Chapter 9 - Mysterious Visitor

"Checkmate!" proclaimed Kowalski from the chessboard. Rico grumbled, knowing that he was going to loose since the start. Skipper was sitting across the room watching the two play. He averted his eyes from Private's, which were always staring at Kowalski. Skipper shook his head at the two playing chess... why would Rico accept such a challenge? Maybe it was because Kowalski had nobody else left to play with.

It was already dark outside—the zoo had closed and the guests had gone home. For another day the penguins did nothing to entertain. After training that morning, they simply spent another day buried in their HQ. Skipper was not sure exactly why the penguins weren't interested in entertaining, but he was pretty sure their morals were still low from Julien's untimely death.

Outside a large, plastic blue tarp laid draped over the makeshift ice floe the penguins used, covering up the unsightly word that had been written in red paint. Alice and a few other zookeepers had placed it there upon seeing the word Murder, which would not be a good thing for guests to see in a penguin habitat. She figured it was graffiti done by some rowdy teenagers, although she had no idea how they might have gotten in. Nonetheless, she was disgusted by the fact that such an act had been done, and she would have none of it.

The tarp on top of the penguin's HQ made a makeshift barrier over the fishbowl hatch, and due to the fact that the tarp had been secured even Rico was not able to push it open. Eventually, Skipper just sliced through it with his swiss army knife to get some fresh air earlier during the day.

Now, Skipper fixed his attention on Private who was sitting quietly in his cage. He had been there all day, since training was over. He looked awfully bored and tired, leaning up against the hard side of the box. Most of Skipper said suddenly that he should let his comrade out of the cage for a few hours, and let him burn off a little energy. The hardened, military bit responded by telling him that Private was suspected of taking classified weaponry. Until the issue was resolved, Private should be under full surveillance, he thought.

An hour or two passed, filled by Kowalski killing Rico in chess, Skipper daydreaming and Private looking bored. Suddenly, the door to the penguin's HQ burst open. Skipper jumped to his feet and looked for any sort of threat.

"Men, on your feet!" he said, looking at what was in the doorway. Kowalski and Rico jumped up and stood behind their leader, ready to defend themselves. They calmed down a bit when they saw exactly what it was—A man was hunched over in the small access to the penguin HQ and he had a several small pet carriers behind him. Skipper recognized his uniform as a Zoo employee and he loosened up. "At ease, men, at ease," he said, "it's just a zoo keeper."

The man reached out an arm and gently picked Skipper up from where he was standing. He set the penguin back down in one of the pet carriers. He knew that the penguins never had any trouble when it came time to take them out of the exhibit. A few seconds later and Rico and Kowalski were placed in their carriers, which were handed off to another zoo keeper outside. However, when he looked for the fourth penguin and saw it already inside a cage, he looked in suspicion. The cage it was in was just out of his reach, and he squeezed as much of his mass through the door as he could to reach in. He didn't think much of the things he saw – A TV, a chessboard, and pillows in the penguin's bunks. He understood that the zoo did crazy things to keep its animals happy, like giving that zebra a treadmill.

Soon all four penguins were loaded onto a golf cart and driven by Alice to the reptile house, where they were set in a vacant, small exhibit. It already had fish and a pool full of fresh water for the penguins. They were not reachable by any of the other animals around.

"Alright, I moved the penguins into the holding pen," Alice said into her radio, unlocking the lock on Skipper's carrier. "You can begin bleaching that horrible graffiti anytime." There was muffled static on the other end of the radio, but Alice seemed to be making words out of it.

"There's something I don't get though." she said, which was followed by more muffling, "I don't get why the smallest one was locked up in a cage. I wonder if a zoo employee did that?" With that, she walked off, leaving the penguins alone.

Seeing that Alice was gone, the penguins stopped acting like they do whenever people are around and gathered in the middle of the small enclosure. Rico made sure he stayed several feet away from Private, who's cage was unlocked by Alice. Skipper didn't care too much that he was out right now, though. As Rico backed up when Private approached, it made Private stare at the ground.

"I wonder... are we being transferred?" started Kowalski immediately.

