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Eggceptional Get Away: Kickaha the Second Get Away

How had this happened again!?

Kickaha once again found himself waking up in a cramp enclosed space. Considering this had just happened not too long ago it didn't take him long to reach a conclusion. Somehow he had been regressed and transformed back into an egg again! And the worst part he wasn't 100% sure how. Whatever magic was used for this made the person extremely sleepy when it took effect. He supposed that made sense. If one were awake the entire time they were inside the egg waiting to hatch they'd probably go nuts. But it did make it difficult to remember the exact details that led to him being in this situation.

Really, it was mostly just his professional pride he was worried about. The foxyote... Or former foxyote he supposed at this point, had a reputation to keep. Sure, this kind of situation wasn't that uncommon for him. These things came with the territory. He could only hope that he had gotten to pull some trick of his own before finding himself in this situation again. Then again, maybe he had. It wasn't uncommon for such things to escalate out of control. It was possible he was entirely responsible himself this time. And that, that was okay. Getting caught up in his own tricks was also a point of professional pride. Anyone trickster could fool a mark! It took a truly masterful level of skill to fool oneself.

Well, there was no point laying around worrying about it. Whatever had happened, Kickaha was awake now and he might as well get around to hatching. How to get about that? He tried face planting into the inside wall of the egg. That didn't do much. It would seem whatever he had turned into he didn't have a sharp beak this time. He tried moving his arms and legs. He was able to scratch at the eggshell. It seemed he had claws. That was his ticket out of here. He began scratching at the egg walls as hard as he could. Soon the egg began to crack and split. A few seconds later it came apart completely.

Having learned his lesson from last time Kickaha shut his eyes as soon as he hatched from the egg. This was to avoid being blinded by the sudden influx of light. After giving it a few seconds he slowly opened his eyes letting them adjust. For a moment he thought he might have been blinded after all. Everything was so shiny and pristine. Everything in the room was either metallic silver or a pure white. It was so... Impersonal.

The only hint of color in the room was the nest of straw that the remains of Kickaha's eggs were scattered about. There were a few other eggs that hadn't hatched. Each of them was a dull gray colored. The remains of Kickaha's eggs being a more vibrant rusty orange clearly stood out compared to them. A number of instruments including a large magnifying glass, large tweezers and a few things Kickaha couldn't identify were stacked on the same desk this nest was on.

So what was he this time?

He gave himself a once over. He was surprised to see he had feathers. They were especially thick over his bird-like talons that passed for his arms. Yet... He had no beak. He reached up his claws and began to feel around his face while staring at his nose cross eyed. He had a reptile-like snout, and moving his tongue around in his mouth it seemed he had quite a few teeth for how young he was. Then it felt like there was some plumage atop his head. He looked down at his feet as he tried to slowly stand up. He could just barely manage to stand, but his legs were wobbly. They looked like the legs a massive reptile... Or possibly a giant chicken. It was somewhat funny of a thought considering he was currently small enough to be picked up with one human hand.

It came together pretty quickly from here. One look down his backside confirmed his suspicions. He had a long thick lizard-like tail that was tipped with feathers. It proved to be a good counter-balance that let him stand on two legs while hunched forward.

"R-roawr!" Kickaha tried to speak. He hadn't expected to be successful. More he just wanted to know what he sounded like. Would have been nice if he could have talked! He had a few thoughts he'd like to voice. He was going to have to talk to a certain someone about all these forms incapable of speech that kept coming up lately. He had jokes the world needed to hear dang it! He had an absolutely genius pun involving the word 'raptor' and his current emotional state. But now no one would ever hear it! There was no point dwelling on it. It would forever more be the lost joke that went unheard.

Well enough of that. Whatever neat little lab Kickaha was in, it was time to leave it. He simply could not abide being in some play so... Orderly. It wasn't natural. This place looked like it belonged to someone with expensive tastes and no sense of humor. Besides, he managed to break out of a barn last time he was in this situation. How much harder could escaping a high tech laboratory be?

He quickly stumbled to the edge of the nest and looked down from the table. It was a bit of a drop down to the tile floor... If he had to guess it was probably at least three feet down. That was a lot for someone who's height was probably somewhere around the 8-10 inches mark. This might have deterred others... But Kickaha had become uncomfortably familiar with the Square-Cube Law due to certain acquaintances. Previous falling experience had taught him a small drop at his current size wouldn't hurt him that much. At least... Provided he didn't land at an awkward angle it wouldn't. The force of impact would be low, but he was freshly hatched in a body that was still developing.

