“Almost,” was all John heard Clark say in reply. And sure enough, within a few minutes they were pulling into the employee parking lot of the zoo. As they all got out of the vehicle Clark instructed them on how to behave in the employee only areas of the zoo. “Just stick close to me and act like you belong there. We sometimes have guest tours for people from other zoos, but they are usually older than you guys. Like I said before, I can only take you into the cages one at a time, and I would also like to make this visit as short as possible. So what animals did you all decide on?”
John listened as they all told Clark which morphs they wanted to get. John explained how he decided to acquire the bison (a.k.a. the American Buffalo). After that, Clark led them through the back entrance to the zoo.
“We will start at the timber wolves,” Clark said, “They are closest.” They followed a path outside behind the wolf exhibit. When they got to the entrance to the exhibit it was conveniently hidden form the public eye, the way most zoos try to set up their environments. Once he unlocked the entrance, he motioned for Corey to follow him through the door. The wolves looked a little skittish at first, but eventually came up to Clark and started to act a lot like regular dogs. Dogs that could rip your throat out in a heartbeat, but dogs just the same. As soon as Corey managed to acquire it, they came back through the door and headed to the next exhibit.
“I think the buffalo are the next closest pen,” Clark said to the group. When they got to the pen, John noticed that entrance was not very well hidden, and observers could probably see him. Luckily the pen was in a corner of the zoo that did not get a lot of foot traffic so when John went into the pen with Clark, it was easy to hide behind the buffalo itself as he acquired it.
The bison seemed to take no notice of them as John placed his hand on its side. He concentrated on absorbing the DNA of the animal and could feel that his new ability was working. After a few long moments, John knew he had finished acquiring it. He could now turn into this gigantic creature whenever he wanted. This is so cool, John thought to himself as they returned to the group.
Next they stopped by the cage of Jay’s animal. The whole acquiring process seemed to go really smoothly for her, especially considering the animal that she chose. You could tell she had a lot of experience dealing with animals.
“With these next two it could get a little tricky,” Clark explained as they headed towards the snow leopard pen. “We have to go indoors to get to the entrances of these next two, so try to look as professional as you can, because we will likely run into some of the other zookeepers in here.” He led the group down a curving hallway that led past several exhibit doors. They were each labeled with the animal on the other side. There were hyenas, aardvarks, penguins, capybaras, and finally the snow leopard and polar bear were across the hall from each other. They were lucky and had not run into any zookeepers yet.
Alex did not seem to have much trouble with the snow leopard. It acted as if it were a big kitten when Clark went in the cage. However, when it was time to let Zane acquire the polar bear, Clark looked a little nervous. “This is the animal I most hoped you would not choose. He was raised in captivity, but he is not exactly tame. I hope if we distract him with enough fish, you will be able to acquire him safely.”
They went through the exhibit door to where they were out of view. When they came back they seemed to be in one piece, but Clark was pale as a ghost. “I think my supervisor saw us in there when Zane was acquiring the bear. I do not know if she recognized me though, so we better get out of here. Now.” He was already speed walking towards the exit of the building before John could register what he had said.
The moment they got to the parking lot and into the vehicle, Clark peeled out of the lot and sped down the road. Hopefully we did not get him fired, John thought, but at least we got some cool morphs.