A/N: I had to explain this to Blues because I forgot to make it explicit, so I'm saying it here so the next chapter isn't confusing. Nobody knows the animals can talk. In the things like the taste testings the crocodiles can point to things. They seem like smart animals, but nothing biologically unnatural is known by the public.
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Satisfied that all the animal enclosures were locked, Patrick slipped round the side of the monkey cage towards his office. There was a narrow corridor between the cage and the higher outer wall, paved by wide planks of brightly polished wood. The wall was built out of the same wood, though for it the planks were spaced out with a slight gap between each. It wasn’t enough that you could see through, really, unless you stood with your eye socket pressed right up against one of the gaps. But it was enough to let in some light and fresh air, which was always nice for the animals.
The end of the corridor was exactly perpendicular to the back of the cage, but if you didn’t know where to look, you’d have no hope finding Patrick’s office. Patrick crouched down at the last plank. It was crammed into the space, but there was a tiny hole in the far side of it. With the pinky of his right hand, Patrick pried the plank off the ground, got his hand under it, and lifted it out of place.
Below was a slightly scratched pane of glass, which Patrick lifted upwards from the far side. If you’d been sat behind him, your jaw would have dropped open as you realised how big the pane was. As Patrick levered it open, with it came the next two planks before the tiniest glint of a hinge was finally revealed.
A moment later, Patrick had wriggled past the glass, which was always difficult, because it was almost the entire width of the corridor. He wasn't exactly a flexible young man these days. But finally he'd made it to the top rung of a shiny silver ladder. He twisted and smiled at the setting sun, basking for one last moment in its pink and orange glow. Then he began his descent.
After a few steps downwards he turned sideways and reached his hand out to a slightly straggly rope which hung down from the underside of the corridor. The muscles of his arm holding the ladder tensed tightly as he used his other to thread it through a small carabiner screwed into the wall. Then he scurried down the rest of the ladder, which was roughly the height of your average basketball player, then turned his attention back to the rope.
"You need a hand?" called Treego, a small poison-arrow frog.
"No thanks, buddy," Patrick called back, "I think I have it under control today."
There was some clicking as Patrick pulled downwards on the rope, the frog-designed pulley system doing its work. Gradually, and with automatic intervals every so often to stop momentum building up, the ropes pulled the glass pane back into place.
"I love watching that work." Treego grinned at Patrick as he turned around. He was perched on the edge of a plastic grey stool beside a grainy CCTV screen, which was currently showing a wide shot of the zoo. It was a small, dim surveillance room, and they were the only two in it. And if for some reason anyone were ever to stumble across this underground level, surveillance would hopefully be the only visible purpose.
"That why you volunteer to be on watch so much?" Patrick asked.
"Indeed." Treego nodded. His eyes flicked up to the glass and squinted at something. "Also because I like to make sure you don't make a fool of yourself."
Patrick whirled round. "What are you- Oh, no."
Patrick had forgotten to replace the first plank he'd removed, which had little grooves in the side of the glass it slid into. It was just one little plank. It would be so easy to just leave it until morning. But, as he’d had to remind himself every time in the past year that he’d made this mistake, which was more than he would have probably admitted, the smallest mistake could give the real nature of this zoo away. And then where would he be?
He hung his head. "I'll be back down in a moment."
Treego turned back to face the surveillance screen. "What would you do without me?"
***
There was a Mario Kart tournament in full swing in the main lounge, as there had been for the last ten nights in Tayburn zoo. The last month it had been Halo 3, and before that the only game the animals had owned had been a Tetris knock-off that had been hidden away in Patrick's old attic for over a decade. Patrick's grandkids didn't discard many games, but Mario Kart and Halo 3 had been played so intensely that just the sight of either now incurred only uncomfortable groans.
And so Patrick had brought them to a more excited audience, certain they wouldn't be missed.
"Clover, get the heck out of my way," Dexi the adolescent crocodile snapped, "If you don't let me past Chip's going to beat us both."
