The Speed of Darkness
Chapter 27 - Interference

Alice couldn't believe her eyes. Over the last twenty four hours she had been watching the footage that had been received from the Cyclops Invisible Eye System implanted in the penguins. The footage was so unbelievable that she had to rewind it more than one time just to make sure she wasn't watching some sort of cheesy animated film. To just think that these incredible penguins had been living in her zoo without so much more than a hunch from her was inconceivable at this point.

Alice recalled watching programs on the Discovery and Animal channels when she was younger. The showed penguins living in Antarctica, huddling together for warmth. She saw small, tropical penguins that swam in the Caribbean ocean. She even saw penguins in other zoos gathering around the food bowl. She had always thought those penguins were as stupid as any other animal on the planet; surviving only because of their God-given instincts. Yeah, she had seen the way they interact in groups, such as Antarctic penguins carrying ever-so-rare pebbles to their mates to impress them. She had honestly thought that they were merely copying human tendencies—similar to the way a cockatoo mocks the way people talk. She thought that the penguins did it only because it was primal instinct.

She wondered now if she was wrong to think that. Her penguins, as slippery and mischievous as they were, were some of the most advanced creatures she had ever had the ability to observe. Hell, from what she saw they were more intelligent then half of the zookeepers she had hired. Even in the first few hours of the footage she had witnessed more from each penguin's first person view than she had noticed of them in their entire time at the zoo.

Shortly after she had begun to watch the videos she had watched the penguin's participate in some sort of a training session. She had watched it from the flat-headed penguin's point of view. She had always had a sort of governing air about him; the other penguins had always followed his actions without hesitation. Waiting to eat until he directed them towards the fish, waving only after they had witnessed him wave. Now she was watching them flip, punch, kick and do moves she only thought was possible in a Jackie Chan movie. It was difficult for her to follow what was going on, with the blurriness of the camera from the flat-headed penguin's rapid movements as well as those of the other penguins, but she could still make out most of it.

While watching these training sessions, Alice began to comprehend the way the penguins communicated. While she could not understand the clicks, purrs and coos of the birds she made out facial expressions, flipper gestures, and body language very similar to what one would see in another person. By analyzing these interactions she deduced that each penguin in her zoo had some sort of role. The leader gave the orders, the strategist gave feedback, the soldier diligently obeyed the orders, and the... well, she hadn't quite found a role for the heavyset penguin, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, but she was sure it had something to do with the weapons she had his stomach pumped for not too long ago.

The weapons were still laying on a table near her, most of them still wrapped in plastic bags. The majority of them were unconventional: a wooden sword, a baseball bat, a hammer. Some had her more worried such as the flamethrower and several sticks of dynamite. She wondered where in the world her penguins would have gotten their hands on these things. She herself didn't even know where to go to buy dynamite... or even a flamethrower for that matter. At first she had thought her heavyset penguin had merely swallowed these things by some freak chance, but judging by their advanced training sessions and the fact that nearly everything was a weapon worried her. Had her penguins really been out to get her since day one?

Her next shock came when her Asian Otter came into the penguins' habitat one evening after the zoo was closed. She had always known the penguins were up to something, but she had never even thought that her other animals may be in on it as well. The otter and the penguins conversed for a while, in a way she could not seem to understand. Clicks were met by growls. Purrs were met by coos. Even though, the human-like gestures were still there. Alice could have sworn she even saw the otter put her paws on her hips at one point. Later in the video the flat-headed penguin put some items in a bag and slung it over his back, but was met by her tall, proclaimed lemur-king. So her lemurs were in on this as well? She wondered for a while if all of her animals had fallen in some radioactive goo and were growing more intelligent by the second.

The lemur's party had completely blown her away. That evening she remembered barely seeing the lights and hearing the music, but her memories were cloudy from her blackout. In the morning it had all been gone. To think that lemurs had broken into zoo storage, taken the lights out and hung them up would have been too much for her to believe if she had not already seen the penguins' training sessions.

Something interesting happened next, though. The penguin she had identified as the leader of the group seemed to be on his way out of the zoo, while the three others were on their way to the Lemur's habitat. The penguin activated some sort of device on the screen, and the video ended for him. One of Mr. Green's interns concluded that it was a EMP emitter, or something to block the signal of the CIES. He also mentioned that it was the last recorded footage from that penguin. Alice couldn't believe how smart these little buggers were. They were even aware that something was tracking them.