Well if this didn't work... At least he was already on first names basis with the nice nurse in the ER room. Kickaha took a few steps back from the edge, and then the tiny raptor took a flying leap. He had just enough time to realize that he had erred as he plummeted downward from the edge of the table...

And landed safely on his feet! Just as he planned! There was just a small clicking noise as his talons lightly tapped the tiled floor. Obviously it went just as he expected! He hadn't doubted himself for a moment and no one could prove otherwise!

Now all that was left was to escape this place. Looking around there wasn't a whole lot in the way of exits. There were no windows and only one door. Since he didn't think his claws were quite sharp enough to dig through the side of a concrete wall he was stuck with using the door. He trotted up to the door and took a look trying to figure out some way to open it.

The door itself was made of metal. It looked almost like an elevator door. There was no handle or knob, instead it appeared the door could just be slid open. Kickaha tried digging his claws into the wedge of the door frame and pulling. It was no good, the door was locked tight. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. He looked around for anything else that might be used to operate it.

At about what would have been chest level for a human there was a number pad sticking out of the wall. It also appeared to have a card reader on it. Jackpot. All he had to do was either find a card or exhaust every possible number code. He'd be out of here in time for lunch!

Speaking of which... He was pretty hungry. He probably better get on the move.

Kickaha explored the lab looking for a card or a clue to a pass code. This was difficult from his vantage. Down on the floor he couldn't see the tops of the desk and that made searching difficult. Luckily he was a sly foxyo- erm raptor so he could figure this out. He started by finding one of those office chairs on wheels. It was easy to push it around. The floor was so smooth that it practically soared at the slightest nudge.

His body wasn't quite strong enough to hop into it though. There were plenty of notebooks around, but all of them were up atop desks that he couldn't reach.

How did the saying go? When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like battering ram? That was probably close enough, and it was what he intended to do. He had a chair, he could use as said ram. He pushed the chair to the opposite wall so he'd have plenty of time to build up speed. Then he began to push it towards one of the desks with notebooks stacked atop it. He was soon having to run to keep up with the chair, and soon it flew out of reach of his claws and sailed right into the desk.

The notebooks on the edge of the desk wobbled slightly... And proceeded to do absolutely nothing and stay up there.

Well... They say the definition of insanity was repeating the same task and expecting a different result. And Kickaha did have a reputation to live up to! So he gave it a second shot! Again he took the chair to the back wall then rammed it into a desk. This still didn't work so he gave it a third shot! And then a fourth! And then a fifth! And finally on the sixth time the binders and notebooks came tumbling down off the side of the desk.

It was about time! Everyone knew these things were supposed to happen after three attempts. That was how it always worked in stories. That's why the phrase third time's the charm existed. These notebooks had taken twice as long! They had no sense of dramatic timing!

Now he was free to stack them up and form a staircase that would let him climb the chair. Except... Not really. As Kickaha tried to shove one of the notebooks across the floor he saw that it was ridiculously heavy! It was impossible to move these around and use them... At least in their current state. If he removed some of the papers inside though they'd probably be fine.

Using his snout Kickaha opened the tip of the notebook and to get a good look at the papers inside. It looked to be a bunch of graphs, charts and numbers. It was probably legal stuff. Or science stuff. Well, if it was science then obviously they could just redo it and get the same result! And if it was legal stuff... Well Kickaha had turned enough lawyers into weasels to know the actual letter of the law was not that important in the grand scheme of things. No one would miss these.

Kickaha used his talons to rip the papers straight out of the notebook. He went through each of them one by one until there a pile of shredded paper twice his size next to the notebooks. Now they were light enough to use!

The chair was already in a perfect location. Kickaha focused on stacking the empty notebooks to form a staircase up to the chair. He then quickly ran up that, climbed up onto the chair's armrest and then leaped onto the desk. He had made it! Now! It was time to find that keycard!

There were more expensive looking scientific instruments on the table. Those didn't seem like they'd help open a door so Kickaha shoved those off the side of the table to have more room. He did the same thing to anything else that also didn't interest him. A set of clacking balls? Onto the floor it goes. A USB drive? Floor. A family portrait of a smiling man and wife standing next to two kids? That could stay. You'd have to be a real jerk to throw someone's family portrait onto the floor. Kickaha carefully set that aside on a corner. Now the computer monitor on the other hand? Floor.

Aside from the previously mentioned picture the desk was completely cleaned off. There was still no sign of a key card to open that door. Kickaha growled to himself. This was taking too long. He got ready to jump down before he looked down and saw the desk drawers. Of course! No one would just keep a security clearance card on their desk where anyone could walk by! It'd be in one of the drawers out of sight!

