Chapter 7 – Secret code

A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry for taking more time to update. I was really busy lately. Anyway, here's chapter seven.

Enjoy the read!

PoM

Marlene woke up in her cell that morning; she looked around and saw all the three lemurs were awake too.

"Morning guys," she said. The trio greeted her back. She got used seeing them around every day. Soon the lobster guards came and began serving food to each animal in its cell. Wasting no time the lemurs dug into their bowl of fruit while Marlene stared at her plate of fish in thought. It's been almost two weeks since she and the other animals were locked up here and she got tired of it. She missed waking up in her habitat and having breakfast near her pool, she missed swimming and entertaining the guests. She wanted to go out and see Skipper and his teammates.

Maurice noticed she wasn't eating and raised an eye brow. "Marlene, you okay. You haven't touched your food." he pointed to the plate in front of her.

The otter snapped from her trance and looked up to him. "Oh I'm fine, it's just I miss my habitat a lot." she confessed sheepishly.

The lemur smiled. "Well don't worry. We won't be staying here for long."

This caught someone else's attention. "What are you talking about?" Mason asked confused. He and Phil were in the opposite cell from them.

"You don't know? The penguins are coming here!" King Julian said a little too loud. Every other animal in the prison heard him. Leonard who was in the cell next to them gasped.

"Are you kidding me!? Isn't already bad enough that we're trapped here? Now those penguins are coming to get us too!" the koala wailed.

"What no! Leonard, the penguins will help us. They're not coming to get anyone." Marlene explained.

"Help!? They launched me into the city and bombed my house TWICE!" Leonard shot back.

"Well I'm sure they didn't mean to. I know Skipper and the guys, they wouldn't do stuff like that intentionally." she stated. Leonard just huffed and looked away. Mason then returned to the main topic.

"So how did you know they are coming to rescue us?" he asked her.

Marlene grinned and showed him her PCD. "They came here yesterday and gave me this so I can call them if anything happened."

"But if they were here last night why didn't they just rescue us." Roger asked, peeking through the bars. His cell was on the right of Marlene and lemurs'.

The otter frowned. "They can't. There are too many enemies in the zoo. If they tried sneaking in here the guards might see them and warn Hans and his army." Mason nodded in understanding, but Roger had another question in mind.

"So….what are we supposed to do?" the alligator asked.

"We need to get as much information as we can on Hans' plan and his forces." she answered.

Maurice came next to her. "And how are we supposed to do that?" the otter looked over and saw a lobster guard passing by and an idea hit her.

"Hey, excuse me!" she called out. The lobster stopped in his tracks and came to her.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I was just wondering how many soldiers are in the zoo. Can you please tell me?" Marlene asked, giving the most innocent smiles she could make.

"Sorry but that's classified." the lobster replied.

The otter frowned. "Déjà vu. That's what Skipper says to me all the time." she thought and rolled her eyes.

Maurice pointed out. "B-But we're all locked up here. We can't tell anyone even if we wanted to, right?"

Julian then spoke up. "YES! Especially not the pengu-"before he could finish Marlene elbowed him and chuckled nervously.

The lobster thought for a moment and sighed. "I guess it's alright if I told you. Well there are two hundred soldiers in this zoo." everyone's jaws dropped after that. "But most of us will leave tomorrow to look for Dr. Blowhole, no one seen or heard any new about him for a while now, so that leaves about fifty lobster to guard the zoo." he said before leaving them.

Everyone broke into excited grins. "Did you guys hear that?" Maurice exclaimed eagerly.

"Yeah, that's exactly what Skipper needs! I'm going to call him right now." Marlene stated. All the animals minus Leonard nodded in agreement. She took the PCD and pressed on the small red button on it before speaking through it.

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Skipper has just came back from retrieving Private's medicine and was about to enter the warehouse when heard Marlene's' voice.

"Skipper, can you read me?"

Dropping his back bag on the ground, the leader quickly took his PCD from inside it and placed it close to his ear hole. "I hear you Marlene, is something wrong?"

He could hear her smiling through device. "Great news, Skipper! I just talked to one of the lobster guards and he said that they're going to look for Blowhole tomorrow and only about fifty one will stay in the zoo. Can you believe our good luck!?"

Skipper took in everything she said and a grin formed on his beak. "That's perfect; we can take Hans and his minions down and come to rescue you now. Thanks for the help Marlene. I owe you one." he stated gratefully.

"Okay, bye!" she said and hung up. Smiling, he placed the device back into his back bag. He then entered the warehouse to see Private sitting on a wooden chair waiting for them.

"There you are Skippah, What took you so long? Did you find the supplies you need?" he asked curiously.

"Eh….yeah I did…also here's something I brought for you." he pulled the small brown bottle from his back bag and passed it to him. "Just drink from this every day and you'll get better." he said with confidence.

Private looked down to the bottle in his flipper, not know what to say until a smile crept on his beak. "Thank you Skippah, I appreciated it."

"No problem," his leader replied. Just then the door opened showing two penguins covered in dirt and dust. Skipper and Private stared at them befuddled.

"Whoa, what happened to you two!? You look like you've been rolling down a hill!" Skipper exclaimed in curiosity and confusion.

Rico and Kowalski eyed each other awkwardly before the scientist spoke. "Well we went down that secret tunnel to explore it, but….we caved in."

Private raised an eyebrow. "So how did you get out?"

"Rico had to dig us all the way to the surface with spoons." he pointed to Rico who grinned proudly. "Anyway, what is more important is that we found this metal box down there with a paper note inside It." he then passed the note to Skipper who examined it carefully.

"007895"

"What do you think this could mean? asked Skipper.

Kowalski rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "A lot of things, a hidden message, a time, or date, a code…." he froze as well as everyone when the sudden realization hit them hard.

"Wait, you don't think…" Private said, finally catching on.

"I'm sure it is. Think it about it, it all adds up. The secret tunnel, the vault, and now this note. Someone must have been living in our HQ before we came and built all this. This code is probably to unlock the vault and was hidden so no one will open it, but who could it be?" the scientist summed.

Skipper folded his flippers over his chest, serious. "We'll look onto that later. Marlene just called and said that most of Hans' minions will leave tomorrow which is our chance to go fight him and free all the animals."

"But Skipper the tunnel is blocked by rocks! How are we supposed to sneak in without getting any attention now?" Kowalski protested.

Skipper smirked. "We'll have to do it the old fashion way, Kowalski."

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A/N: Well that's for this chapter. The story is clearly close to the end. Thanks you all for reading and supporting me so far. Don't forget to review. :D