"First things first." Gretta said firmly. "Before we go too far with destiny and all that crap, let's think about you for a moment, shall we?"
"Okay." Todd said, somewhat confused.
"We're alone. You just made me what I am right now. I'm intelligent, allegedly, and able to talk. And somebody will notice I'm gone from my cage, right? Well, I'm not going back there. And somebody'll look for me. So that's a problem, right?"
"Yeah, I guess it is." Todd rubbed his chin.
"Well, it isn't, and I'll tell you why." Gretta chuckled her reptilian chuckle as she approached the door. "First off, this zoo is such shit that they wouldn't dare tell anybody they 'lost' a full grown female crocodile. And they're so stupid they wouldn't know where I went anyway. So I'm just going to vanish forever and nobody will say a word."
"Wow." Todd blinked. "Okay, I guess you know better than I do."
"I do." Gretta grinned, and propped herself up on the door. She deftly slipped an inside latch on the door into place, effectively locking it from the inside. "And then, you have this room. This is the shitty monkey janitor who's like a hundred years old and doesn't care anymore. He doesn't do anything back here, he just locks himself in this room and blares that stupid noise box all day. Everybody knows he does it, but they don't say anything because they don't want to deal with him. And guess what? He won't be in today. And nobody knows when he works anyway. But I do, because I hear this stupid door slam and lock every two days, without fail. So. What do you think of that?" She went back to the ground and looked up at Todd.
"It's just you and me? And nobody will come looking for us?"
"Turn the noise box on, and I guarantee it." Gretta smiled again.
Todd leaned over, turned on the old TV, and was immediately assaulted by an overly loud newscast.
"There. Now it's just you and me, nobody will bother us, and we can figure out what's next."
Todd smiled and sat down with his new friend again. "Sounds like you have it all together, my big crocodile."
"It does." She looked Todd over from head to toe, seemingly staring inside of him, and grinned again. "I have an idea, Todd. So I'll run it past you."
"Sure! Whatever you can think of, I can probably do." Todd held out the remote for her to see. "You can write, so that means you can read too, right?"
"Yep." Gretta nodded.
"So, all I have to do is put in what I want to happen to you, and then I confirm it. Then it happens." He showed her the remote's screen.
"How does that work?" She asked, genuinely interested. "It's freaky."
"Well, quantum string theory, a little bit of genetic tampering, a microwave ray, and some genuine unknown physics." He saw the crocodile attempting to comprehend and smiled again. "It's all real world stuff that can happen. Nothing magical or impossible."
"I do know what science means." Gretta looked up at him annoyed. "I've had blood taken more than once for science. It's when you monkeys think you can make stuff work by fucking up the world around you. Just say science."
"It's science then." Todd laughed. "You're so damn grouchy."
"Shut up." Gretta bumped his side. "You wanna hear my idea or what?"
"Okay, shoot!" Todd snickered.
"I hate humans. I hate your species. I hate the way you look down on animals like me. I am a cold blooded reptilian crocodile. I want to be a cold blooded reptilian crocodile, because we're tough and I'm proud of that. But!"
"You *really* hate humans?" Todd offered.
"Yes!" Gretta nodded, not missing a beat. "And also, I'm really really damn jealous of your monkey hands. You saw how hard it was for me to pick up a fucking rock."
"So... you want me to give you human hands?" Todd looked down at the remote and started typing.
"Yeah. I want to try them out. But don't like, put literal monkey hands on me. Just give me the style without the smelly fur."
"That can be done." Todd keyed all that in, and then let it start. "And here we go."
They both looked down at Gretta's front feet just in time to see her fingers start growing. Little by little, her stubby crocodile digits began growing longer, and soon enough she had long human-like fingers complete with an opposable thumb. This floored Gretta to no end, and she held up her new digits with utter fascination, flexing her fingers and moving her thumb up and down as if getting a feel for the new equipment.
"Amazing." She whispered, pretending to grip something, in awe, as her palms grew in size to perfectly mimic a human shape. Though still capped with dark black claws and with aquatic webbing in between each digit, Gretta now had human hands, just as she had asked. She went down on all fours again and in shock she raised one hand off the ground. "They're... so sensitive. I can feel so much more. Like... texture. I can feel the grit in the floor."
"Wow." Todd beamed. "You just made me appreciate my own hands so much more."
"So flexible." She said in child like wonder. "Can I try holding your hand?"
"Sure!" Todd held out his own fleshy palm up for the crocodile and laughed as she placed her own larger hand on top of his, scales and all.
"I-I like this. I want to keep them." She admitted, again trying out her new hands, picking up a broom stick on the ground. Amazed at her new manual dexterity and flexibility.
"Whatever you like, Gretta. And whatever else you want, let's do it!"