In his terror and desperation, Private barely registered his filthy, grimy surroundings, or the dirt that now covered his body. He slid down the sewer towards Marlene's habitat, knowing it would be empty; she was talking to Skipper about his execution for unlawfully accessing confidential information. His occasional lenience towards him would not apply to matters like this, Private knew. The knowledge that his own unit now wanted him dead was like ice in his heart. He felt tears in his eyes but he silently blinked them away. From past experience, he knew that crying was no good in every situation. Crying was what newly-hatched penguins did when they needed an adult. Nobody would come to help him now. He was on his own and crying was no good.

When he came across the rat king Private paid him no attention. He just kept travelling.

Eventually he was underneath the otter habitat. He climbed up and paused at the top of the ladder, listening for the sound of voices inside the room. It was silent. He lifted the grate and entered. A quick scan of the room confirmed it was empty of life, so he calmed his mind and quickly collected things he would need to jungle-up for a while, using a combination of common sense and his military training. He made a mental list of what he grabbed.

Popcorn bag pillow... necessary. Sleep deprivation was the worst enemy of the soldier away from his unit, and pillows were the best friend of the penguin attempting to fall asleep.

A handkerchief blanket for winters... also necessary. The weather was getting colder and low temperatures were killers during long periods of time. If exposure didn't kill a soldier, the distraction would when actions needed to be made fast.

A bar of soap and some cleaning utensils... almost necessary. Disease and infections from resting in unclean surroundings were deadly even in zoo-controlled conditions. In the outside world, they often spelled death.

Map of Central Park Zoo... not as necessary. He knew the layout of the zoo and where everything was in it. It would always do to have a map with him, though, for measuring out distances almost exactly and making simple calculations. Many a good soldier had fallen to relying on memory too much when having to plan out a course of action. What happened to Manfredi and Johnson was enough to prove that.

Four small scraps of cloth... very useful. Two to cover his feet to muffle his footsteps and two spares. He was now in enemy territory, after all.

Semi-advanced first-aid kit... vital. The reasons were obvious.

He shoved everything but two of the pieces of cloth into a large brown knapsack which tied shut instead of buckled, after he had removed it. Little bits of metal clanking would serve to alert anybody on the lookout for a runaway to his presence. Stealth would be needed at times, he knew.

He didn't feel very guilty about taking Marlene's things. When he allowed himself to take them it was with the understanding that he would give them back or get her new ones eventually. He tied the cloth pieces around his feet and, laden with a few basic supplies, slid out through the front tunnel entrance – if they had noticed his absence yet, they would come in through the sewer.

He blinked rapidly in the harsh afternoon sunlight. It was cool outside with the wind, but the sun was just as bright as in summer, peeking through thin clouds above him. Visibility was high, he noted with worry. This was bad – anybody would be able to see him from any distance. He only hoped he could stay out of their lines of sight.

He crossed the pool by gently lowering himself into the water and kicking his feet, and holding the supplies above the surface. He made a mental note to obtain waterproof bags from somewhere before he left the zoo. He was sure that the zoo veterinary hospital had some in its storeroom to put equipment in for rainy-day enclosure visits. He hopped up and over the low wall of the habitat and landed with a quiet pat. His head swivelled from side to side, on the lookout for any signs of movement. His story would be spreading. If even the flamingoes saw him now, the other penguins would be on him faster than he could say 'hush'.

Unwilling to loiter any more than he had to, Private slung the knapsack over his back and hurried away in the direction of the food shed for some fish.

It was unlocked. The door was wide open and as he watched Alice emerged without shutting the door behind her. She set off for the reptile house, trolley of food in tow. He slid inside and took stock of his surroundings.

Shelves upon shelves of different-coloured food bags and boxes met his eyes. Every type of animal in the zoo seemed to have a mountain of food to itself. Nuts, fruit crates, live food... there were so many different kinds for each type of animal in the zoo. There was a huge refrigerating box in the corner for perishables, and opposite, a steel door in the wall with its little glass window frosted over. That must be the freezer, Private thought happily. He hopped up a pile of food bags and leaped for the door handle. He grabbed it and twisted.

The door swung open and the delicious smell of frozen fish wafted over him. It made him smile. He waddled forwards into the middle of the room, letting in the scents of cod, haddock, sardine, kippers... and was that tuna? He was in bliss.

