Todd waited until the lady zookeeper left. It seemed his choice to visit the zoo in the middle of the week in the afternoon left it relatively dead. Or, at least, nobody seemed interested in the reptiles just then, because nobody was around. He was left all alone with a transformative remote and two intriguing big crocodiles to have his way with. Time for some testing!
Todd scanned in Gretta first. She was a 58 year old Nile Crocodile measuring 14 and a half feet long. She was a little smaller than her male counterpart by at least a foot and not nearly as fat. He saw her one good eye watching him warily, but being on the other side of the thick glass in her 'habitat' he had little to worry about. A million possibilities danced in Todd's head, but he knew which one he liked best.
He clicked at the touch screen of his remote and asked it to raise Gretta's intelligence to human levels and let her be aware of the change. The remote dinged, beeped, and read that it was in progress. Todd looked at the big female croc excitedly and checked the progress bar on his screen. It was impossible to tell that anything was happening at first, but as the bar went on he watched as the croc suddenly jolted, closing her one good eye and shaking her head frantically. Her mouth fell agape, her body seemed to shake, and she opened her eye and looked around frantically, single reptilian pupil darting around her surroundings wildly before settling on Todd. He saw something strange, it looked like she had an expression of fear on her formerly unreadable face. Her eye grew wide, she visibly gasped, and her pupil shrank as if trying to focus. Then she shuddered again at the 75% mark and thrashed her whole body violently, shaking, and grimacing. And then, quite simply, the display on Todd's remote read 'finished' and the device went back into standby.
Very carefully, Todd approached the glass of the croc cage and watched Gretta cautiously. The big crocodilian female opened her eye, stared long and hard at Todd, and closed again. She looked exhausted. Then suddenly, her eye darted open, and she turned her body towards the human. They stared at each other evenly, and the croc let out a low rumble which reverberated through the glass. Todd backed down slowly, unsure if she was pissed off at him or not. The croc slowly approached the glass with predatory calm, and Todd gulped as a big long scaly snout bumped into the glass. Again, Todd backed away, but this seemed to annoy the creature, as she let out another threatening growl and tossed her head back. Amazingly, the inflection was clear. She was telling him to come closer. Not wanting to anger her, Todd came closer, pulling up close to the glass and staring at her behind the glass. The croc stared at him again, silently, and seemed to be waiting for something.
"C-Can you understand me?" Todd whispered, watching as the croc girl's head turned to the side slightly as if straining to hear him. She raised her front leg up into the air and approximated cupping her ear hole. Todd grinned, amazed at her clear signals, and this time spoke louder. "Can you understand me in there?" He said, loud enough that his voice echoed off the glass.
At this, Gretta nodded her head enthusiastically with a snort. He swore she had a smile at the corners of her big toothy mouth. She pointed to the remote in his hand with her scaly claws and then pointed to herself. Clearly she understood.
"This?" He pointed, and watched as she nodded up and down. Then, amazingly, the crocodile shrugged her front shoulders. "It changed you. I made it!" He announced.
At this, Gretta seemed taken aback, and took a moment to stare at the device and then Todd. She blinked a few times, nodded, and then shrugged again.
"So what?" Todd asked.
The crocodile looked annoyed, narrowed her eye, and growled. She shook her head from side to side and clapped her jaw.
"I'm sorry, Gretta, I don't get what you're asking."
The croc nodded, growling her annoyance again, and looked around her cage. She held up her left front hand in a 'just a second' motion, and ambled off towards the water. She picked up a loose rock in her jaw from her mock riverbed and came back to the glass. She dropped the rock and then looked around from side to side to see if anybody was watching. Todd did the same, and shook his head. "It's just us, Gretta." He said.
The croc nodded, picked up the rock in her hand, unfamiliar with using her fingers so precisely, and clumsily lifted it up to the glass. She tapped the rock against the glass, spun it around in her hand to a sharpened end, and slowly, carefully, carved a small message into the glass. It was rough, but to Todd's amazement she spelt out words. And then his heart broke. She wrote to him: 'help let me out.'
Todd's remote was designed to work on living matter. It was quite ineffective against inanimate objects. He couldn't just vanish the glass or anything so easy. He looked around and saw a locked door to the right of Gretta's cage. Would that be the way in? He pointed to the door and the croc followed his hand. She looked behind her to a 2nd locked door at the back of their cage and pointed her back leg towards it.
