inside and hid. The man closed the door after he was finished. A few minutes later the vans engine was started. Now they had no choice but to wait.

All three penguins were too worried to talk. Their thoughts were with Skipper, who probably has to suffer under painful medical tests and syringes. They pushed a few boxes around and built themselves a small hiding place, because it would be a longer journey. The time just wouldn´t pass, and Private got impatient. "Do you think we can make it in time?" asked the little penguin. "I hope so. Skipper is tough so they´ll have a very hard time with him." Kowalski chuckled, but the concern was written all over his face. He knew that such people were cruel and wouldn´t be afraid to hurt Skipper if he wouldn´t obey.

Even Private was in huge concern about his leader. He could hardly think. The little penguin wouldn´t even think about finding Skipper dead. He was terribly afraid of the condition Skipper could be. Rico´s thought were also with his leader. He would be so glad beat all the doctors up who wanted to hurt Skipper. But now they had no choice but to wait and hope that their leader is fine.

Note: In this part, some medical stuff will be mentioned. I hope you understand the meaning of that and enjoy reading this chapter

4.2 The First Torture

Skipper regained consiousness. His flipper was hurting, where he had been caught by the shocker. He felt the cold iron of the examination table where he laid. The doctor had chained him down on his feet and flippers, so that he could hardly move. The bright lights of the surgery light seemed to burn into his eyes.

Skipper felt his heart painful beating. He looked around, but he was alone. With all his strength he tried to break free from the shackles, but it was useless. Beside him was a small table made of surgical steel on which were some scalpels and syringes. The metal sparkled threatening at him and he hoped they wouldn´t get involved at this experiment.

Suddenly he saw the handle of the door was pushed down and he was hyperventilating. "Go away. Leave me alone." Skipper growled, hoping that the doctor would disappear. But the door opened, and even two men in white coats came into the room. They talked in medical jargon, so Skipper could hardly understand what they were talking about. "Let´s carry on testing the new drug against lung cancer metastases. The last time the animal unfortunately, died in the middle of the test and we had no useful result." said one doctor to the other.

He just nodded and turned to a closet that was standing in the corner. The other doctor turned to Skipper and stepped closer. "Just be calm, little badger. It won´t hurt at all." he whispered ironical with an evil chuckle, because he knew very well that this experiment would be very painful. He pulled up a small mobile unit with monitor and several buttons. "Hook him up, so we can monitor the reaction of his body. I don´t wanna have this little guy ruin our test by dying." said one doctor who took a small vial of clear liquid out of the closet.

Skipper was scared and hardly able to think. Full of panic, he watched as the doctor stuck the elektrodes on his chest, which were connected by cable to the monitor. The machine was an ECG. The leader snapped after the doctor's hand with his beak, but he pulled it away quickly. With angry face he looked at him. "You won´t be able to snap at me when the experiment is finished." said the man in white coat and reached for a syringe.

He gave it to his colleague, who filled it with the clear liquid from the bottle. He went to the examination table, now there was no escape for the penguin. Skipper heard the ECG beeping faster as the doctor approached with the syringe. Now it was not only the fear of injection, but also what would happen to him when he injected him the drug.

The leader watched as the needle approached. The doctor pushed his beak slightly to the side to get to his neck. Skipper held his breath as the needle dug painfully into his vein. His heart raced as it would shatter. Slowly the doctor pushed the plunger down and injected the drug. It seemed to last an eternity before he finally pulled out the needlen again. Skipper hoped it was over now. The two doctors took up their clipboards and took notes. A few seconds after the needle has been pulled out again Skipper felt a painful tingling in his chest. He hoped it would go away again, but it became stronger and spread to the rest of his body.

The doctors noticed that immediately and made further notes. "It's like the last time That stuff hurts like hell." said one. "It´s all clear now. The drug is supposed to destroy cancer cells. But if there are no cancerous cells, it attacks healthy cells that is causing the pain. I gave him a smaller dose, so that he doesn´t suffer a cardiac arrest due to pain, like the former test object but I think it didn´t work. "said the other doctor.

But Skipper was so in pain so that he didn´t pay attention. He listened as his ECG beeped faster. A brief look at the monitor told him that his blood pressure and his pulse was already out of control. He only hoped that it would stop again, but the pain continued and increased. It was like his internal organs caught fire. Burning crawled through his body and made it impossible for him to think.

Even the doctors noticed that Skipper was just before a cardiac failure. "Tachycardia!" shouted one of the two excited. The other doc. got quickly another syringe and injected it into Skipper´s veins. The leader felt the pain got easier. He calmed down again and gasped.

Second by second, his heart beat more slowly and regularly again. "Well, we have initiated a tachycardia. That shouldn´t have happened. But can be controlled with morphine. Lessons learned." muttered one of the doctors and wrote something on his clipboard. Skipper didn´t care about anything anymore. He was weak and breathing heavily. His chest ached from the tachycardia, but he hoped that the doctors would finallyleave him alone now.

"So, I guess that's enough now for the little guy. We gotta get him back into his cage and watch for any side effect symptomes." said one of the doctors. Skipper could feel the shackles broke around his flippers and feet. But he was too weak to move. He even wasn´t able to start an escape attempt at all.

The doctor pulled the electrodes of the ECG from his chest and felt his pulse again. The leader really would like to pierce his hand with his beak when the doctor lifted him off the table, but in that moment he lost consiousness.