"You say that every time the people put us in here," answered Skipper, shaking his head. He recognized the small holding pen as the place they went between tasks, mostly when the zoo employees felt they wanted to clean the Penguin's habitat for themselves. They usually found it spotless, however.

"Oh, right,"

"Skippah, you think they're going to do something about that word that Maurice had written?" asked Private.

"Most definitely," he responded, "That cover they put on top was temporary." The penguins had no idea what Alice had said, but Skipper knew what was happening anyway.

There was a moment of silence, then Private spoke, "Out of one cage and into another, eh?" None of the penguins took this very humorously and Rico emitted a low growl. To this, Skipper slapped the heavier penguin across the head.

"Yak! Yak!" shouted the heavyset penguin to his superior. Skipper arched a brow and slapped his explosives expert again. The penguin knew at this point to not continue and grumbled and he waddled away towards the pool. Kowalski and Private stared in disbelief at their two teammates fight. Neither wanted to say anything at this point, and an awkward silence ensued. Eventually, they three separated themselves and a darkness fell over the enclosure. With none of their normal toys to entertain themselves, Private and Skipper sat doing nothing, while Rico did laps around the small pool. Kowalski paced back and forth.

"Alright, men, looks like we're in here until morning." noted Skipper when he realized it was too late for any employees to still be in the zoo. Kowalski nodded and the other two penguins didn't respond. "I need some fresh air," Skipper said, getting up.

"OK," responded Kowalski, the only one who seemed to be paying attention.

"Even if we're still in this place by sunrise... training will continue, men," Skipper said. This time there was no response, except for a quiet groan. The leader penguin turned and headed towards a familiar wall with a loose air vent panel on it. He loosened the metal and moved it aside, allowing him to navigate the airways. The team had always used this route to get away from the boringness that always happened inside the holding pen. Suddenly, he was surprised that nobody came with him.

When he had found the exit—a small opening near the bottom of the wall In the rear of the building, he emerged into the cool night air. It felt nice after being in the stuffy holding pen. He waddled a bit until he came around to the front of the small building. Then, he stretched and leaned up against the cold brick. He looked up at the sky, which was filled with a bright, full moon. He looked back down and saw something he had not seen before.

A dark shadow was moving quickly towards him. It darted behind light posts and avoided any sort of distinguishing light—skipper could only make out its silhouette from the light of the moon. He noted something very familiar about the shadow, except he couldn't quite put his flipper on it. He tensed up and a assumed a combat formation. He noted that the figure had not noticed him yet, so he crept back into a shadow that was being cast on the side of the building. His heart began to beat fast and he could feel adrenaline start to pour into his veins.

The figure moved close, and Skipper took advantage of the moment and pounced. He landed directly on top of the shadow when it wasn't ready, and they toppled to the ground. The thing he landed on screamed in surprise, and kicked wildly. Skipper struggled for a minute, and then successfully pinned it down, just like he had been training to do. The animal below him stopped struggling and looked up at him.

"Skipper!" it said in all too familiar voice. A voice that Skipper was beginning to hate very much.

"Oh, its you..." said Skipper. He had recognized the voice as Maelie's, and in the bright moonlight he was able to make out her face. He tightened his grip on the lemurs shoulders.

"Ow, Skipper!" she grunted, "you're hurting me!"

"What do you want, mammal?" Skipper asked quickly, holding his grip firm.

"Let go... of me... and I'll tell you!" the female said between grunts from struggling to loosen Skipper's painful grip.

"No!" shouted Skipper, "Tell me what you want!"
"I... want to... I want to talk!" the lemur pleaded, tears coming to her eyes. Skipper loosened his grip at the sight it, and the anger left his face. He let go of the mammal and stood up. "Thank you," she said quietly, rubbing her shoulders where Skipper's flippers had been.

AN~~~~~~~~~~AN

First of all, i'm sorry that it took me almost five days to update! I haven't been that busy, but I have been spending most of my time playing video games and such. I planned to try to update a chapter every three days! I'll try to hold true to that from now on. Also, thanks for all of the super positive reviews I'm getting! It's really encouraging to hear that people are enjoying my story.

So, what does Maelie have in store to tell Skipper? Check back in a few days to read Chapter 10 and find out!