He shook his head to clear his mind and started breaking open boxes of fish by the dozen. By gulping them down and stuffing them into his bag with feverish haste, he soon cleared a whole bottom shelf of food. That was hunger taken care of for the moment, and his hoard of fish would feed him for two more days, at least. Now for defence, he thought, rubbing his stomach.

In another room off from the main store room he found a small, sharp switch-blade and a Swiss army knife which he took from a sleeping zoo worker's coat pocket. Not very effective against a bear... or a badger... but it was far better than being unarmed. Private gingerly checked both were fully functional, wincing when the switch-blade flicked open and almost sliced off the tip of his beak. He would have to be careful about that in future. He put them in the knapsack's left side pocket.

Next up for a scavenging run was the zoo gift shop – that was where the best makeshift defensive gear could be found, surprisingly. He slid along the path to the shop with speed and he was soon inside, finding the steel grate up and door unlocked. He grabbed what he knew could be useful.

Using his Swiss army knife, he cut about twenty metres of thin string from several toy fishing rods and stuffed it into the right side pocket of his bag. He removed, but kept, the hook ends. They went into a paper bag and joined the string.

Next he put a stuffed penguin doll into another bag, this time crafted out of soft grey cloth – paper rustled too much, and so did canvas. The bag was attached to the one on his back with another piece of string. Now he had a decoy which had, in the past, been proven to work.

Seven little stone slabs shaped like turtles went in his bag as well. They were heavy; they had a possible uses for weapons, traps and weights for modified tools.

After rummaging through the cash register, he emerged with seven one-dollar bills, four fives, a ten, and six twenties. That would fund everything he needed from the city for a while – vending machines, shop raids, everything to do with humans.

Finally he used his knife to slice open a few more toys. He collected their stuffing and shoved it into the back pocket of his bag. This would be used for bedding, emergency decoy repair, and for lining his future base to muffle footsteps even more. Movement would be necessary inside a base of operations, and he wouldn't be able to afford the time taken to creep if hostiles were outside.

Private took one last look around him. He couldn't see anything else he might need from the zoovenir shop, so he left and set off to the zoo's vet clinic, going the long way around. He waddled in the shadows of the brick walls this time, slowly, listening out for any animals nearby. They would no doubt have noticed his escape by now – he had been gone a full half hour. Still, he'd made good headway for the time he had taken.

When he was part way there he heard voices from the lemur habitat. He slowed to a halt.

Julian's was louder than anybody else's. "If we could all just pay the penguins a little attention please... now, now..." Private gulped. His unit were making a formal declaration to inform the zoo's inhabitants. The muttering among the other animals died away.

Skipper's clipped tones addressed the congregation. "Thank you, Ringtail. Now, as you may know, a member of our team has gone AWOL..."

More muttering.

Here it comes, Private thought. He nestled against the wall of the lemur habitat, resting his tense muscles, out of sight but very close.

"He was caught accessing confidential information. At first, we thought he had an agenda no more sinister than childlike curiosity... however, when caught, he defied a direct order and left HQ. We currently do not know where he is. " He waited for absolute silence before speaking again.

"Therefore, we now have suspicions that he's working for an outside group."

Private blinked in surprise. Wait, he thought. What?

Another ten seconds or so passed while the animals of the zoo chattered themselves out. They all seemed to be more interested than shocked at this news.

"Listen! So long as he is out of our hands he is a danger to everyone in this zoo." Skipper's words stunned them quiet. Private's beak hung open stupidly in his confusion.

Skipper continued sadly, "Yes... we've always known there was a risk of this happening. He's an impressionable penguin. We hoped we could mould him into a good soldier with training, but he gives in to temptation too easily. Bribes? Torture? Brainwash? Who knows. Really, it was only a matter of time before a chance came along to turn him traitor..."

More chatter, more rumours created and swapped. This time there was a note of worry to their collective voices.

"We need to find him, and fast. There's no telling what sort of information he will pass on about every single one of us..."

At that comment, Private sank onto his rear. The panic was evident in their talking now. This was worse than knowing a secret. They all thought he was a traitorous runaway... like he was some sort of enemy spy. Private frowned and thought, what was he talking about? An 'outside group'? I haven't been speaking to anybody outside this zoo for a long time... surely he sees I was just scared when I ran...

He heard the animals beginning to leave. They would soon be out of the enclosure and roaming about the zoo.

As quickly as he could, he sped along to the vet and scaled the wall to a window, using a grappling hook he had fixed together earlier from three of his hooks, a stone weight and some string. He climbed into the building, hoisting the string of the grappling hook up with him, and jumped down inside the main ward. The string trailed down this side to allow him to get out.

