Young Writers Society

A/N: *Crosses fingers that Dexi and Chip and Treego do not seem too flat and similar* 

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The dial on the ohmmeter ticked, ticked, ticked. It was mounted into a little lip that ran along the far end of the rear console, right in the centre. For it was the leader of this little band of science equipment in this metal-panelled laboratory, and it was crying out for the scientist that never kept them waiting. They weren’t to know he’d had some news to deliver today.

The console was just there as you entered the room. Most of the time anyone who did so would sit down at the little spinny chair tucked in under it and not go any further in, but there was a great deal more equipment off to the right. It was spaced out haphazardly in the long thin corridor of a room, and if you asked Patrick he probably couldn't have remembered half of what any of it did. Machines of all shapes and sizes, most with wires sticking out the sides at odd, sharp angles, were left forlornly in the dark. They were abandoned along with the experiments they'd been constructed for.

Patrick sighed as he entered the room, hunching his shoulders and slumping in the spinny chair. A year now of desperately trying to figure out what he'd done, exiled from Neuromax Ltd headquarters to this zoo until he did. Who had he been kidding? He’d never get a day off. He checked his pocket to make sure his phone was there and the volume turned up nice and loud, then looked down at the array of controls.

There was an isolated chamber with a window onto it just above the console, and Patrick sighed as he fidgeted with the switch to alter its temperature. Before he knew it he had it down at arctic temperatures, but his handiwork was in such good condition that a quick press of a button and sliding the switch back brought it back to normal. The public thought he was the caretaker of the zoo, but with this population the zoo really took care of itself. This lab was what he maintained, day in and day out, until the day that it finally yielded results.

"A panda. A big bamboo-eating panda to look after," he mumbled to himself.

"You nervous?"

Patrick spun around in the chair, almost jumping right out it. He put a hand over his heart as he saw Dexi in the doorway, standing on her hind legs and leaning against the frame. Not many people would be relieved by the sight of a four foot high crocodile, but when you spent most of your nights doing everything in your power to evade governmental detection, that became the best case scenario.

"Sorry, Patrick," Dexi said, "I didn't mean to scare you. I'm guessing that's a yes, then. You are nervous?"

Patrick smiled, but there was a lump in his throat. "I am, yes. Not being a zookeeper and all, I'm quite worried about having an endangered panda under my protection. And it’s not like I could decline a panda. I’m trying to avoid suspicion, remember?"

Dexi grinned. "You're not a zookeeper?"

Patrick glared at her, but the side of his mouth quirked up a little. "Sorry to break it to you, but if you ever get transferred to another place there likely won't be any Mario Kart for you."

Dexi's shoulders shook as she chuckled, an oddly wet sound out of a crocodile's mouth. "Doesn't matter. I retired champion ten seconds ago... I'm serious though, Patrick. You improvised all the tech we use based on what? A vague knowledge of the animal kingdom from high school geography, combined with a brain for technology that would have won the nobel prize if the acceptance ceremony wasn't so... public. And also, I’m not sure Chip’s double helix somersault this afternoon is exactly flying under the radar. Maybe you could have declined the panda."

Patrick took a deep breath, and smiled properly this time. "Well, it’s done now. Thank you though. Your support means a lot, really. So, is there something I can do for you?"

At this, Dexi lowered herself carefully back to all fours and bowed her head down, pointing with one front foot toward the thickly padded ring around the base of her mouth. "I'm feeling a little cold. Do you think you could check on my climate changer?"

Patrick leaned forward, but couldn't get close enough so he had to get out of his chair and crouch down beside her. The thin grey ring just about managed to not hold her mouth shut at all, but it was difficult since her arms and legs began so soon after the back of her jaw. It was the fourth band Patrick had tried, and so far there had been no issues. He'd thought five months seemed like too good to be true.

"Alright, we better take you back to your enclosure so I can get this off you." Patrick sighed as he raised himself back to full height. The bands ensured that each animal had a protective pocket of air around them that was the appropriate temperature for their natural habitat, and if it malfunctioned it could cause serious health issues. Patrick would spend the rest of his night on this if he had to.

"Thanks, Patrick," she said, manoevring her long body in a u-turn out of the room. "I'm sure Rita will let me switch shifts with her or something."

Patrick nodded, and they headed down the corridor towards the tunnel for the crocodile enclosure. The underground floor of the zoo was essentially a catacomb, though a particularly softly carpeted one. The walls were plain white plaster, but there were lots of paintings of the rainforest, Antarctica and the desert dotted along. Patrick had walked along these halls so many times since hanging them up that he could recount the order in his sleep. At that moment, he didn't really have much time to take in their bright colours and sweeping vistas, but it was nice to know they were there.