After watching the other penguin's videos for some time without anything much interesting happening, she heard a strange noise from one of the videos. After rewinding it and turning up the volume, it sounded like a faint scream. She thought it might have been a bird until she replayed it one more time and identified it as her own voice. That was the exact moment that she was attacked! The video proved that her penguins were not to blame. Even though, Alice wondered why in the world she was attacked by those marauding penguins anyway. She could have sworn the flat-headed penguin that attacked her was her own leader-penguin, though. Did he block his signal so he could team up with some other penguins and attack her?

The next part of the video proved that theory wrong. Unable to wrap her head around what was going on, Alice witnessed the three penguins with active video feeds all get ambushed by the same penguins that attacked her. She had no clue why her own leader-penguin would attack his own, but the idea of him being the attacker never left her mind. What frightened her though was the sight of the small, rock hopper penguin holding a rifle. She rubbed where her leg still stung and concluded that she had been shot by it.

After this event the penguins stayed tied up for a while, until her otter came into the penguin's habitat again, her fur looking ruffled. She untied the penguins and they... conversed... for a while but nothing much happened. Eventually, the tall penguin stormed out of the habitat where Alice watched him get attacked yet again by the rock-hopper penguin with the rifle. The last thing she saw from his camera before a bag was placed over his head was a slight glimpse of a chimpanzee. It didn't take her long to realize that this was her own chimpanzee, particularly the one that always seems to hit her in the back of her head with poo. She rubbed the spot thinking about why these psychotic penguins would want anything to do with her chimp.

She then watched the two remaining penguin videos until there was a missing few minutes of video. Mr. Green said that the flat-headed leader-penguin returned to the habitat with his signal-jammer in operation, but he soon turned it off. Alice was greeted with the sight of a robot penguin... thing. At least she thought it was a penguin, but to her it looked more like the evil robot from Terminator. Red eye, robotic flipper, and a stone-faced disposition to top it off. Shivers ran up her spine thinking about it, although the animals on the screen seemed to welcome it somewhat warmly. This was important though because she concluded that the leader-penguin was not the one leading the penguin marauders.

Now Alice and Mr. Green sat at a table watching the two remaining penguin feeds, Alice having smashed the leader's feed by this point. The tall penguin's feed remained dark, but Alice could hear slight things such as waves crashing against rocks and seagulls. The pair concluded that this penguin had been taken to the docks. The other penguin's monitors showed them gearing up to leave the zoo, probably after their stolen friend.

"What in the world should we do now?" Alice asked, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. "They got my penguin, my chimp, and the rest of my animals are running after them."

Mr. Green nodded. "These videos have shown us your penguins are very capable of defending themselves. I say we sit back and let them work it out."

Alice slammed a fist on the table. "That's all you ever want to do, Andy, is sit back and watch. We have to do something about this. You saw what happened before, didn't you? My penguins got destroyed by those other penguins, for whatever the reason they weren't just killed there. They're definitely walking into a death trap!"

"Now, Alice," responded the stout man calmly, "You know we can't interfere here. Our actions at this point in time would draw too much attention to these penguins."

Alice grumbled. "They're leaving the zoo, Andy. If they get caught out in the city you know those animal freaks will have my neck. Right now doing nothing is pointless. They got my chimp, too, y'know. I payed four thousand freaking dollars for that thing."

"And I will have to pay four million dollars in lawsuits if someone finds the CIES," returned Mr. Green, "You have to understand, Alice, that we can't make the risk of interfering."

"We can't just sit on our asses, though!" shouted Alice, "At the very least we have to... go help them or something."
Mr. Green raised an eyebrow. "Are you developing a soft spot for your animals, Alice?"

Alice thought about this question for a few moments before responding. She had always been the kind of person who hated her work; hated the animals and hated the people. Those were pretty much the only two reasons to run a zoo. After seeing the intelligence that her penguins and otter hold, though, she realized that something much bigger was going on in her zoo.

She sighed, "They money, Andy. All I care about is the money. The penguin was writing on a clipboard, Andy, a clipboard! Imagine how many people would come to Central Park Zoo if they knew there were penguins that could do karate and what not. The publicity would put my zoo on the map, and the funding and sales would shoot up."

Mr. Green smiled, "So you want to go catch these penguins?"

"I can't let opportunities like this pass."

The businessman stood up. "Without the GPS tracker it will be harder to hunt them down, but we can use the monitors to try to identify local landmarks on where they are."

Alice smiled, happy Mr. Green saw it her way. "Well we know they're headed for the docks."

"We will just have to cut them off at some point then, won't we?"

/AN: Merry Christmas everyone! I know it's been a month and a half, but I definetly wanted to get out a little Christmas treat for you guys! I hope everyone enjoys thier Christmas and has a great new year! :AN\