He dashed to the closet and pulled it open. Morphine, animal aspirin, waterproof plastic bags... a little box of everything went into his now overfilled bag. Tying it shut, he was planning out a route in his head while he climbed back up the string to the window. He saw them advancing.

They were predicting his actions.

They were advancing. Their eyes were focused on the window they usually used, the one to the left of his position. Beside and behind them were the strongest animals in the zoo – the gorillas, the polar bears, and the kangaroo. They were a fierce group. He would have to pass them to leave the zoo grounds.

Suddenly his heart was beating a tattoo against his ribcage. His legs felt weak. Fear like he had never known before – a sick fear, tinted with panic, betrayal and confusion, and spurred on by fight-or-flight instinct – clogged his mind as he dropped down, grappling hook under flipper, and slid towards the zoo entrance. He forgot his planned route and bee-lined. As he whizzed by he heard the gorillas yell and Rico garble his alarm. Private ignored them and slid out of Central Park Zoo and into the park itself, his unit close behind.


He had lost them. His hook had made it possible for him to climb up into the dense branches of a tree once he was out of sight and now he laid, shivering in fear, on a thick branch watching them slide around below. They hadn't thought to look among the orange and brown leaves above for their target. A kite rustled behind him somewhere in the tree, and he prayed it didn't attract their attention.

"Where can he be?" Kowalski griped to Rico. Rico shrugged and gave him a blank look. Neither of them seem angry, Private thought to himself; they merely looked as if they were on a picnic and they had misplaced the bread. The knot of fear in his gut lessened. Maybe they didn't believe that he was a traitor, but were just following instructions. Perhaps even thought him innocent of anything but said 'childlike curiosity'?

It gave him an idea – if he could communicate with Kowalski – Rico was too unpredictable, and too loyal to Skipper – and prove to him he wasn't a spy... he could, in theory, convince him to help? He could clear his name more easily with the assistance of lieutenant Kowalski. Private smiled as a plan formed in his head. Then the list of items he needed to scavenge got larger and larger.


He crept silently among the bushes on the edges of the scouting camp the others had set up just outside the zoo. He kept far back in the bushes, so that he was barely able to see them in the dim light of the setting sun – if he couldn't see them very well when they were out in the open, they had next to no chance of spotting him among the shadows and leaves. Slowly he moved to the bush on the left, keeping bent down, tips of flippers touching the ground on occasion to keep himself steady. He was careful not to step on the dry, crinkly fallen leaves and instead stuck to patches of soft soil.

His preliminary stake-out was going well. He wasn't going to break into the zoo yet; the first night outside the protection of his unit's trust and guidance, the last thing he would do was straight-out break into the current most dangerous place in New York City for him. He was just there to see what he was currently up against.

Skipper had trained him too well. The laser grid, the booby traps, all of Rico's landmines – it just looked too easy after all the agility training exercises he had done in the past. Banks of electronic equipment, glowing faintly along with the low light from the moon, were scattered around in front of the gates, blocking his view of the floor but illuminating some deadly-looking bear traps. They looked easy enough to avoid now he knew they were there. Granted, some paths were blocked entirely. The only features which had him stumped were the deadly sewer traps he'd discovered earlier, and the fatal bare electric wires running along the perimeter walls. This made the main entrance the only weak point in the zoo. And the only place he could gain entry through without some really good gear.

To get a better view of the grid he shifted to the left again, into a bush dripping with sweet-smelling, pastel-coloured flowers, the only flowers out now the season had turned. The pollen marked his already sewer-stained and unkempt plumage and he tried hard not to sneeze. Some sort of biodegradable rubbish had turned to mush half a foot away and he skirted around it, only for his foot to sink into a patch of mud. One good thing about being so filthy, he reflected, was his white front and orange feet were much less visible in the dark, but it was still disgusting and he wanted a shower.

A voice made him jump. "How's it going, guys?" Marlene was back for the second time during the stakeout. "I got you those fish from your habitat."

Rico darted forward excitedly and Kowalski hummed appreciatively. Private heard Skipper thank her. They all kept their voices low.

"So, seen Private anywhere yet?" She didn't sound angry either, much to Private's delight.