Eventually they came to a ladder like the one Patrick had entered by, but without as much effort gone to hide it, since the trapdoor opened onto a little hut that the visitors supposed the crocodiles slept in. Every time Patrick saw an animal without opposable thumbs clamber up his clunky old ladders, his breath was snatched away. His ability to build gadgets was not the only thing that had seen a lot of practice in the past year.

The only crocodile in the hut, which was so small Patrick had to waddle around with completely bent legs, jumped as the trapdoor clattered open.

"Sorry," Dexi said, "I don't seem to be the best at greetings today. Great at Mario Kart though, so there's that!"

Rita turned round and curled her tail up around herself. "Subtlety has never been your strong suit, no. What are you doing here, Dexi?"

Patrick gulped and hoped these two hadn't been fighting again. He yanked on his collar and made a big show of sucking in air. From the glares the two sent him, it seemed they'd gotten the message that he didn't just mean he was hot in the crocodile environment.

"Sorry, Dexi," Rita said, "I meant to say, how can I help?"

Before Dexi could say anything clever, Patrick put a hand up and interjected, "It's Dexi's climate changer. I have to work on it."

Rita nodded. "Ah, so you need me to switch shifts with Dexi so you can take her band and work on it, without her freezing in that tundra you call a lounge."

Patrick winked and gave her a clumsy finger gun. "Got it in one."

"You haven't done that before, have you?" Rita raised an eyebrow.

"Wink? Not since I was a teenager. Finger guns? My youngest grandkid got obsessed with them last weekend and tried to teach me. The little guy was convinced it was a new way of making pretend that he was shooting someone. It was this whole thing." He gestured vaguely with his arms in the air in front of him.

Rita smiled. "Pat, don't worry. It's sweet when you try to be cool. Even if a grown man should probably have learned to click his fingers by now."

Patrick breathed out, relieved that nobody was laughing at him like that time he said 'yolo'. "Alright, you want to head off then?"

Just then something flashed in the corner of Patrick's eye, and when he twisted his head around he saw the little orange light in the corner of the hut blinking rapidly.

"I got it," Rita muttered.

She darted out the hut. Crouching even lower than before, Patrick watched her through the arched opening as she lounged on a wide tree bough suspended over a small, very clear pond. Around the zoo, all manner of animals who had been lounging around in their huts watching football matches on iPads, or working their way through Patrick's paperback collection, came out into the open. They knew the drill after a year. The light blinks, you get outside and act like an entirely normal zoo animal. That way the passing helicopter or aeroplane will never come across a zoo suspiciously empty of all its inhabitants.

Patrick knew it was overkill, but he would not, could not, allow this place to be found out.

After about a minute, the light stopped blinking, and Rita, who'd strategically kept it in view, knew it was safe to return to the latter half of an Aberdeen vs Celtic match.

Patrick spent the next few minutes carefully unfastening the various straps and clips that attached the ring to Dexi. If he did it in the wrong order it would be like unfankling those annoying little earbuds that you get in the box with a new phone. When it was done, he began to rise to his feet but stopped himself just in time before his head rammed into the ceiling.

“Woah, close one, Patrick,” Dexi said, flexing her shoulders. “And thank you. I know you have that important phone call tonight.”

“Phone call?” Rita asked as she dragged her eyes away from the football and headed towards the trap door.

“Oh right. You've been up here. I'll explain in a second,” Patrick said. He let Rita start descending the ladder first, and looked back at Dexi.

"You okay, Patrick?" she said, steadily holding his gaze.

Patrick took a deep breath, puffing his chest out to what he hoped was a comic degree. "I'll be fine, Dexi. And I'll pass on any last gloating you have in your system to Chip if you like."

Dexi grinned and, balancing on three legs, pointed a finger gun at him.

"Oh, now how is that possible?" Patrick muttered as he followed Rita down the ladder. He shouted up at the trapdoor as he got to the bottom, "You don't even have opposable thumbs!"

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This is down here because I don't want to break your immersion too much (feel free to not read) but what I'm going with for each: Chip - kind-hearted soul, quiet, not great at taking iniative; Treego - very proud, would be leader if Patrick wasn't there (that will be clearer later), tries to make people feel comfortable; Dexi - arrogant and kind of childish, self-aware and plenty capable of being thoughtful