Dexi was lying on her front with her short, narrow arms stretched out in front of her, desperately bashing the arrow pad on the Wii remote. She was about to lap Clover, a particularly dextrous penguin, but Chip the capuchin was right up her tail... metaphorically.
This was the scene as Patrick strolled through the door. The animals were crowded around the television, which was mounted high up on the far right wall. There was a couch in the centre of the room, facing the television, which Patrick had positioned purposefully in order to separate the left of the room from the right. The left had a collection of small wooden tables and chairs that Patrick had picked up from a car boot sale, while the right had two couches and an armchair. A relaxed side, and an even more relaxed side, as Patrick liked to say.
The screams from the narrowly beaten Dexi sounded anything but relaxed.
Smiling a little, but turning his face away so Dexi wouldn’t see, Patrick went to the bookshelf in the far left corner of the room. He ran his fingers along bumps of broken spines, trying to decide which of the scruffy paperbacks to pick up until the animals had finished with their game. He'd read them all several times, of course, even before he'd dug them out of his attic and lugged them here in the boot of his car. Maybe a gritty Glaswegian murder mystery would suit his mood, after all he had a big announcement to deliver to the animals in a moment, and he probably ought to feel tense about it.
But as he started to pry a Val MacDiarmid volume out of its place, cramped between four others, he realised that actually, his stomach was remarkably settled. He took a seventies sci-fi novel instead and settled down on one of the chairs facing towards the television, though still plenty far away.
There was a great deal more shouting and a little booing, though Patrick was used to the squabbling. He didn't look up from his book until the noise finally died down, at which point he was met with the sight of a collection of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians trudging towards him with shoulders - or equivalents - hunched. Except for the crocodile, Dexi, who from the sharp-toothed grin on her face must have clawed her way back to first place.
The capuchin monkey, Chip, sighed and flopped onto the chair across from Patrick. "Hi, Patrick. How are you?"
"Aw, buddy." Patrick smiled with one side of his mouth. "I'm good. And I'm sure you will be soon."
Chip nodded. "Oh, I will be. Or I would be, if I wasn't certain that Dexi was taking a victory lap around the backs of all the couches."
Patrick glanced over, and did indeed spot the victorious crocodile scuttling around and jumping from couch to armchair to couch. He looked back to Chip, who was peeling the veneer off the side of the table. He leaned in close to the hunched over monkey, who was small to begin with. "Well, what if I told you I had something to cheer you up. Or at least, something to distract Dexi from her victory."
Chip slowly looked up and beneath a deep frown locked eyes with Patrick. "That would be good."
Patrick grinned. "Alright then."
He pushed his chair out and shot to his feet, causing most heads in the room to jerk around to face him, and his back to twinge.
"Hello, everyone! How are we all today? Good? I'm glad. Well, my friends, I have some news." Patrick took a deep breath and tried not to focus on the gaze of any animal in particular. "You're probably wondering why I'm sitting here reading about Martians rather than heading straight for the lab. Maybe some of you have given up on me ever figuring out what gave you the ability to talk, but I'm sure you all figure I'm stubborn enough to never stop trying anyway. Well, I've taken this rare day off for a very special reason. Tonight, I am expecting a phone call."
Patrick's chest tensed and he simply stood there for a moment, fidgeting with the zip on the pocket of his fleece trousers.
"You okay, Patrick?" Chip asked.
Patrick shook himself from head to foot. "Sorry, yes. I'll be receiving a phone call from a zoo in Edinburgh. Apparently, we're getting a new arrival. A very large female panda.”
At this Dexi finally stopped running around. She sprang over to the tables and chairs side of the room and clattered against the side of the chair Chip was sitting in.
She stared up at Patrick. "Can she, you know... play Mario Kart?"
Patrick kept his face steady, fighting the urge to nervously chew on his bottom lip. He looked right into Dexi's dark eyes and said, "I would be very surprised if she could. Because, Dexi, I think I can tell what you’re getting at. And no, she's not like all of you. She's a totally normal panda. She doesn't even talk."
These are indeed sensible things to be wondering right now... read on for answers 
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