It was Kowalski who answered the inquiry. Counting out fish, he said, "Presently, there has been no sign of him. We know he would never do anything as rash as a break-in on the first night," he said portentously, "but we always have to be prepared. If he has gone out of his mind, well..." Private blinked and tried to remember if he had heard a rumour of him being crazy while the animals were talking earlier. Anything and everything was being swapped in there, he realised. Kowalski continued quietly, after another fish, "We'll find him eventually and get the truth out of him – meanwhile, we can only speculate why he was translating the information. He can't resist capture forever."

"It's a big city," Marlene disagreed. "He could get tools from anywhere. Why would he come here?"

Skipper shook his head. "Marlene, we have everything he needs to survive out there. My training technique means we rely on certain types of equipment for survival; this equipment is only accessible by us. He doesn't know how to survive out there for long without full cooperation with our unit. Until he's ready to accept the consequences of his actions, he's stuck out there with no help. He won't last a week." Skipper raised the binoculars to his eyes and continued his optical scan of the park. He didn't seem to look at anything closer than ten metres, and completely ignored the bushes about four feet from him.

Behind him, Kowalski yawned. "Should I check the perimeter again, Skipper?" He rubbed his eye.

He shook his head again. "Get some rest. Rico can do it." The large, scarred penguin in question gave Skipper a helpless look. "Go on," Skipper urged. "And don't forget to check the ground for corpses."

From where he was stood, he could see Marlene's shiver as Rico slid away into the grounds. She stepped closer to Skipper absent-mindedly, but backed away again at a sharp glance from him. She looked frightened at the thought of Private's charred and lifeless body slumped outside the zoo walls. As she should be, Private thought, shuddering. Marlene rubbed her arms in response to a cold gust of wind. He could see her tiny fangs digging into her lower lip. "What if he's innocent?" She blurted out suddenly. The other two looked at her in surprise. "Y'know, what if he's not a spy? If he was just... curious?" She seemed to be struggling to find the right words, but from the look on her face, she had wanted to say it for a while. "I don't think he's a traitor... I mean, he has a good sense of right and wrong, and he's just a kid, y'know?"

Skipper studied her for a long moment, flippers on his hips. Then he sighed and grabbed a cup of coffee, complete with a fish, from the table next to him and took a long drink. Then he turned to her and said, "Marlene, I've given it a lot of thought. This isn't just a case of 'I wonder what this is over here' or 'ooh, look what I found'. He deliberately gained access to a high-clearance-only hidden room in HQ, with the full knowledge that he had no right to."

Every point he made, Private winced in guilt. "When caught, he defied a direct order and left HQ without permission. He robbed the zoovenir shop, the zoo supply store and even your habitat. Taking enough food and gear to survive outside for several days, he has also so far resisted arrest." He put his mug down. His expression was one of regret. "This isn't how we taught him. From what I've seen, even if he's 'innocent', his behaviour has made him unfit to be a soldier in my unit."

At this, Private hung his head in shame. His fear and unwillingness to face up to what he had done had made him an unfit penguin for duty. He could hear Marlene arguing with Skipper, saying that Private had proven himself over and over again, but he didn't listen. Why did he have to see what was through the door? Why couldn't he just control himself whenever he saw something interesting? Devastated and completely hating himself, he wondered if he should just give himself up instead. Maybe, if all went well and they all listened to him, he would just get away with expulsion from the army and a few years in prison. It would be better than shamelessly defying his commanding officer again and again, alone and in disgrace. Like Kowalski had said, they would catch up with him eventually, anyway.

Seething with frustration, Marlene turned to Kowalski, who was trying to keep track of the conversation while trying not to fall asleep. "You don't believe he's capable of anything like that, do you?" Private lifted his head.

He took a while to answer. He shifted from foot to foot, staring around them. Private shrunk back when he began examining the flowers on the bush he was hiding in.

"I don't think that Private would willingly betray us," he said slowly. "Likely he was just scared when he fled HQ. But we can't rule out brainwash, or drugs, or any other form of forceful mind control. Although I don't believe he wasn't acting of his own accord, it's perfectly possible that Private was carrying out another person's sordid orders. We have to find him, either way. He's an imminent threat." Kowalski looked away, scraping his feet against the paved floor. Despite his words, nothing in his voice suggested he thought Private was a spy – his heart soared and a smile lit his features again. The thoughts about turning himself in disappeared and the plans of clearing his name came back. There was still hope yet. He returned to taking mental notes about his surroundings, then realised something.

They weren't expecting him to break into the zoo yet – their defences were probably minimal and they were on low alert, wandering around and chatting. Tomorrow they would be far more likely to spot him if he approached. Maybe breaking in tonight wasn't reckless at all?