Very carefully Kickaha backed towards the edge of the desk. He then lowered his tail, carefully sliding it beneath a drawer handle. Then stretched his tail out and the drawer cracked open! From there he could shove his head into it and open it the rest of the way!

Now here's where the interesting stuff was there were scissors! And tape! And... a can of tuna. Actually, this wasn't all that interesting. There was nothing here that could be useful... Except. Wait! At the back of the desk was...

A SINGLE PIECE OF CANDY!

Score!

Kickaha jumped down into the drawer and greedily picked up the candy wrapper and all in his mouth. A half second later he spit it out. It was a chalk-like Valentine's hearts! The worst kind of candy! What sadistic person kept candy hearts in their desk drawer? It was like they just wanted to torture newborn dinosaurs!

Well this had been a bust. Kickaha carefully used the can of tuna to climb back up to the drawer then leaped back down to the floor. He supposed he could check the other desks, but he got the feeling that was going to be a waste of time. Instead he slid his chair and notebooks over to the keypad.

If all else failed, he'd just rely on brute forcing it. How hard could it be? If it was a four digit password that meant there were only 9,999 possible combinations. It wouldn't take that long to go through with them! And if it wasn't a four digit password well... He'd think about that after the 9,999 combinations he tried failed.

Standing on the arm rest of the chair. Kickaha could just barely reached the number pad with his claws. It was go time. He entered his first pass code.

1-1-1-1

Access Denied.

Well at least that seemed to confirm it was four digits! It buzzed right away after the fourth number. That meant there were only 9,998 more combinations before he was home free!

1-1-1-2

Access Denied

Huh come to think of it? Should he be starting with 1 or 0? Maybe he should use 0's first instead. That way he went in order from lowest to highest. He'd hate to get to the end and completely forget about them.

0-0-0-0

The door suddenly slid open! Kickaha couldn't believe it! Partly because what kind of idiot sets their pass code to all zeroes, and partly because that had been the third attempt! Something in this lab did have a sense of dramatic timing!

But there were people on the other side who were coming through! Scientist in lab coats, and one man in black suit with a fluffy white beard. It would seem that Kickaha hadn't actually opened the door. Someone had just happened to come through at the other side.

"So as you can see-" One of the scientist started then paused as it noticed Kickaha and the mess in the lab. "MY RESEARCH!" He took off running straight past the small raptor for the shredded papers. "Years of research and mapping dinosaur genes!"

"What is the meaning of this outrage!?" The man in the black suit banged a cane against the ground. "I thought I told you people! I wanted to be here for every hatching!" With that he bent down and scooped Kickaha up into his arms and cradled him like a cat.

"R-rawr!?" Kickaha squeaked.

"Um sir..." Another scientist bugged him. "Are you sure that's what you should be focused on? It looks like the new raptor destroyed the lab."

"He's a dinosaur, he didn't know what he was doing." The suit defending man defended Kickaha. "Calm down."

"Rawr!" Kickaha agreed with the beard man and stuck out his tongue.

"Sir the raptor just blew me a raspberry!"

"Don't be ridiculous dinosaurs don't know how to do that." The man waved his free hand dismissively. "He probably just had something on his nose."

This only caused Kickaha to grin as he suddenly got an idea for a brand new game. He didn't even struggle at the beard man carried him back to the nest and sat him down.

"Sir it's just... If one dinosaur could do this much damage to your lab..." The scientist still seemed uneasy. "Imagine what the fully grown ones could do to the park!"

"Nonsense it's fine!" The beard man was completely dismissive. "I've taken every precaution! One... I've named the park Cretaceous Land. That cleared with legal and means we have no attachment to other parks with a legacy of horrible death and mayhem! Second... As you can see my suit is black! Not white! So we avoided that pitfall."

"But I don't think that's-" The scientist tried to protest but was hushed. Kickaha didn't understand the objections. He thought the beard man had a point.

"And most importantly! I actually paid all my security and networking people well so they won't try to sell us out to a rival agency." The beard man looked smug.

"Ok that one might help..."

"Excellent! Then we're in agreement things will proceed as planned!" The beard man stroked the top of Kickaha's head. "And our first dinosaur has already hatched! You're going to be a star little one... But for now you must be hungry! I bet you are! Someone fetch me a mouse."

A mouse? That got Kickaha to perk up. You know, he might actually like this beard guy. Perhaps he'd stay awhile. It'd be rude to leave before lunch. Besides, he looked at the other scientist in the room. Real sticks in the mud those guys. They were the best types of people to play with. Yes, he might just stay awhile.

The End