"It leads to there?" He asked.
She croc nodded enthusiastically and then did something more heartbreaking. She grabbed the rock again and carved in 'please' on her window.
Toss gulped. "Listen, not that I don't want to help, but big clever girl like you, you're not going to eat me, are you?"
Gretta seemed genuinely hurt and reeled back at the words. She hung her head and looked at him with real honest to goodness crocodile tears. She shook her head no and carved in one more thing on the glass for him to see. She wrote 'not eat friend'
Todd almost wept himself and felt ashamed of himself. "Sorry. I didn't think... okay, I'll get you out. Just hold on."
Gretta nodded gently, looked around nervously again with her good eye, and looked at her scratchy writing on the glass. She quickly scratched up the letters with her rock and made a mess of the glass, so much so it didn't look like writing at all but claw marks everywhere. Then she nodded gently and winked.
"Okay. I'll be careful." Todd agreed. He went to the door, Gretta watching cautiously, carefully, and tried the handle. To his surprise, the door was unlocked, and opened up into a dingy concrete hallway behind the cages. He turned left down the hall and found himself staring at a heavy metal door that lead to the crocodile cage. He peeped through a mesh slit in the door and saw Gretta right in front of him, looking up at his eyes hopefully. The male, Fred, was totally disinterested in the proceedings. Todd motioned his eyes towards the male and then back to Gretta several times, and she looked over a snorted dismissively. She waved her hand in a 'forget him' kind of motion, and nosed towards the door.
Todd gulped, hoped he was doing the right thing, and then carefully and quietly unlocked the big metal door's two cast iron bolts. The door opened with a soft squeak and he was inches away form a fully grown and clearly intelligent female crocodile. She looked up at him, seemed to breath a sigh of relief, and gently walked forward. Todd stepped aside and let her crawl over the door frame and down to the concrete floor. She was way bigger right up close then he had thought, and he found himself staring at her big white teeth in nervous fascination. She turned herself around in the hallway to look up at him and motioned towards the door.
"Close it?" He whispered.
She nodded with another almost-smile, and mimed trying to fiddle with something with her thick barely flexible fingers. Todd quickly closed and locked the door. Next, Gretta wheeled around and stared down the hallway, then she turned back to Todd and pointed to the other door. "That one too?" He asked, to which Gretta nodded in the affirmative. Todd quickly closed and locked the other door's handle.
Now the crocodile pointed down the end of the hall and urged Todd to follow her. She ambled on slowly, moving with surprising speed for such a big old reptile, and lead him down the dingy smelly hallway and down a flight of stairs. There was another door, which they passed through and closed behind them. And now Todd and Gretta were in an old basement with a leaky water pump, disused janitorial equipment, and an even older desk with an even older TV set.
Here, Gretta sat herself in the middle of the room under a single swinging light bulb and patted beside her. Although still nervous, Todd saw no reason not to trust her. He sat down next to the big crocodile, on her good eye's side, and was further awed as she clearly and lovingly gave him an affectionate rub with her long scaly snout, followed by her pulling up on her hind legs, throwing her arm around his shoulder, and giving him a tight scaly hug.
"Whoa, easy, easy!" Todd laughed, watching as the croc nuzzled his chest once more, and then she settled down next to him, cuddling in close to his side and eyeing him with another odd grin. "You'll break me. You're a big strong crocodile and I'm just a little human."
She looked at him sheepishly and lowered her head. Todd guessed she meant sorry. Guessed.
Now they shared an odd silence and Gretta pointed to his pocket, in which he had stashed the remote. He held it out for her to inspect and marveled as she read her own body statistics. She could write, Todd realized, so she must be able to read too.
She looked up at him with astonishment and clacked her jaw. She pointed to her throat and growled softly, less threateningly than before, and made a slashing motion across her neck with her hand.
"Your voice?" Todd guessed.
She shook her hand from side to side and grimaced. Sort of, Todd guessed.
"Uh... neck. Voice. Throat." He watched her shake her head no. "Oh! I know! You want to talk!"
Gretta brightened up and nodded excitedly. He hadn't expected her to be so animated, but she was quite clear in her excitement.
"I think I can give you speech." Todd grinned, holding up the remote. "Let's see if it works."